' 

'     •  "  -- 


*  ^A^^nryfc:  * : 
£$$rW 


m 


^r^*^^^**- 


•  **3lT     •*  r7^         A*  "/. «' 'V^N^  '•"-•-•-'•"-** 

^-"f*^< 


ALEXANDER^ 


GEN.    T.    J.    SKINNER, 
Born  1754;  died  1809. 


WILLIAMSTOWN 


AND 


WILLIAMS    COLLEGE 


BY 


ARTHUR   LATHAM    £ERRY,   LL.D. 

PROFESSOR   OF   HISTORY   AND   POLITICAL    ECONOMY,    WILLIAMS   COLLEGE, 

MEMBER   OF   THE   MASSACHUSETTS   HISTORICAL   SOCIETY,   AND 

PRESIDENT   OF   THE    BERKSHIRE    HISTORICAL 

AND   SCIENTIFIC    SOCIETY 


PUBLISHED  BY   THE   AUTHOR 

1899 


PEEFACE. 


"  Origins  in  Williamstown,"  a  book  of  much  the  form  and  size  of 
the  one  now  in  the  reader's  hands,  was  published  in  1894,  and  in 
a  second  edition  with  addenda  in  1896.  The  present  book  is  in 
continuation  and  completion  of  that,  but  it  has  not  been  thought 
best  to  denominate  this  as  volume  second.  Each  book  has  its  own 
title,  and  in  a  sense  its  own  subject-matter  capable  of  a  unified 
treatment ;  while  in  the  broadest  view  the  theme  is  but  one  through- 
out, and  the  two  volumes  halves  of  one  whole.  The  early  story 
of  the  valleys  of  the  upper  Hoosac  and  the  upper  Deerfield,  and  of 
the  water-shed  between  them,  links  itself  inextricably  with  the  great 
European  wars  of  England  and  France  falling  at  intervals  between 
1689  and  1759,  the  latter  the  date  of  Wolfe's  definitive  battle  on 
the  Plains  of  Abraham.  These  sustained  relations  of  the  general 
course  of  the  "  Origins  "  to  the  flow  of  world-history  of  the  highest 
significance,  gave  to  that  volume  a  sort  of  backbone,  which  is  of 
necessity  wanting  to  this  book  now  in  hand.  Fortunately,  the 
reader  will  probably  find,  as  the  writer  thinks  he  has  already  found, 
a  kind  of  inferior  substitute  for  that  in  the  gradual  unfolding,  in 
the  way  of  historical  results,  of  the  personal  purpose  of  Colonel 
Ephraim  Williams,  the  founder  alike  (and  by  one  pregnant  stroke 
of  his  pen)  of  both  Williamstown  and  Williams  College.  Never- 
theless, as  there  has  been  some  consciousness  in  the  composition,  so 
there  may  be  in  the  perusal  of  the  present  volume,  of  a  somewhat 
lower  series  than  before  of  supports  and  attachments  and  concatena- 
tions. There  is  here  more  of  what  is  personal,  and  less  of  what  is 
strictly  historical. 

And  this  leads  to  the  important  question  often  lifted,  What  is 
History  ?  Perhaps  I  cannot  give  a  satisfactory  answer  to  this  great 
question ;  but  I  can  certainly  describe  my  own  conception  of  what 
the  answer  should  be,  and  that,  too,  under  which  these  books  have 
been  written.  History  is  not  a  record  of  mere  happenings,  nor  even 
of  those  happenings  which  have  had  a  tangible  and  describable,  and 


VI  PREFACE. 

in  one  sense  important  series  of  results.  History  must  indeed  be 
happenings  with  all  three  of  those  characteristics,  but  also  further- 
more with  this  distinctive  characteristic,  namely,  that  they  be  seen 
to  contribute  to  the  social  progress  of  mankind.  History  may  be 
local,  or  national,  or  universal,  while  the  happenings  must  all  be  in 
their  nature  recordable,  and  in  their  perceived  issue  also  of  social 
benefit  to  mankind.  May  an  illustration  be  pardoned  here  ?  Israel 
Putnam  pulled  the  wolf  out  of  the  den  at  midnight  by  its  ears. 
This  happening  became  and  continued  extraordinarily  famous ;  but 
it  was  in  no  proper  sense  of  the  word  historical ;  the  same  man  in 
1775  was  the  first  to  advise  the  fortifying  of  Bunker  Hill,  and  dis- 
played great  courage  and  energy  throughout  that  battle ;  and  those 
happenings  on  that  June  day  were  every  whit  historical.  It  has 
been  often  said  of  late  years,  that  Biography  is  History.  Some  of 
it  is,  but  most  of  it  is  not.  I  regard  these  two  books  as  mainly  his- 
torical under  this  conception  and  definition  of  History ;  but  much 
of  each  of  them  is  rather  biographical  and  descriptive.  I  have 
aimed  in  general  to  give  pictures  of  places  and  persons  and  succes^ 
sive  events,  believing  that  these  might  prove  interesting  and  profit- 
able at  least  to  the  local  generations  to  come.  Some  inquisitive  and 
reflective  minds  elsewhere  may  be  drawn  to  the  true  story  of  begin- 
nings and  their  progress,  whether  civic  or  educational,  when  those 
have  become  prominent  and  promise  to  continue  useful  as  organisms. 
Even  the  gross  mistakes  of  some  of  the  past  actors  may  serve  the 
useful  purpose  of  guiding  future  ones  into  safer  and  pleasanter 
paths.  At  any  rate,  I  have  not  written  for  the  mere  pleasure  of 
writing,  though  much  of  it  has  proven  a  pleasure  and  none  of  it  an 
onerous  task.  Still  less  have  I  written  with  any  expectation  of 
pecuniary  gain ;  knowing  full  well  that  such  books  as  these  are  apt 
to  cost  their  authors  five  dollars  to  one  dollar  ever  returned. 

Some  readers  are  very  properly  curious  about  the  sources  of  the 
information  communicated  by  historical  and  biographical  writers. 
In  these  two  books,  for  the  most  part,  the  sources  are  indicated  in 
the  text  itself  rather  than  in  any  array  of  footnotes.  The  sources 
may  truly  be  called  original  sources.  For  the  first  half  of  the 
period  covered  by  my  special  story,  the  written  sources  (largely 
manuscripts)  were  found  in  such  copious  public  repositories  as  the 
State  Secretary's  Office  in  Boston,  the  State  Library  there,  the 
Library  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society,  the  Registries  of 
Deeds  and  of  Wills  scattered  over  the  State,  and  in  various  private 
quarters  throughout  New  England.  For  the  second  half  of  the 
period,  in  addition  to  researches  diligently  continued  in  all  these 


PREFACE.  VII 

and  other  similar  directions,  I  have  had  the  advantage  of  a  con- 
tinuous town  and  college  residence  of  more  than  fifty  years,  com- 
mencing in  September,  1848.  From  first  to  last  I  seem  to  myself 
to  have  been  remarkably  well  placed  for  knowing  the  real  state 
of  things,  for  understanding  the  character  and  purpose  of  all  the 
chief  actors,  and  for  seeing  and  testing  the  action  and  reaction  of 
causes  and  effects.  My -interest  in  what  was  going  on  was  sharp 
from  the  beginning ;  my  observation  of  men  and  things  was  unin- 
termitted ;  and  through  no  direct  agency  of  my  own  I  was  thrown 
for  twenty  years  into  what  proved  to  be  the  storm-centre  of  the 
chief  contact  of  the  college  with  the  outer  world.  This  last  circum- 
stance justified  and  even  necessitated,  if  a  true  and  clear  record  were 
to  be  drawn,  much  more  reference  to  myself  as  an  individual  actor 
and  a  consequent  public  target,  than  would  otherwise  have  been 
proper  for  me  as  an  author.  I  have  tried  to  keep  throughout  to  the 
law  of  moral  proportion.  I  have  not  encountered  in  my  researches 
or  in  my  associations  any  perfect  men,  and  but  very  few  essentially 
superior  in  their  public  virtues  to  the  general  average  of  those  of 
their  class ;  and  I  have  been  too  conscious  of  my  own  imperfections 
in  insight  and  judgment,  to  suppose  that  my  comparative  estimates 
of  the  men  who  have  constantly  confronted  me  as  a  narrator,  were  in 
any  sense  perfect.  All  I  can  say  is,  that  I  have  endeavored  to  hold 
the  scales  even,  and  to  be  just  when  it  was  impossible  to  be  com- 
mendatory. In  all  cases  I  have  based  my  judgments  on  historical 
evidence,  chiefly  of  course  on  the  testimony  of  eye-  and  ear-witnesses, 
which  evidence  I  have  been  at  large  pains  and  expense  to  accumu- 
late ;  and  the  very  fact  that  I  have  at  no  time  expected  that  any 
future  and  competent  inquirer  would  go  over  the  same  ground  with 
equal  patience  and  minuteness,  made  me  the  more  cautious  and  con- 
scientious in  order  that  the  present  results  might  be,  and  be  thought 
worthy  to  be  final. 

A  single  further  explanatory  word  will,  I  hope,  put  me  on  a  fair 
footing  with  all  my  readers.  I  and  I  alone  am  responsible  for  the 
construction  of  the  facts,  the  inferences  drawn  from  them,  and  the 
opinions  occasionally  expressed,  in  this  present  volume.  In  these 
matters  I  have  counselled  with  no  one,  not  even  with  him  to  whom 
the  volume  is  affectionately  inscribed,  to  whom,  if  to  any  one,  I 
should  certainly  have  gone.  To  him,  indeed,  I  read  casually  a  few 
pages  of  the  text  of  the  last  chapter,  relating  to  Professor  Bascom ; 
but  I  did  not  ask,  neither  did  he  proffer,  any  the  least  criticism  of 
matter  or  style.  I  also  read  to  my  long-time  colleague  and  neigh- 
bor, Professor  Spring,  a  few  pages  from  the  manuscript  of  the 


viii  PREFACE. 

initial  chapter,  simply  for  the  purpose  of  gaining  his  current  impres- 
sion of  the  rhetorical  style,  —  whether  it  were  sufficiently  clear  and 
flowing.  Otherwise  than  this,  no  person  has  known  or  now  knows 
what  or  why  or  how  I  have  written.  This  is  stated  explicitly  in 
order  to  clear  the  skirts  of  anybody  and  everybody,  who  might  per- 
haps be  supposed  by  some  to  have  influenced  the  tone  of  the  text  in 
one  way  or  another.  A  subordinate  to  this  point  and  yet  a  part 
of  it  should  be  explained,  that  many  persons  and  families  charac- 
terized in  these  pages  stand  in  general  as  examples  and  representa- 
tives of  others,  who  could  not  be  named  at  any  length,  if  at  all. 
The  book  is  too  large,  as  it  is;  and  some  readers  may  be  disap- 
pointed, that  they  or  their  ancestors  find  no  place  in  the  record,  and 
may  be  inclined  to  say  that  those  who  do  find  place  owe  it  to  special 
relations  to  the  writer  of  modern  members  of  the  families  favored. 
For  example,  a  more  copious  recital  of  the  ancestors  and  deeds  and 
descendants  of  Zebediah  Sabin  and  Nehemiah  Smedley  is  given  than 
of  those  of  other  early  settlers  in  every  way  as  meritorious  as  these. 
The  reason  of  such  discrimination  was  twofold :  first,  their  record 
was  fuller  and  more  accessible  than  that  of  others ;  and  second,  it 
was  intended  so  far  as  possible,  to  make  these  samples  and  repre- 
sentatives of  their  class,  in  substantial  accordance  with  the  ancient 
principle,  —  Ex  uno  disce  omnes. 

While  thus  exonerating  all  my  friends  and  associates  from  respon- 
sibility which  is  not  theirs,  I  have  here  publicly  to  express  my  thanks 
to  innumerable  helpers  in  all  the  walks  of  life,  —  official  and  private, 
—  for  information  courteously  and  untiringly  given  by  word  of 
mouth  and  by  way  of  written  message,  without  which  help  and 
encouragement  these  books  could  never  have  been  written. 


ARTHUR  LATHAM  PERRY. 


WILLIAMS  COLLEGE, 
December  3,  1898. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I 

PAGE 
WlLLIAMSTOWN   AND   BENNINGTON 1 


CHAPTER  II 

WlLLIAMSTOWN   FREE    SCHOOL 151 

CHAPTER  III 
TOWN  AND  COLLEGE  TILL  THE  SEMI-CENTENNIAL     ....    227 

CHAPTER  IV 
TOWN  AND  COLLEGE  TILL  THE  CENTENNIAL 555 

CHAPTER  V 
BACKWARD  AND  FORWARD    .  ....  ,    763 


LIST   OF   FULL-PAGE   ILLUSTRATIONS. 

OPPOSITE   PAGE 

GEN.  T.  J.  SKINNER.     Born  1754 ;  died  1809         .         .       Frontispiece 

COL.  SIMONDS 249 

WILLIAM  HYDE 494 

ORRIN  SAGE.     Founder  of  Professorship 708 

AMOS  EATON.     W.  C.,  1799 766 

WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT.     W.  C.,  1813 775 

MARK  HOPKINS.     W.  C.,  1824 780 

DAVID  DUDLEY  FIELD.     W.  C.,  1825 786 

WILLIAM  DWIGHT  AVHITNEY.     W.  C.,  1845 796 

JOHN  BASCOM.     W.  C.,  1849 801 

JAMES  ABRAM  GARFIELD.     W.  C.,  1856 824 


WILLIAMSTOWN  AND  WILLIAMS  COLLEGE, 


CHAPTER  I. 

WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    BENNINGTON. 

The  Hampshire  Grants,  in  particular,  a  country  unpeopled  and  almost  un- 
known in  the  last  war,  now  abounds  in  the  most  active  and  most  rebellious  race 
of  the  continent,  and  hangs  like  a  gathering  storm  on  my  left. 

—  GENERAL  BURGOYNE,  in  August,  1777. 

THE  elements  of  the  "  town  "  or  "  ton "  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  times 
in  England  were  the  most  peculiar  and  precious  freightage  that  the 
founders  of  New  England  brought  with  them  across  the  sea.  The 
German  tribes,  who  conquered  and  settled  in  England  between  the 
years  of  our  Lord  450  and  600,  were  always  fond  of  self-government ; 
and  every  free  man  thought  it  both  natural  and  needful  that  he 
should  take  part  in  public  affairs.  The  smallest  self-governing  di- 
vision of  these  people,  and  the  one  of  all  by  much  the  dearest  to 
them,  was  the  township  so-called.  This  was  originally  at  once  an 
agricultural  community  of  quite  limited  extent,  holding  certain  parts 
of  its  land  as  a  common  pasture,  and  cultivating  certain  other  parts 
in  common  under  by-laws  of  its  own  making ;  and  at  the  same  time, 
also,  it  was  the  lowest  unit  in  the  civil  administration  of  their  affairs, 
holding  statedly  a  general  meeting  or  gemote,  as  it  was  called,  in 
which  the  townsmen  made  their  local  laws  and  elected  their  petty 
officers,  namely,  the  reeve  and  the  beadle;  and,  furthermore,  after 
the  conversion  of  England  to  Christianity,  and  the  organization  of 
the  local  churches,  the  parish  or  lowest  unit  of  ecclesiastical  division 
usually  covered  the  same  ground  as  the  township,  and  in  process  of 
time  came  in  many  cases  to  supersede  it.  Whether  these  little 
centres  of  land,  and  of  rule,  were  in  the  first  place  seized  by  arms 
and  so  held  on  the  part  of  a  small  body  of  kinsfolk  and  acquaintance, 
or  had  been  allotted  out  to  them  by  the  military  chief  whom  they 
B  1 


2  \\ILL1AMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

had  chosen  to  follow,  they  became  in  either  case  the  most  pregnant 
and  enduring  points  of  English  government,  both  at  home  and  in  all 
their  colonies  later.  The  Pilgrims  of  Plymouth  and  the  Puritans  of 
the  Bay,  and  the  earliest  settlers  in  New  Hampshire,  and  Khode 
Island  and  Connecticut,  almost  without  knowing  it,  placed  these 
simple  principles  at  the  foundation  of  the  organization  of  their  new 
homes  in  New  England. 

In  the  course  of  natural  development  in  Old  England  the  towns- 
men came  to  elect  in  their  common  gemote  persons  to  represent 
them  in  the  assemblies  of  the  larger  civil  divisions  of  the  Hun- 
dred and  the  Shire;  and  in  New  England,  under  a  similar  devel- 
opment, the  town-meetings  came  to  choose  their  representatives  in 
the  judicial  and  other  business  of  the  County,  and  at  length  also 
in  the  General  Court  of  the  Colony.  Thus  the  town  was  the  origi- 
nal unit  of  civil  and  ecclesiastical  administration  in  Massachusetts ; 
and  in  time  became  the  radical  and  essential  organ  of  political 
opinion  and  action.  The  General  Court,  however,  or  Legislature, 
has  always  been  relatively  strong  in  Massachusetts,  and  has  perhaps 
been  steadily  growing  stronger,  in  something  the  same  way  as  the 
Parliament, — the  original  Witenagemote,  —  of  England  has  come  to 
absorb  or  at  least  to  regulate  most  of  the  original  local  functions 
there.  Since  the  organization  of  the  government  of  the  United 
States  in  1789,  there  has  been  probably  no  State  in  the  Union  which 
has  maintained  a  stronger  doctrine  of  State  Eights,  as  over  against 
the  Union  of  the  States,  than  has  Massachusetts.  An  indestructible 
Union  of  indestructible  States,  is  a  phrase  that  has  constantly  ex- 
pressed the  prevailing  political  sentiment  of  the  Bay  State. 

As  organized  under  its  two  royal  charters  in  succession,  Massa- 
chusetts had  control  of  all  unoccupied  lands  within  the  chartered 
limits,  but  these  limits  themselves  were  not  definitely  settled  until 
late  in  the  eighteenth  century.  The  line  between  Massachusetts  and 
New  Hampshire  was  not  finally  drawn  until  1741 ;  and  the  far  more 
troublesome  western  line  separating  it  from  New  York  was  not 
marked  for  good  and  all  until  1787.  The  entire  western  end  of 
Massachusetts,  embracing  all  the  land  comprised  in  the  County  of 
Berkshire,  which  is  nearly  one-half  of  the  territory  within  the  State 
west  of  the  Connecticut  River, — the  western  half  of  which,  or  Berk- 
shire county,  being  just  fifty  miles  long  as  measured  north  and  south, 
and  averaging  nineteen  miles  wide  east  and  west, —  was  settled  by 
white  inhabitants  much  later  than  the  other  counties  of  the  Common- 
wealth. The  tie  of  connections  between  land  as  such,  and  the  civil 
government  having  jurisdiction  over  it,  has  always  been  very  close 


WILLIAMSTOWN    AND   BENNLNGTON.  3 

in  all  English-speaking  countries.  Indeed,  it  has  been  and  still  re- 
mains closer  than  the  bottom  facts  will  logically  warrant.  There  is 
a  sort  of  sacredness  attached  to  land  in  relation  to  public  authority, 
and  also  in  other  relations,  which  vanishes  under  any  strict  analysis 
and  comparison.  Separate  from  any  efforts  011  the  part  of  the 
alleged  government  to  improve  them,  or  any  expenditures  to  defeSd 
them,  unoccupied  lands  have  no  more  value  than  so  much  space 
measured  off  in  the  air  above  them.  That  is  to  say,  they  cannot  be 
sold  for  anything  to  anybody.  Anything  whatever  that  cannot  be 
sold  is  not  then  and  there  a  Valuable.  Lands  become  valuable  only 
under  the  labors  of  human  hands  to  improve  them  for  human  uses, 
in  strict  connection  with  the  desires  of  other  men  to  come  into 
possession  of  them  by  purchase;  and  when  these  labors  are  inter- 
mitted and  become  futile,  or  these  desires  for  any  reason  cease  their 
action,  the  value  of  even  once  valuable  lands  disappears,  of  necessity.1 
In  other  words,  the  value  of  land-parcels  comes  into  existence, 
increases,  diminishes,  and  sometimes  fades  out  altogether,  under 
precisely  the  same  principles  as  that  of  all  other  material  commodi- 
ties. The  land-parcel  itself  is  economically  a  commodity. 

The  General  Court  of  Massachusetts  had  had  its  eye  on  these 
western  lands  for  a  long  time,  and  had  wished  them  well  settled, 
primarily  for  military  reasons,  and  secondarily  for  political  and 
pecuniary  reasons.  But  the  obstacles  to  their  peaceful  settlement 
were  great.  (1)  their  boundary  lines  were  not  yet  fixed;  (2)  the 
Dutch  from  Albany  were  creeping  up  the  Hoosac  and  its  tributaries, 
and  were  hateful  even  when  not  hostile  to  their  English  rivals ;  (3) 
the  French  from  Canada  and  Indians  under  their  influence  —  to  say 
nothing  of  the  local  Indians  —  had  long  been  making  and  were  liable 
at  any  time  to  make  hostile  incursions  of  one  sort  and  another  through 
this  bit  of  territory,  Nature  having  marked  it  out  as  a  part  of  a 
grand  route  of  migrations,  warlike  campaigns,  travel  and  transporta- 
tion between  north  and  south  and  between  east  and  west ;  (4)  from 
the  eastward  the  strip  was  somewhat  removed  from  the  other  English 
settlements,  and  was  certainly  difficult  of  access  on  account  of  the 
Hoosac  and  other  mountains ;  and  (5)  the  whole  was  covered  with 
thick  and  almost  impenetrable  forests,  much  of  the  land  being 
broken  and  mountainous. 

Under  all  these  discouragements  it  is  not  strange  that  the  first 

technical  township  within  the  present  limits  of  Berkshire  County  — 

that  of  Sheffield  on  the  Housatonic  River  —  was  only  incorporated 

and  established  as  such  in  1733.     The  land-parcels  there,  however, 

1  See  author's  Political  Economy,  pp.  276  et  seq. 


4  WILL1AMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

on  which  everything  at  first  turned,  had  been  generally  divided  and 
distributed  to  purchasers,  mostly  from  Westfield,  eight  years  before 
this,  by  a  committee  of  the  General  Court.  The  settlers  upon  these 
lands  came  in  gradually  after  1725,  and  constituted  until  1733  what 
was  called  in  those  times  a  "  Propriety  "  in  distinction  from  a  Town- 
ship. This  was  a  loose  political  organization  under  the  control  of  the 
General  Court,  or  rather  of  committees  thereof  appointed  for  that 
purpose.  About  sixty  families  settled  in  the  "lower  Housatonic" 
Propriety  before  it  was  incorporated  as  a  town  under  its  present 
name.  From  two  of  these  original  families  in  particular,  the  Deweys 
and  the  Nobles,  there  came  long  afterward  members  from  Sheffield 
to  Williamstown,  who  became  very  prominent  citizens  here. 

The  course  of  development  was  somewhat  different  in  the  "  upper 
Housatonic"  district,  parts  of  what  are  now  Stockbridge  and  Bar- 
rington.  Religious  motives  mingled  with  political  in  the  action  of 
the  Governor  and  Court  in  relation  to  this  interesting  settlement. 
In  1734  John  Sergeant  and  Timothy  Woodbridge  commenced  a 
mission  among  the  Housatonic  Indians,  about  one-half  of  them  then 
living  on  the  "upper"  and  the  other  half  on  the  "lower"  river. 
The  mission  was  located  in  the  "  upper  "  precinct,  and  was  strongly 
patronized  in  official  and  other  circles  in  Boston;  and  it  became  a 
serious  and  pressing  object  to  bring  these  Indians  together  in  one 
place  for  easier  and  more  effective  instruction  in  Christianity  and 
civilization.  With  this  end  in  view,  the  Legislature  granted  to  these 
Indians  a  township  of  land  six  miles  square  just  above  Monument 
Mountain ;  and  a  year  later  a  committee,  of  which  Colonel  John  Stod- 
dard  was  chairman,  laid  out  the  town,  which,  including  the  present 
West  Stockbridge,  was  in  form  an  exact  square ;  a  year  later  still,  the 
lower  Indians  having  mostly  moved  up  the  river,  the  Legislature 
ordered  a  meeting-house  and  schoolhouse  to  be  built  for  them  at  the 
charge  of  the  Province,  Colonel  Stoddard  becoming  chairman  of  a 
new  committee  raised  for  that  purpose ;  and  in  May,  1739,  the  town 
was  regularly  incorporated,  and  often  called  the  "  Indian  Town." 
Stockbridge  was  its  name  by  act  of  incorporation. 

With  the  further  view  of  instructing  the  Indians  in  the  arts  of 
civilized  life  by  way  of  example,  liberal  grants  of  land  within  the 
town  were  made  by  the  Court  to  the  heads  of  four  white  families 
to  induce  their  residence,  namely,  to  Ephraim  Williams  of  Newton, 
Josiah  Jones  of  Weston,  Joseph  Woodbridge  (brother  of  the  mis- 
sionary teacher)  of  West  Springfield,  and  Ephraim  Brown  of  a  place 
now  named  Spencer.  The  first  mentioned  was  the  first  to  arrive 
with  his  family  in  June,  1739,  and  he  exerted  an  extraordinary 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    BENNINGTON.  £> 

influence,  much  of  it  apparently  for  evil,  in  Stockbridge  and  its 
vicinity,  for  fifteen  years,  when  he  died  in  Deerfield.  His  grave- 
stone is  still  legible  in  the  "  old  bury  ing-ground  "  there. 

Governor  Jonathan  Belcher,  then  of  Massachusetts  and  afterward 
occupying  a  similar  position  in  New  Jersey,  was  a  patron  and  corre- 
spondent of  this  Ephraim  Williams  as  well  as  of  the  Indian  Mission 
in  Stockbridge.  A  considerable  number  of  letters  are  extant  from 
the  one  man  to  the  other,  of  no  great  historical  consequence,  and 
exhibiting  neither  of  them  in  a  specially  favorable  light ;  but  there 
was  one  commission  received  by  Williams  shortly  after  he  removed 
to  Stockbridge,  from  the  Governor  and  Council  at  Boston,  of  very 
considerable  historical  importance.  It  was  this :  he  was  directed  to 
proceed  with  a  sworn  surveyor  and  chairman,  and  to  lay  out  two 
townships  of  land  in  the  name  of  the  Province  on  what  proved  to  be 
the  head  waters  of  the  Hoosac  River,  and  to  unite  the  two  townships 
together  in  a  form  favorable  to  future  mutual  assistance  and  protec- 
tion. The  first  white  man  ever  to  perambulate  within  the  limits  of 
the  present  Williamstown  and  North  Adams  were  those  comprised 
in  this  party.  That  there  were  some  Indians  also  accompanying  the 
surveyors  from  Stockbridge  is  almost  certain,  because  the  report  of 
their  work  to  the  Governor  and  Council  gives  the  Indian  names  of 
the  two  branches  of  the  Hoosac,  of  the  Hoosac  itself,  and  a  correct 
drawing  of  the  junction  of  the  two  and  of  the  general  running  direc- 
tion of  all  three.  The  Indians  called  the  north  branch  Mayunsook, 
the  south  branch  Ashuwillticook,  and  New  England  ears  then  doubt- 
less heard  for  the  first  time  the  ever  euphonious  and  since  famous 
designation  HOOSAC. 

This  was  in  the  autumn  of  1739.  For  some  reason  the  Williams' 
survey  of  the  townships  was  not  quite  completed.  The  surveyors 
complained  in  their  report  of  the  opposition  they  had  met  with  by 
"  sundry  gentlemen  from  Albany."  Then  the  two  townships  were 
not  as  compactly  joined  together  for  the  reciprocal  encouragement 
and  defence  of  the  prospective  settlers  as  had  probably  been  designed 
at  the  official  headquarters  in  Boston.  At  any  rate,  nothing  ever 
came  of  this  survey  as  a  permanent  lay-out.  Just  ten  years  later, 
however,  that  is,  in  1749,  the  old  French  war  having  been  brought 
to  a  temporary  close  by  the  Peace  of  Aix  la  Chapelle  in  1748,  another 
committee  of  the  General  Court  under  better  auspices  made  a  new 
survey  throughout,  and  laid  down  the  permanent  lines  of  two  town- 
ships parallel  with  and  touching  each  other  throughout  the  greater 
part  of  their  length  north  and  south.  They  then  very  properly 
denominated  the  townships  East  Hoosac  and  West  Hoosac.  The 


"A  Plan  of  23,040  acres  of  Land  lying  on  the  East  Side  of  Ashuwilticook  River  and  South   Branch 
of  Hoosuck  River,  beg'ing  at  a  Hemlock  Tree  mark'd  O+. 

"Surveyed,   May  1739,   by  the  Needle  of  the  surveying  instrument, 

By  Mr.   NATH.  KELLOGG, 

Surueyor," 

6 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    BENNINGTON.  7 

former  was  the  one  first  reached  by  the  then  only  path  of  access, 
namely,  the  immemorial  Mohawk  trail  from  the  Hoosac  to  the  Deer- 
field  over  the  Hoosac  Mountain,  and  it  also  embraced  the  rude 
military  work  built  by  the  Province  in  1745  and  rebuilt  in  1747 
after  its  destruction  by  French  and  Indians  the  year  before,  and 
made  famous  both  previous  and  subsequent  to  the  Peace  as  "  Fort 
Massachusetts " ;  but  nevertheless  the  Court's  committee  of  1749 
found  on  examination  and  expressly  reported  to  their  masters  at 
Boston  that  the  latter,  or  West  Hoosac,  was  by  much  the  better 
situation  for  a  new  settlement,  —  "  the  committee  do  deem  the  west 
township  the  most  valuable." 

Even  this  survey  of  1749  settled  only  the  exterior  lines  and  the 
common  line  dividing  the  two  townships.  The  next  spring  still 
another  committee  came  over  the  mountain  from  the  eastward  to 
lay  out  for  the  west  town  sixty-three  house-lots  of  "ten  or  twelve 
acres  each  contiguous  to  each  other  in  the  best  of  the  land,"  to  be 
offered  for  sale  to  individual  proprietors  wherever  these  could  be 
found,  the  ownership  of  any  one  of  which  to  carry  along  with  it  in 
addition  the  gradual  ownership  of  one  sixty-third  part  of  all  the 
rest  of  the  land  in  the  town  outside  the  house-lots,  as  that  land 
should  be  successively  divided  by  vote  of  the  proprietors  themselves 
into  other  lots,  like  Pine  lots  and  Oak  lots  and  Meadow  lots  and 
50-acre  lots  and  100-acre  lots  and  so  on.  The  chief  conditions  of  the 
sale  of  the  house-lots  were  as  follows :  — 

That  each  settler  pay  the  Committee  upon  his  being  admitted  £6  13s.  6d.  law- 
ful money  for  the  use  of  the  Government,  and  that  he  shall  within  the  space  of 
two  years  from  the  time  of  his  being  admitted  build  a  house  eighteen  feet  long, 
fifteen  feet  wide  and  seven  stud,  and  shall  fence  five  acres  of  his  said  house  lot 
and  bring  the  same  to  English  grass,  or  fit  it  for  plowing  and  raising  of  wheat  or 
other  corn,  and  shall  actually  by  themselves  or  assigns  reside  on  said  house  lot 
five  years  in  seven  from  the  time  of  their  being  admitted,  —  and  that  they  do 
settle  a  learned  Orthodox  minister  in  said  town  within  the  term  of  five  years 
from  the  time  of  their  being  admitted. 

In  harmony  with  the  last  of  these  conditions,  one  house-lot  (with 
the  same  after-privileges  as  the  rest)  was  to  be  reserved  for  the  first 
settled  minister,  and  another  as  toward  the  annual  support  of  the 
ministry,  and  a  third  for  the  support  of  a  school ;  and  then  the  re- 
maining sixty  portions  were  to  be  offered  for  sale  by  lot  wherever  a 
market  for  them  could  be  found.  The  three  lots  thus  reserved  for 
public  purposes  were  among  the  most  eligible  of  the  whole  series,  — 
all  of  them  in  close  proximity  to  the  Square,  as  it  was  then  called, 
that  is,  the  junction  at  right  angles  of  the  very  wide  main  street 


8  WILLIAMSTOWK   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

running  east  and  west  with  the  wide  intersecting  street  running 
north  and  south.  On  the  Square  itself  stood  the  two  first  meeting- 
houses of  the  town  in  succession,  from  1768  to  1866 ;  and  on  the 
first  pastor's  lot,  No.  36,  sold  by  him  shortly  after  his  induction, 
stood  during  the  whole  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  principal 
tavern  of  the  town. 

In  September,  1752,  the  committee  charged  with  the  sale  of  the 
house-lots  reported  themselves  as  having  completed  the  service  as 
directed  by  the  order  of  the  Court.  They  had  spent  fourteen  days 
"  in  lotting "  several  of  them  at  Fort  Massachusetts,  three  of  them 
at  Concord,  three  at  Worcester,  and  one  at  Watertown.  Captain 
Ephraiin  Williams,  then  the  commander  at  Fort  Massachusetts,  eldest 


PRESENT   SITE  OF   FORT   MASSACHUSETTS. 
Perry's  elm  set  in  1859. 

son  of  that  Ephraim  WTilliams  already  briefly  characterized,  bought 
in  this  way  two  of  the  lots,  Nos.  8  and  10,  and  fifteen  more  of  the 
lots  were  bought  at  the  same  time  and  in  the  same  way  by  other 
officers  and  soldiers  of  the  fort.  About  fifteen  additional  lots,  mak- 
ing a  majority  of  the  sixty,  were  bought  by  parties  who  had  had  to 
do  in  some  civil  capacity  or  other  with  the  two  new  towns  or  with 
Fort  Massachusetts.  On  the  renewal  of  the  French  and  Indian  War 
in  1754  nearly  all  of  the  men  and  officers  previously  in  the  military 
service,  who  in  the  meantime  had  been  "  subduing  "  their  house-lots 
and  erecting  their  "  regulation  "  houses,  resumed  their  places  in  the 
military  service  of  the  Province,  either  in  Fort  Massachusetts  or  in 
the  West  Hoosac  Fort  then  first  built  and  garrisoned.  Young  men 
from  Connecticut  mingled  in  about  equal  numbers  with  the  young 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    BEKNTNGTON.  9 

men  of  Massachusetts  both  in  the  labors  of  the  so-called  Peace,  and 
in  the  stir  and  hazards  of  the  war  that  followed.  William  stown, 
accordingly,  had  a  very  distinctive  military  origin.  The  purpose  of 
the  Province  in  the  civil  establishment  of  the  two  towns,  as  well  as 
in  the  erection  and  maintenance  of  the  two  forts,  was  predominantly 
military.  In  the  lull  of  active  arms  between  the  Peace  of  Aix  la 
Chapelle  and  the  renewal  of  the  war,  some  twenty  of  these  proprie- 
tors had  made  the  legally  required  beginnings  upon  their  little  home- 
steads. The  committee  had  laid  out  the  house-lots  along  both  sides 
of  a  broad  street  fifteen  rods  in  width,  and  stretching  from  Green 
River  on  the  east  to  Buxton  Brook  on  the  west,  a  distance  of  about 
one  mile  and  a  half.  On  account  of  a  relative  facility  in  getting  at 
water,  the  earliest  houses,  corresponding  in  size  and  height  to  the 
conditions  prescribed  by  the  General  Court  in  selling  the  lots,  were 
built  on  both  sides  of  the  Hemlock  Brook  and  on  both  sides  of  the 
main  street  toward  its  western  end.  To  these  few  resident  proprie- 
tors, struggling  under  local  difficulties  of  every  kind,  it  became  imper- 
atively needful  that  they  should  have  a  civil  organization  authoriz- 
ing them  to  hold  legal  meetings  for  the  purpose  of  taxing  themselves 
and  all  other  owners  of  the  house-lots,  whether  resident  or  not,  to 
sell  at  public  auction  after  proper  advertisement  the  lots  of  any 
delinquents  in  paying  these  rates,  to  open  roads  and  other  needed 
conveniences  demanded  by  the  major  voice,  to  proceed  further  to 
divide  among  themselves  the  common  lands  of  the  township,  and  to 
defray  all  expenses  connected  therewith,  to  determine  upon  a  method 
of  holding  legal  meetings  to  choose  such  officers  as  a  proprietors' 
clerk  and  treasurer  and  assessors  and  collectors,  to  hire  a  minister 
and  build  a  meeting-house,  and  provide  for  a  school  —  in  short,  to 
perform  all  these  functions  in  the  way  of  local  self-government  pecul- 
iar to  a  Propriety. 

Accordingly,  on  the  10th  of  September,  1753,  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives at  Boston  voted  that  William  Williams,  "one  of  his 
Majesty's  justices  of  the  peace  for  the  County  of  Hampshire  [it  was 
eight  years  later  when  Berkshire  County  was  set  off],  issue  his 
warrant  for  calling  a  meeting  of  the  proprietors  of  the  west  township 
of  Hoosac  so-called,  directed  to  one  of  the  principal  proprietors  of 
said  township  requiring  him  "  —  and  so  on.  This  vote  was  concurred 
in  by  Governor  Shirley  and  the  Council  the  same  day;  and  on 
Nov.  15,  1753,  William  Williams  of  Pittsfield  issued  his  warrant 
to  Isaac  Wyman  of  West  Hoosac,  requiring  him  "  to  notify  and  warn 
the  proprietors  of  said  township  that  they  assemble  at  the  house  of 
Mr.  Seth  Hudson  in  said  township  on  Wednesday,  the  fifth  day  of 


10  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

December  next  at  nine  of  the  clock  in  the  forenoon  to  act "  —  and 
so  on.  Such  meeting  was  accordingly  holden  at  that  time  and  place, 
and  inaugurated  a  successful  local  self-government,  which  continued 
for  twelve  years  the  sole  authority  within  "the  west  township  of 
Hoosac."  In  1765  the  town  was  regularly  incorporated  by  the  Prov- 
ince authorities  at  Boston,  and  received  the  usual  accession  of  pow- 
ers, including  the  right  to  send  a  representative  to  the  General 
Court.  The  town-meetings  holden  regularly  thereafter  superseded 
for  many  purposes  the  previous  proprietors'  meetings  ;  nevertheless 
the  latter  continued  to  assemble  at  intervals  throughout  that  century 
to  care  for  the  special  functions  originally  confided  to  them.  The 
proprietors  and  not  the  townsmen  called  and  settled  the  first  minis- 
ter, Rev.  Whitman  Welch,  in  1765,  and  paid  all  the  expenses  of  his 
ordination ;  they  built  and  paid  for  the  first  framed  meeting-house 
in  1768,  and  they  continued  to  regulate  all  matters  concerning  the 
still  undivided  lands.  Of  course  the  town  grew  relatively  stronger 
and  the  proprietors  weaker,  especially  after  the  Revolutionary  War, 
during  which  the  functions  of  both  were  pretty  much  suspended. 
Before  the  second  meeting-house  was  erected  in  1796  the  College 
had  come  in  with  its  needs  for  seating  on  Sundays  and  public  use 
for  Commencements,  and  that  was  built  by  subscriptions  taken  up 
irrespective  of  the  old  civil  division.  The  last  entries  in  the  old 
Proprietors'  Book,  which  is  still  preserved  in  the  original,  and  com- 
plete in  a  fair  copy  taken  at  the  instance  of  the  present  writer  in 
1878,  bear  the  dates  "  1801,"  "1802,"  and  "1803." 

The  proprietors  mentioned  by  name  in  the  record  of  their  first 
meeting,  Dec.  5,  1753,  are :  Allen  Curtis,  Seth  Hudson,  Isaac 
Wyman,  Jonathan  Meacham,  Ezekiel  Foster,  Jabez  Warren,  Sam- 
uel Taylor,  Gideon  Warren,  Thomas  Train,  Josiah  Dean,  Ebenezer 
Graves,  —  eleven  men.  With  the  exception  of  Allen  Curtis,  who 
was  the  moderator  of  the  meeting,  and  who  not  very  long  after  re- 
turned to  his  former  prominent  position  as  a  citizen  in  Canaan, 
Connecticut,  all  these  had  been  soldiers  in  Fort  Massachusetts  be- 
fore and  all  took  military  service  in  some  form  when  the  French 
War  broke  out  again  in  1754.  Seth  Hudson's  house,  in  which  this 
first  proprietors'  meeting  was  had,  is  still  standing  in  a  modified 
form  less  than  half  a  mile  down  Hemlock  Brook  from  its  original 
site,  and  on  the  west  side  of  the  brook.  The  second  proprietors' 
meeting  was  had  April  18,  1754,  in  the  house  of  Allen  Curtis,  which 
stood  directly  across  the  brook  from  Hudson's  house  and  on  the 
west  side  of  it.  At  this  meeting  it  was  voted  to  set  off  out  of  the 
common  land  not  yet  divided  "two  acres  and  a  half  for  a  burial- 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   BENNINGTON.  11 

place,"  on  what  is  now  called  "  Johnson  Hill,"  near  the  present  resi- 
dence of  Mr.  Eugene  Jerome.  This  land,  however,  was  not  long 
used  for  this  object.  It  proved  to  be  too  far  from  the  then  dwelling- 
places  of  the  people.  Another  parcel  was  set  off  adjoining  the  main 
street  on  its  north  side  just  west  of  Hemlock  Brook,  which,  with  its 
enlargements,  has  ever  since  been  the  chief  "  God's  acre "  of  the 
town. 

One  month  later,  namely,  May  15,  1754,  the  third  proprietors' 
meeting  was  had  "  at  the  house  of  Captain  Allen  Curtis,"  and  the 
names  of  three  proprietors  additional  to  the  former  eleven  appear  in 
the  record  of  it,  to  wit,  Captain  Elisha  Chapin  (who  was  chosen  the 
moderator),  Oliver  Avery,  and  John  Crawford.  The  chief  business 
of  this  meeting  was  to  draw  for  the  second  division  of  50-acre  lots, 
the  Meadow  lots  and  the  first  division  of  50-acre  lots  having  been 
drawn  for  at  the  previous  meeting  in  April.  Fair  as  was  this  open- 
ing of  local  government  in  West  Hoosac,  both  as  to  the  division  and 
partial  subjugation  of  lands,  the  beginning  of  roads  "to  convean" 
the  same,  and  the  laying  and  gathering  in  of  taxes  for  these  and 
other  common  purposes,  the  prospects  of  the  hamlet  were  suddenly 
clouded  over  by  the  furious  outbreak  of  the  final  French  war  in 
America.  There  were  no  further  proprietors'  meetings  in  West 
Hoosac  for  six  years  and  a  half.  The  next  one,  and  the  fourth  in 
order  of  time,  assembled  Oct.  1,  1760.  It  is  significant  of  the  storms 
of  the  interval  that  this  meeting  was  warned  to  be  held  "  at  the  West 
Hoosac  Fort."  Although  there  were  no  developments  of  civil  sig- 
nificance within  the  township,  great  things  had  taken  place  else- 
where in  that  interval  of  time.  The  most  consequential  single  battle 
ever  fought  in  America  was  that  between  Generals  Wolfe  and  Mont- 
calm  011  the  Heights  of  Abraham,  Sept.  13,  1759.  It  settled  the 
question  of  French  domination  on  this  Continent.  The  formal  con- 
ditions of  peace  were  not  entered  into  by  treaty  between  England 
and  France  until  1763;  but  there  was  not  a  village,  nor  scarcely  a. 
home  in  New  England,  but  understood  perfectly  before  New  Year's 
of  1760,  that  it  was  all  over  with  New  France.  The  old  routes  to 
the  northward  from  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut,  which  for  half 
a  century  had  been  paths  of  Indian  ambush,  fierce  hand-to-hand 
battle  and  sudden  death,  became  all  at  once  open  and  safe  and 
extraordinarily  attractive  to  white  settlers.  West  Hoosac  lay  right 
in  the  road  of  each  warlike  expedition  from  those  two  Provinces  to 
Ticonderoga  and  Crown  Point ;  and  many  an  officer  and  soldier  in 
passing  through,  cast  their  eyes  about  upon  the  well-wooded  and 
well-watered  fields,  and  remembered  them  after  the  war,  and  turned 


12  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

their  faces  thitherward  again  to  find  a  home.  A  military  company 
from  Hardwick,  Massachusetts,  in  returning  southward  from  Ticon- 
deroga,  made  the  mistake  at  what  we  call  Hoosac  Junction  of  follow- 
ing the  path  up  the  Walloomsac  instead  of  that  up  the  Hoosac,  and 
were  so  impressed  with  the  site  of  what  is  now  Bennington,  that,  in 
the  spring  of  1761,  a  large  part  of  them,  with  others,  returned  over 
the  Hoosac  Mountain  and  through  West  Hoosac  to  make  the  first 
permanent  settlement  there  within  the  present  limits  of  Vermont. 

Another  military  company  from  northwestern  Connecticut,  com- 
posed in  part  of  young  men  who  had  previously  been  in  West  Hoosac 
to  look  for  a  life-location,  left  these  and  several  others  besides,  when 
the  company  as  such  returned  to  the  Colony  that  sent  them  at  the 
instance  of  Massachusetts  to  help  defend  an  access  common  to  both 
Colonies,  threatened  by  hostile  French  and  Indians.  The  news  of 
Wolfe's  victory  at  Quebec  brought  many  new  settlers  to  West 
Hoosac.  Traffic  in  the  house-lots  and  in  the  out-lots  drawn  by  these 
became  very  brisk  in  the  years  1760-65.  There  were  eight  sup- 
plementary divisions  in  all,  and  these  were  made  in  the  following 
order:  (1)  meadow  lots;  (2)  1st  division  50-acre  lots;  (3)  2d  division 
50-acre  lots ;  (4)  100-acre  lots ;  (5)  Pine  lots ;  (6)  Oak  lots ;  (7)  60- 
acre  lots ;  and  (8)  Pitches.  Excepting  those  who  had  been  officers 
or  soldiers  either  in  Fort  Massachusetts  or  the  West  Hoosac  Fort, 
comparatively  few  of  the  actual  settlers  prior  to  the  incorporation 
of  the  town  in  1765  came  from  the  eastward  over  the  Hoosac  Moun- 
tain. Most  of  the  rest  came  from  Connecticut.  If  we  extend  the 
view  till  the  end  of  the  century,  it  is  noteworthy  from  first  to  last 
that  nearly  all  of  the  comers  into  William  stown  from  Connecticut 
came  from  three  sections  of  that  Colony:  (1)  from  the  northwest- 
ern corner,  with  Litchfield  as  a  centre ;  (2)  from  the  northeastern 
corner,  with  Killingly  for  a  centre ;  and  (3)  from  Colchester  and  its 
immediate  vicinity.  From  Colchester  alone  came  at  least  twenty- 
-five  families,  who  possessed  staying  qualities,  and  who  left  posterity 
here.  As  for  sporadic  families  from  Connecticut,  the  Corbens  were 
from  New  Haven,  the  Whitmans  from  Hartford,  and  a  part  of  the 
Kelloggs  from  what  is  now  Vernon. 

An  important  consequence  of  this  large  infusion  of  Connecticut 
families  into  a  Massachusetts  township,  in  connection  with  the  huge 
barrier  of  the  Hoosac  Mountain  on  the  east  and  the  easy  route  down 
the  Hoosac  into  the  Dutch  country  and  the  North  Biver  to  the  west- 
ward, was  and  is  some  pretty  sharp  differences  in  the  social  and 
religious  conditions  of  Williamstown  as  compared  with  those  of  the 
typical  Massachusetts  town.  What  these  differences  consist  in  might 


WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    BENNINGTON.  13 

prove  difficult  to  express  in  exact  language,  but  they  have  always 
been  felt  by  dwellers  here  who  have  also  had  a  considerable  experi- 
ence there.  The  first  pastor  of  the  church  was  a  Connecticut  man 
and  a  Yale  graduate.  When  the  College  came  in,  in  1793,  the  same 
was  true  of  President  Fitch  and  the  early  tutors.  The  relations  of 
the  College  to  that  in  New  Haven  have  been  down  to  the  present 
day  more  abundant  and  intimate  than  to  that  at  Cambridge.  It  is 
possible  that  the  Dutch  and  other  New  York  influences,  blown  over 
the  Taconics  and  wafted  up  the  Hoosac  Eiver  in  the  ever  cool  breezes 
from  the  northwest,  have  been  even  more  penetrating  and  pervasive 
than  those  from  the  southward.  New  York,  at  any  rate,  has  always 
been  a  very  strong  patron  of  the  College,  both  as  to  funds  given  and 
the  number  of  students  sent.  The  annual  catalogue  for  the  present 
year  (1893-94)  shows  138  students  from  New  York  and  88  from 
Massachusetts.  It  is  scarcely  needful  to  relate,  so  consonant  was  it 
to  human  nature  in  general,  that,  in  the  early  settlement  of  West 
Hoosac,  and  in  the  inevitable  jealousies  between  the  Massachusetts 
Eort  and  the  later  fort  in  the  west  township,  the  transient  disputes 
and  quarrels  took  on  a  form  of  bitterness  drawn  in  part  from  the 
prejudices  of  the  men  of  the  two  rival  Colonies.1 

Colonel  Ephraim  Williams,  Jr.,  long  the  commander  at  Eort  Massa- 
chusetts, had  made  it  in  his  last  will  and  testament,  drawn  at  Albany 
in  1755,  a  condition  of  a  small  bequest  to  found  a  free  school  in  West 
Hoosac,  that  the  town,  when  incorporated  as  such,  should  be  named 
Williamstown.  Ten  years  later  the  seal  of  the  General  Court  was 
expressly  put  upon  the  new  and  every  way  appropriate  designation 
of  the  town.  The  new  name  and  the  reason  for  it,  and  the  additional 
privileges  of  a  Town  over  those  of  a  Propriety,  tended  to  increase  and 
did  increase  the  population  of  the  town.  The  increased  population 
demanded  better  facilities  for  public  worship ;  and  the  first  framed 
meeting-house,  built  in  1768,  answered  to  this  demand.  A  log  struc- 
ture thrown  up  on  No.  36,  the  house-lot  designated  for  the  first  settled 
pastor,  had  accommodated  the  desultory  preaching  until  the  settle- 
ment of  Mr.  W'elch  in  1765,  and  his  own  also  for  three  years  longer. 
This  rude  building  continued  as  a  schoolhouse  and  as  a  place  for 
social  worship  till  long  after  the  ^Revolutionary  War.  The  good 
women  of  the  town  held  a  prayer-meeting  within  its  walls  (such  as 
they  were)  on  the  battle  day  of  Bennington  till  after  the  sun  went 
down  and  the  news  of  the  victory  was  brought. 

1  For  a  copious  account  of  these  two  forts  with  their  officers  and  men,  of  the  set- 
tlement of  West  Hoosac,  and  particularly  of  Colonel  Ephraim  Williams,  the  founder, 
see  the  author's  Origins  in  Williamstown. 


14  WILLIAMSTOWX   AND    WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

The  decennium  between  the  completion  of  the  local  meeting-house 
in  1768  and  the  surrender  of  Burgoyne  on  the  upper  Hudson  in  1777 
were  probably  the  most  prosperous,  and  certainly  the  most  stirring, 
years  in  the  history  of  Williamstown.  The  population  rapidly  in- 
creased. The  colonial  census  of  1776  showed  1083  inhabitants  in 
Williamstown.  The  fertile  lands  of  the  town  found  a  quick  market 
on  the  part  of  purchasers,  still  mainly  from  Connecticut.  Farms  and 
homes  swiftly  changed  hands  in  that  decade,  as  the  registry  of  deeds 
bears  abundant  witness  to  this  day.  This  was  the  result  partly  of 
Yankee  speculation,  and  partly  of  a  determination  of  some  of  the 
more  enterprising  owners  of  the  house-lots  to  secure  each  a  farm 
made  up  of  contiguous  lands,  instead  of  the  original  idea  (found 
ineligible  on  trial)  of  a  home-lot  of  ten  acres  in  a  village  and  scat- 
tered out-lots  drawn  successively  in  virtue  of  that.  For  example, 
Nehemiah  Smedley  sold  his  already  well- 
tilled  and  well-orcharded  house-lot  No.  1 
(on  the  Square),  to  aggregate  for  himself  a 
compact  farm  on  the  lower  Green  River,  still 
owned  and  occupied  by  one  of  his  descend- 
ants ;  and  Benjamin  Simonds  sold  his  home- 
lot  next  west  of  Smedley's,  on  which  he  had 
already  opened  the  first  tavern  in  the  ham- 
SEAL  OF  THE  FREE  let,  No.  3,  to  gradually  put  together  what 
was  then  the  best  farm  in  the  township,  now 

Here   impressed  from  the  orig-  ,,      ,      ,  -,-> .  T^         -i     -n  i»  ,1  r>    ,1 

inai  die  cast  in  1790  called  the  "River  Bend  Farm,"  north  ot  the 

Hoosac,  and  to  erect  on  it  a  substantial  farm- 
house and  tavern-stand  still  doing  duty  in  the  former  capacity.  In 
the  same  interval  of  time  there  settled  in  the  town  a  dozen  or 
more  young  men  destined  to  distinguish  themselves  in  the  Revo- 
lutionary War  and  otherwise,  most  or  all  of  whom  will  be  particularly 
characterized  in  the  following  pages. 

Before  that  war  broke  out  in  1775,  a  few,  but  not  many,  of  the 
earlier  settlers  in  Williamstown  had  passed  on  into  Vermont,  follow- 
ing in  the  steps  of  the  first  party  ever  migrating  in  a  body  into  the 
territory  now  constituting  that  State,  namely,  six  families,  four  of 
them  from  Hardwick  and  two  from  Amherst.  They  were  the  fami- 
lies of  Peter  Harwood,  Ebenezer  Harwood,  Leonard  Robinson,  Samuel 
Robinson,  Jr.,  Samuel  Pratt,  and  Timothy  Pratt.  They  came  on 
horseback,  twenty-two  persons  in  all  including  women  and  children, 
over  the  Hoosac  Mountain  by  the  old  Mohawk  trail,  passed  Fort 
Massachusetts  and  the  West  Hoosac  Fort,  in  all  probability  spent 
one  night  in  the  little  hamlet  here,  and  arrived  on  Bennington  Hill 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    BENNINGTON.  15 

June  18,  1761.  Mary  Harwood,  sister  of  Peter  Harwood,  just  then 
entering  her  seventeenth  year,  was  of  this  party,  and  in  about  two 
years  she  became  the  wife  of  Nehemiah  Smedley  of  Williamstown, 
who  was  twelve  years  her  senior.  In  this  and  many  other  similar 
ways  a  firm  connection  was  knit  between  West  Hoosac  and  Benning- 
ton.  The  former  had  nearly  ten  years  the  start  of  the  latter  as  a 
settlement,  and  it  continued  for  many  years  the  nearest  strong  set- 
tlement, because  Pownal,  lying  between  the  two  along  the  Hoosac, 
was  only  sporadically  occupied,  at  first  by  a  few  Dutch  farmers  and 
later  by  a  few  English  families.  When  Smedley  lifted  the  heavy 
timbers  of  his  new  farmhouse  on  Green  River  into  place,  Oct.  8, 
1772,  strong  hands  from  Bennington,  Harwoods  and  others,  assisted 
at  the  raising.  Five  years  later,  as  we  shall  shortly  see,  the  two 
towns  reached  each  other  the  hand  in  the  double  battle  along  the 
Walloomsac  in  a  most  remarkable  and  effective  fashion.  From  the 
very  outset  the  growth  of  Bennington  was  phenomenal.  During 
the  summer  and  fall  of  1761,  besides  the  six  families  that  came 
in  June,  at  least  twenty-five  families,  all  purchasers  under  the 
original  grantees,  made  permanent  settlement.  There  is  extant 
an  original  muster-roll  of  a  military  company  formed  only  three 
years  after  the  first  families  arrived,  the  heading  of  which  runs  as 
follows  :  — 

"  Muster  Koll  of  the  first  company  of  Militia  in  the  town  of  Ben- 
nington, organized  Oct.  24,  1764." 

This  roll  holds  sixty-six  names  and  may  fairly  be  supposed  to 
embrace  all  the  able-bodied  men  then  in  town  between  the  ages  of 
eighteen  and  sixty.  The  name  of  Samuel  Robinson,  Senior,  is  not 
upon  this  roll,  partly,  perhaps,  because  he  was  then  in  his  sixtieth 
year ;  but  more  probably  because  as  a  Justice  of  the  Peace  commis- 
sioned by  Governor  Benning  Wentworth  in  February,  1762,  and  so 
the  first  judicial  officer  within  the  present  limits  of  Vermont,  he  had 
fallen  that  summer  into  official  controversy  with  the  officers  of  New 
York  who  claimed  the  jurisdiction  as  against  New  Hampshire,  and 
was  under  arrest  and  indictment  for  defending  claimants  under  the 
latter,  and  spent  some  time  in  the  Albany  jail.  He  had  had  his  mili- 
tary day  during  the  last  French  War ;  had  served  as  Captain  in  the 
troops  of  Massachusetts  through  several  campaigns,  and  was  at  the 
head  of  his  company  in  the  battle  of  Lake  George,  September,  1755, 
in  which  Colonel  Ephraim  Williams  was  killed.  In  returning  from 
the  north  with  his  company  in  the  next  campaign  by  the  usual  route 
to  Fort  Massachusetts,  he  mistook  at  what  is  now  Hoosac  Junction 
the  Walloomsac  River  for  the  Hoosac,  and  marched  up  the  former 


16  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

till  nightfall,  when  he  perceived  his  mistake,  but  spent  the  night  on 
the  banks  of  the  stream  which  was  to  be  immortalized  twenty  years 
later  by  the  battle  of  Bennington.  He  and  his  men  from  Hardwick 
looked  around  in  the  morning  as  they  retraced  their  steps,  and  con- 
cluded that  that  would  be  a  good  region  to  settle  in  when  peace 
should  come  in.  This  plan  was  carried  out  to  the  letter.  Captain 
Eobinson  repaired  to  New  Hampshire  and  made  purchases  of  a  con- 
siderable portion  of  the  township  rights  under  the  original  charter 
of  1749,  and  sought  among  his  friends  and  acquaintances  for  asso- 
ciate emigrants  to  the  new  country.  He  was  the  acknowledged 
leader  of  the  resolute  band  of  pioneers  in  the  settlement  of  Benning- 
ton, and  he  continued  to  exercise  almost  a  controlling  authority  in 
the  affairs  of  the  town  during  the  remainder  of  his  life. 

In  December,  1765,  when  it  was  ascertained  by  the  settlers  under 
the  New  Hampshire  grants  that  their  lands  were  being  granted  over 
again  from  under  them  by  the  executive  authorities  of  New  York, 
Captain  Robinson  was  deputed  by  those  of  Bennington  and  the  three 
or  four  neighboring  towns  already  partially  settled  to  go  down  to 
New  York  for  the  purpose  of  trying  to  persuade  them  to  save  the 
legal  possessions  of  the  first  settlers  from  the  grasp  of  the  city  and 
other  speculators ;  but  his  efforts  proved  to  be  unavailing.  The  next 
year  he  was  appointed  by  the  whole  body  of  the  settlers  and  lawful 
claimants  of  the  lands  granted  by  New  Hampshire  to  repair  to  Eng- 
land and  to  present  their  petitions  for  relief  to  the  King  in  Council. 
He  reached  London  early  in  February,  1767 ;  and  in  conjunction 
with  William  S.  Johnson,  then  in  London  as  an  agent  of  the  Colony 
of  Connecticut,  afterward  prominent  in  the  convention  that  framed 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  with  the  aid  also  of  the 
"  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  in  Foreign  Parts,"  he  so 
far  procured  the  ear  of  the  Crown  that  Lord  Shelburne  addressed  a 
letter  to  the  Governor  of  New  York,  forbidding  him  in  the  most  posi- 
tive terms  from  making  any  new  grants  of  lands  in  the  disputed 
territory,  and  from  molesting  any  person  in  possession  under  a  New 
Hampshire  title.  Upon  a  later  hearing  before  the  King  in  Council, 
an  Order  in  Council  was  passed  prohibiting  the  Governor  of  the  Prov- 
ince of  New  York  in  the  most  positive  terms,  "under  pain  of  his 
Majesty's  highest  displeasure,"  from  making  any  such  new  grants. 
While  Captain  Robinson  was  still  prosecuting  the  business  of  his 
mission,  he  unfortunately  took  the  small-pox  and  died  in  London, 
Oct.  27,  1767.  In  communicating  the  intelligence  of  his  decease  to 
the  widow  a  few  days  later,  Mr.  Johnson  wrote:  — 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    BENNINGTON.  17 

He  is  much  lamented  by  his  friends  and  acquaintances,  which  were  many. 
You  may  rest  assured  no  care  or  expense  was  spared  for  his  comfort  and  to  save 
his  life,  had  it  been  consistent  with  the  designs  of  Providence.  After  his  death 
as  the  last  act  of  friendship  to  his  memory,  I  took  care  to  furnish  him  a  decent 
funeral,  at  which  General  Lyrnan  (who  knew  him  at  the  battle  of  Lake  George) 
and  other  gentlemen  from  America  attended  with  me  as  mourners.  He  is  in- 
terred in  the  burial  ground  belonging  to  Mr.  Whitefield's  church,  where  he 
usually  attended  public  worship. 

"  Bunhill  burial  Fields  "  holds  much  human  dust  dear  to  the  hearts 
of  Americans.  John  Bunyan,  Isaac  Watts,  and  George  Whitefield 
are  the  most  famous  names  whose  relics  mingle  with  common  earth 
in  that  particular  section  of  God's  sown  field.  But  the  name  of 
Samuel  Robinson,  the  true-hearted  in  war  and  peace,  founder  of 
Bennington,  will  be  forever  associated  in  some  minds  with  these 
men  of  genius  and  of  world-wide  fame,  and  many  another  American, 
like  the  present  writer  in  1861,  will  seek  within  that  sacred  enclosure 
for  an  unmarked  grave,  and  say  with  him,  What  matters  it  ?  His 
record  is  on  high. 

It  was  not  so  much  the  number  as  the  nature  of  the  rapidly 
increasing  population  of  Bennington  during  the  sixteen  years  prior 
to  the  one  great  event  in  its  history  that  has  made  and  will  ever 
make  that  name  memorable.  Scotch-Irish  people  of  the  great  emi- 
gration into  Massachusetts  of  1718  had  in  the  sixty  years  next 
following  diffused  themselves  widely  and  largely  over  central  and 
western  Massachusetts,  all  over  New  Hampshire,  and  into  the  dis- 
puted New  Hampshire  "  Grants."  An  eye  skilled  in  New  England 
history  since  that  date  can  usually  tell  on  sight  of  the  name  the 
men  of  that  heroic  blood,  in  distinction  from  the  more  common  Eng- 
lish names  derived  from  the  Pilgrims  and  the  Puritans  and  the  later 
English  immigrations ;  there  is  hanging  in  the  State  House  at  Con- 
cord. New  Hampshire,  an  ancient  parchment,  dating  from  1718, 
holding  the  names  of  313  Scotch-Irish  people  professing  their  readi- 
ness to  emigrate  to  Massachusetts  in  case  proper  encouragement  were 
given  to  that  end  by  Governor  Shute  ;  extended  lists  of  later  dates  of 
the  names  of  these  people  may  be  found  in  the  appendix  of  Parker's 
"History  of  Londonderry,  New  Hampshire,"  and  in  Lincoln's 
"History  of  Worcester,  Massachusetts,"  and  in  the  town  histories 
of  Coleraine,  Blandford,  and  many  more ;  so  that  men  of  that  strain 
of  blood  with  their  pretty  uniform  traits  of  push  and  pugnacity, 
conjoined  with  an  obstinate  conservatism,  may  be  pretty  certainly 
picked  out  in  contemporary  muster-rolls  and  petitions  and  deeds  of 
real  estate.  As  specimens,  merely,  there  may  be  culled  out  of  the 


18  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

earliest  records  of  Bennington,  James  Breakenridge,  Eobert  Cochran, 
Isaac  Clark,  Thomas  Henderson,  Josiah  Fuller,  Brotherton  Dagget, 
Joseph  Barber,  William  Henry. 

There  can  be  no  question  that  the  Bennington  people  fought  their 
battle  against  the  New  York  claimants  of  their  lands  all  the  better 
and  more  bravely  for  the  strong  presence  among  them  of  the  ever 
good-haters  of  this  peculiar  stock.  Lieutenant  James  Breakenridge 
took  the  first  brunt  of  the  fight  against  the  "  Yorkers."  The  Scotch- 
Irish,  however,  never  became  the  social  and  political  leaders  there 
like  the  Robinsons,  and  Saffords,  and  Deweys,  and  Harwoods.  If 
this  influence  be  plain  in  secular  things,  still  more  evident  is  the 
pervading  and  persistent,  even  if  not  predominent,  control  of  these 
Scotch-Irish  Presbyterians  in  and  over  the  first  church  in  Benning- 
ton, continuing  in  effect  more  or  less  down  till  the  present  day. 
When  the  settlers  on  the  "  Grants  "  had  occasion  to  call  for  the  help 
of  New  Hampshire  in  their  greater  struggle  against  General  Bur- 
goyne  when  he  was  boring  his  military  way  down  the  Hudson  in 
1777,  John  Stark,  a  Scotch-Irishman,  was  appointed  by  that  colony 
to  head  the  succors  freely  sent,  more  than  half  of  whose  forces,  vol- 
unteer militiamen  of  New  Hampshire,  were  of  that  same  strain  of 
blood.  Colonel  Baum  on  his  way  to  the  Walloomsac  reported  the 
names  of  five  prisoners  he  had  taken  on  the  13th  of  August, — George 
Duncan,  David  Starrow,  Samuel  Bell,  Matthew  Bell,  and  Hugh 
Moore.  He  calls  them  "rebels."  Every  one  of  these  was  a  Scotch- 
Irishman.  It  must  not  be  supposed,  however,  that  the  whole  of 
these  people  then  dwelling  in  New  England  took  sides  with  the 
"  rebels  "  in  the  Revolutionary  War ;  on  the  contrary,  their  natural 
and  sometimes  unreasonable  adherence  to  the  status  quo  led  some  of 
them  to  cleave  to  the  cause  of  the  King ;  there  were  desertions  from 
Stark's  brigade  as  the  different  detachments  crossed  the  Green  Moun- 
tains to  the  westward ;  its  nominal  strength  when  mustered  at  Ben- 
nington on  the  14th  of  August  (Thursday)  was  1332  privates,  but  one 
company  had  been  left  at  the  general  rendezvous,  No.  4,  now  Charles- 
town,  New  Hampshire,  two  companies  on  the  mountains  crossed,  and 
all  three  of  the  detachments  were  weakened  by  sickness  and  desertion, 
so  that  General  Schuyler  estimated  Stark's  own  force  at  Bennington 
"  at  700  or  800  men."  He  was  joined  by  two  full  companies  of  Ben- 
nington men,  whose  names  are  happily  extant  on  official  muster- 
rolls,  and  by  at  least  500  men  from  northern  Berkshire,  all  whose 
names  are  on  appropriate  rolls  in  the  archives  at  Boston,  except  the 
men  from  North  Williamstown,  who,  as  defending  in  the  battle  of 
Bennington  their  own  homes  directly  with  their  beloved  Colonel,, 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   BENNINGTON.  19 

who  commanded  all  the  men  from  Berkshire  in  the  battle,  put  in 
no  claim  for  pay  as  militiamen  of  the  Colony,  and  so  honorably 
missed  the  chance  of  honorable  mention  by  name  to  posterity. 
Scarcely  a  roll  in  all  this  series  in  which  the  present  writer  cannot 
confidently  detect  the  names  of  one  or  more  Scotch-Irishmen  of  New 
England. 

At  the  dedication  of  the  Bennington  Battle  Monument  on  the  19th 
of  August,  1891,  the  orator  of  the  occasion,  Edward  J.  Phelps,  said 
of  the  battle,  "  Its  story,  imperfectly  preserved,  comes  down  to  us 
only  in  flashes,  but  they  are  flashes  of  glorious  light."  The  con- 
temporary records  are  indeed  comparatively  meagre,  though  they 
contain  everything  that  is  central  and  essential  in  the  story ;  while 
it  is  certainly  characteristic  of  the  battle  that  interesting  and  even 
important  details  came  to  light  from  time  to  time  for  more  than  a 
century  after  the  battle  was  fought.  As  one  example  of  this,  James 
D.  Butler,  then  a  minister  in  Vermont  and  since  a  distinguished  an- 
tiquarian in  Madison,  Wisconsin,  as  preparatory  to  an  address  he 
had  been  selected  to  give  on  one  of  the  anniversaries  of  the  battle 
many  years  ago  at  Bennington,  sought  personal  interviews  with  sev- 
eral of  the  then  surviving  participators  in  the  fight,  whose  memories 
were  clear,  and  who  thus  contributed  personal  and  important  facts 
to  make  Butler's  address  the  most  significant  one  out  of  a  long  series 
of  excellent  ones.  As  another  example  of  the  same  feature  of  this 
battle,  it  has  only  been  generally  known  since  its  Centennial,  that 
one  of  the  detachments  of  Stark's  New  Hampshire  troops  started 
from  Lebanon  directly  opposite  what  is  now  White  River  Junction, 
from  the  homestead  of  Captain  Richard  Kimball,  still  standing  intact 
in  this  year  of  Grace,  1894.  For  some  reason  the  Kimball  family 
kept  the  fact  sacred  from  type  or  manuscript  that  their  house,  over- 
looking at  once  the  flowing  Connecticut  and  the  mouths  of  the  White 
and  Mascoma  rivers,  was  the  rendezvous  of  Stark's  volunteers  from 
all  northern  New  Hampshire ;  and  that  these  did  not  start  to  cross 
the  river  in  order  to  cross  the  mountains  till  some  time  after  Stark 
himself,  getting  impatient  at  the  next  main  rendezvous  four  towns 
below,  namely,  at  old  No.  4,  now  Charlestown,  had  gone  fuming 
on  before  to  Manchester,  Vermont,  where  he  consulted  with  and 
reenforced  Colonel  Seth  Warner,  then  in  command  of  a  Conti- 
nental regiment,  and  hastened  on  to  Bennington,  which  he  reached 
August  9th. 

Bennington  had  been  named  by  Stark  at  the  outset  of  the  cam- 
paign as  the  general  mustering-place  of  all  parts  of  his  brigade,, 
which  he  enlisted  and  commanded,  under  the  direct  authority  of  the 


20  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

Colony  of  New  Hampshire,  and  not  at  all  under  Continental  author- 
ity. General  Schuyler,  then  commanding  the  Northern  Department 
with  headquarters  at  Stillwater,  sent  an  officer  to  conduct  Stark  and 
his  levy  to  headquarters.  Stark  very  properly  refused  to  budge  an 
inch,  alleging  that  he  had  been  appointed  Brigadier-General  by  New 
Hampshire  for  the  purpose  of  defending  New  Hampshire  people 
then  settled  on  the  Grants,  and  that  his  men  had  been  enlisted  and 
rendezvoused  under  those  express  terms,  which  left  it,  however, 
discretionary  with  himself  to  act  independently  or  subordinately. 
Schuyler  was  annoyed  at  Stark's  decision,  and  complained  to  Con- 
gress of  what  the  latter  immediately  resolved  was  "  insubordination 
and  highly  prejudicial  to  the  common  cause  at  this  crisis " ;  but 
Schuyler  was  too  good  a  patriot  and  too  good  a  soldier  not  to  avail 
himself  of  every  possible  cooperation,  .under  whatever  terms  prof- 
fered, and  he  soon  opened  a  cordial  correspondence  with  Stark,  who 
detailed  to  him  his  local  plan  of  operations,  which  the  General 
approved,  and  for  which  Burgoyne  himself  soon  furnished  the 
desired  opportunity. 

Three  rude  routes  through  the  woods  had  been  opened  during  the 
last  French  and  Indian  wars,  from  the  Connecticut  River  over  the 
Green  Mountains  to  Ticonderoga  and  Crown  Point.  All  three  of 
these  came  handy  to  General  Stark.  After  Fort  Dummer  was  built 
in  1724,  Massachusetts  sold  goods  there  cheaper  than  the  French 
sold  corresponding  goods  in  Canada,  and  hence  a  brisk  Indian  trade 
across  the  highlands  of  Vermont,  the  Indians  crossing  and  recrossing 
Otter  Creek  at  what  is  now  Centre  Rutland,  from  and  back  to  Lake 
Champlain.  Three  times  in  the  course  of  1759  brave  sights  were 
seen  at  the  same  ford  of  the  Creek :  (1)  Eight  hundred  New  Hamp- 
shire troops,  with  axes  and  shovels  and  hoes,  cutting  down  trees  and 
levelling  hummocks,  and  making  a  military  road  from  Charlestown 
(old  No.  4)  to  Crown  Point,  the  better  to  cooperate  with  General  Am- 
herst,  then  on  his  way  to  the  conquest  of  Canada ;  (2)  soon  after, 
four  hundred  fat  cattle  in  five  droves,  passing  over  this  new  road 
to  diminish  (if  possible)  the  scurvy  in  the  great  garrison  at  Crown 
Point;  and  (3)  Major  Robert  Rogers,  ranger  and  forester,  on  his 
return  from  the  exploit  of  destroying  the  Indian  village  of  St.  Fran- 
cis on  the  St.  Lawrence,  and  now  on  his  way  to  rejoin  Amherst  at 
Crown  Point.  Over  this  road  eighteen  years  later  passed  Stark  him- 
self and  one  detachment  of  his  brigade,  from  Charlestown  to  Rut- 
land and  thence  south  to  Manchester  and  Bennington.  We  know 
less  about  the  origin  and  conditions  in  1777  of  the  more  northern 
path  from  Lebanon  up  the  White  River  and  one  of  its  branches,  and 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    BENNINGTON.  21 

so  over  the  watershed  to  Otter  Creek.  Lebanon  and  Rutland  are 
on  the  same  parallel  of  latitude.  Indeed,  it  is  not  certain  that  the 
Lebanon  contingent  passed  over  the  mountains  in  that  way.  It  is 
perhaps  probable,  but  it  is  by  no  means  certain.  The  remarkable  tra- 
dition in  the  family  of  Captain  Richard  Kimball  of  Lebanon,  already 
referred  to,  is  to  the  effect  that  that  contingent  went  down  the  valley 
on  the  east  side  of  the  mountains,  and  crossed  over  them  not  far  from 
Bennington,  having  tramped  more  than  a  hundred  miles  with  scarcely 
any  rest,  and  having  arrived  just  in  the  nick  of  time.  If  this  were 
so,  they  must  have  availed  themselves,  in  part  at  least,  of  the  old 
Indian  path  from  Fort  Dummer  up  the  West  River  and  over  the 
ridge  to  the  head  waters  of  the  Batten  Kill  or  of  the  Walloomsac. 
The  first  of  these  passes  would  have  brought  this  detachment  directly 
to  Manchester,  where  Stark  first  mustered  his  men,  he  himself  with 
a  part  of  his  levy  having  just  come  up  the  Otter  Creek  from  what  is 
now  Centre  Rutland.  What  is  certain  is  this,  that  Stark  left  two 
of  his  companies  of  New  Hampshire  men  on  the  Green  Mountain 
summit,  presumably  at  two  different  places  on  the  ridge,  as  a  guard 
and  reserve ;  and  what  is  altogether  probable  is  that  one  of  these 
detached  companies  was  left  on  the  central  route  and  old  military 
road  from  Charlestown  to  the  Otter  Creek  over  which  the  General 
himself  passed,  and  that  the  other  company  was  detached  from  the 
men  starting  from  Lebanon,  whether  they  crossed  the  watershed  by 
the  more  northern  or  more  southern  pass.  One  interesting  fact,  at 
any  rate,  in  relation  to  this  Lebanon  contingent  is  perfectly  authen- 
tic. "  Old  Priest  Potter,"  as  he  was  popularly  known  up  and  down 
the  middle  Connecticut,  a  graduate  of  Harvard  College,  standing  six 
feet  two  in  his  stockings,  in  1777  pastor  of  the  church  in  Lebanon, 
which  was  the  first  town  settled  on  the  Connecticut  above  old  No.  4, 
or  Charlestown,  volunteered  to  become  chaplain  of  the  contingent 
gathered  there  and  to  accompany  it  to  Bennington,  on  condition  that 
he  be  allowed  to  carry  a  musket  and  to  fight  as  well  as  preach  and 
pray.  He  was  present  at  one  or  more  of  the  councils  of  war  preced- 
ing the  battle  and  reported  them  to  Captain  Richard  Kimball,  who, 
though  with  a  company,  was  on  duty  elsewhere  just  before  the  battle, 
—  perhaps  in  command  of  the  reserve  left  upon  the  ridge  above. 
A  successor  in  Potter's  church  at  Lebanon  was  Rev.  Phineas 
Cooke,  a  graduate  of  Williams  in  1803,  who  stood  six  feet  six  inches 
high,  and  who  was  commonly  called  in  that  region,  within  the  writer's 
remembrance,  the  "  high  priest  of  New  Hampshire." 

We  must  go  back  now  in  place  from  Bennington  and  its  vicinity  to 
Williamstown  and  its  vicinity,  and  in  time  from  the  late  summer  of 


22  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

1777  to  the  early  spring  of  1775;  we  are  not  giving  ourselves  in 
these  pages  to  general  history,  nor  shall  we,  but  only  to  local  events 
in  their  direct  bearing  upon  what  is  broader  and  more  national ;  and 
the  writer  is  mistaken,  unless  we  find  more  and  more,  that  the  com- 
paratively restricted  area  between  the  head  waters  of  the  Deerfield 
River  on  the  eastern  slopes  of  the  Hoosac  and  Green  mountains  and 
the  stretch  of  the  North  River  corresponding  in  latitude,  enclosing 
the  entire  valleys  of  the  Hoosac  and  Walloomsac  and  the  Batten  Kill 
with  the  basins  as  well  of  Lake  George  and  of  Champlain  from 
Whitehall  to  Crown  Point,  exhibits  foresight  and  courage  and  per- 
sistence, —  plans  and  deeds  as  well  in  peace  as  in  war,  —  well  worthy 
of  the  pen  of  the  historical  chronicler. 

What  were  the  causes  of  the  American  Re  volution  ?  And  why 
did  these  so  simultaneously  and  effectively  act  upon  the  men  of 
Berkshire  particularly  of  William stown,  the  men  of  southern  Ver- 
mont particularly  of  Bennington,  and  the  men  of  New  Hampshire 
particularly  of  the  Scotch-Irish  region  where  dwelt  John  Stark  and 
most  of  his  enlisted  men?  Bancroft  says,  "The  American  Revo- 
lution,  like  the  great  rivers  of  the  country,  had  many  sources,  but 
the  head  spring  which  colored  all  the  stream  was  the  Navigation 
Act."  The  Navigation  Act  had  long  forbidden  the  English  colonists 
in  America  to  import  or  export  or  carry  British  or  foreign  or  colonial 
merchandise  upon  other  than  English-built  bottoms,  whereof  the 
master  and  three-fourths  of  the  crew  were  English  subjects  (not 
colonists).  Some  few  relaxations  in  the  strenuousness  of  this 
abominable  law,  which  embodied  every  feature  of  "  Protectionism  " 
whenever  and  wherever  applied ;  and  later  an  ignoring  of  its  stricter 
terms  by  British  officials  through  bribery  direct  or  indirect,  and  a 
persistent  disregard  of  them  by  colonial  merchants  and  carriers; 
had  enabled  the  New  England  colonists  (always  fond  of  the  sea)  to 
develop  a  very  considerable  and  profitable  commerce  with  Europe, 
and  particularly  with  the  West  Indies.  The  year  1765,  which  was 
the  year  df  the  incorporation  of  Williamstown,  witnessed  on  the  part 
of  the  Parliament  of  Great  Britain  a  determination  to  reapply  to  the 
commercial  colonists  of  America  in  all  their  original  stringency 
the  terms  of  the  Navigation  Act,  and  also  witnessed  the  passage  of 
the  Stamp  Act,  the  principle  of  which  was  the  same  as  that  of  the 
other,  namely,  to  get  something  for  nothing  under  the  disguise  of  a 
true  trade,  whose  principle  is  something  for  something  to  the  mutual 
advantage  of  both  parties.  The  pretence  of  Britain  in  both  cases  was 
to  compel  the  colonists,  who  had  been  admittedly  benefited  by  the 
great  Peace  of  1763,  to  pay  a  part  through  taxation  by  Parliament  of 


WILLIAMSTOWN    AND   BENNINGTON.  23 

the  immense  expenses  of  the  great  War  that  had  led  up  to  that  Peace. 
The  Americans  justly  retorted  in  effect,  that,  if  they  had  not  already 
borne  their  full  share  of  the  costs  of  the  War,  as,  for  example,  by 
the  capture  of  Louisburg  and  in  the  battle  of  Lake  George,  the  best 
and  only  way  for  them  to  contribute  further  to  the  prosperity  of 
Britain  and  to  their  own  prosperity,  was  by  an  unrestricted  com- 
merce with  Britain  and  with  the  rest  of  the  world  as  they  might 
choose,  —  a  commerce  enriching  both  parties  to  it  by  the  very  neces- 
sities of  its  nature  !  "  No  taxation  without  representation  "  was  the 
form  the  dispute  took  on,  but  the  substance  of  it  from  first  to  last 
was  the  "self-evident"  and  inalienable  Eight  of  men  to  buy  and 
sell  and  get  gain  !  When  Jefferson  came  to  voice  the  American  view 
in  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  he  held,  and  the  whole  country 
unanimously  held  with  him,  that  the  Eight  of  all  men  to  Life,  Lib- 
erty, and  the  Pursuit  of  Happiness  was  Self-Evident.  It  did  not  need 
to  be  proved,  it  was  self-evident.  The  cause  of  the  American  Revo- 
lution was  the  ever  blessed  cause  of  Free  Trade.  That  cause  united 
the  Colonies  without  an  exception  in  the  Declaration  of  Indepen- 
dence. It  united  a  very  considerable  majority  of  the  colonists  in  a 
long  and  costly  war ;  and  when  that  war  was  ended  in  an  indestruc- 
tible Union  of  indestructible  States,  absolute  Free  Trade  prevailed 
as  between  them  and  all  the  rest  of  the  world,  save  Great  Britain 
only. 

It  was  scarcely  a  process  of  reasoning  that  brought  our  fathers 
into  the  Revolutionary  War,  and  kept  them  in  it  through  enormous 
deprivations  and  sufferings  till  its  glorious  ending;  it  was  a  direct 
sense  of  wrong  suffered  at  the  hands  of  the  mother  country,  in  for- 
bidding them  to  build  their  own  ships  and  to  sail  them  for  a  profit 
wherever  in  their  judgment  a  profit  was  to  be  found,  and  also  in  put- 
ting huge  obstacles  through  the  Stamp  Act  to  the  free  buying  and 
selling  of  lands,  and  all  other  valuables  as  between  localities  and  in- 
dividuals at  home.  "No  taxation  without  representation,"  while  it 
was  a  sound  political  truth  and  had  a  wide  discussion  on  both  sides 
the  ocean,  was  such  a  generalization  from  particulars  as  never  moves 
the  masses  of  men  to  prompt  and  perilous  and  persistent  action.  It 
was  the  particulars  themselves,  namely,  that  they  were  losing  every 
day  and  liable  to  lose  altogether  through  artificial  and  parliamentary 
prohibitions,  the  best  markets  for  their  own  products  of  every  kind ; 
their  most  natural  and  therefore  the  most  profitable  fields  of  activity 
in  ship-building  and  all  other  arts  of  navigation;  and  even  their 
domestic  buyings  and  sellings  also  through  the  legal  necessity  of 
purchasing  expensive  stamps,  in  order  to  make  valid  the  ordinary 


24  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

contracts  of  sale  and  delivery,  of  loans  and  collections.  There  were 
other  Acts  of  Parliament  grievous  to  the  colonist  in  the  decade 
1765-75,  but  these  were  the  central  ones,  that  came  home  to  every- 
body's sense  of  injustice,  and  to  a  loss  in  every  man's  pocket  actual 
and  prospective.  It  was  felt  grievances,  and  not  merely  high-handed 
violations  of  well-grounded  political  and  economical  principles,  that 
drove  our  fathers  into  revolution  and  independence. 

This  point  is  of  great  importance  as  explaining  the  readiness  of 
the  farmers  and  artisans  of  New  England  to  enlist  as  patriots  in  the 
military  service  against  Great  Britain.  They  entered  largely  into 
combinations  also  to  go  without  the  use  of  tea  and  other  foreign 
products,  of  which  the  mother  country  insisted  on  being  the  sole 
carriers,  to  the  artificial  and  considerable  enhancement  of  their  price 
to  the  colonists ;  and  they  agreed  too  with  one  another  to  go  without 
the  use  of  British  manufactures  so  far  as  they  could,  because  the 
British  policy  of  Protectionism  as  applied  in  the  colonies,  was  so 
deadly  hostile  to  the  incipient  manufactures  of  the  latter,  and, 
indeed,  to  their  every  commercial  exportable.  In  short,  Protection- 
ism wrought  then  its  usual  and  universal  mischiefs,  —  just  as  it  has 
wrought  them  on  a  prodigious  scale  in  the  United  States  during  the 
last  thirty  years,  1864-1894;  namely,  enhanced  in  price  almost 
everything  the  people  have  had  to  buy,  and  at  the  same  time  dimin- 
ished in  price  almost  everything  they  have  had  to  sell.  Without 
some  such  palpable  and  widespread  and  impoverishing  cause  as  this, 
the  peaceable  and  industrious  and  previously  prosperous  colonists  in 
New  England  would  not  have  abandoned  their  farms  and  shops 
and  stores  to  go  into  a  seemingly  desperate  contest  with  England, 
which,  with  their  help,  had  just  before  put  an  end  to  New  France  in 
America. 

The  first  offensive  and  successful  military  movement  against 
England  in  the  Revolutionary  War  had,  in  a  certain  sense,  its  seat 
and  centre  in  Williamstown  and  Bennington.  John  Brown,  a  young 
lawyer  of  Pittsfield,  had  been  appointed  by  Samuel  Adams  and 
Joseph  Warren,  the  Boston  Committee  of  Safety,  in  February,  1775, 
an  emissary  to  Canada  to  obtain  information  of  the  state  of  that 
province,  and  to  endeavor  to  counteract  any  unfriendly  efforts  in 
that  quarter.  Brown  passed  through  Williamstown  and  Benning- 
ton, and  held  consultations  with  the  patriots  in  both  places,  espe- 
cially in  the  latter,  which  furnished  him  for  his  journey  northward 
a  guide  and  assistant  in  the  experienced  person  of  Peleg  Sunderland. 
Brown  wrote  from  Montreal  on  March  29,  to  Adams  and  Warren  a 
letter,  which  closed  as  follows  :  — 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   BENNINGTON.  25 

One  thing  I  must  mention  to  be  kept  a  profound  secret.  The  fort  at  Ticon- 
deroga  must  be  seized  as  soon  as  possible  should  hostilities  be  committed  by  the 
king's  troops.  The  people  on  the  New  Hampshire  Grants  have  engaged  to  do 
the  business,  and  in  my  opinion  are  the  most  proper  persons  for  this  job.  This 
will  effectually  curb  this  province  [Canada],  and  all  the  troops  that  may  be 
sent  here. 

Benedict  Arnold,  then  of  New  Haven,  had  in  the  meantime 
spoken  to  Samuel  H.  Parsons,  then  a  member  of  the  Connecticut 
Assembly,  of  the  importance  and  feasibility  of  the  capture  of  the 
fortress  and  of  his  own  desire  to  attempt  it.  Shortly  after,  Mr. 
Parsons  and  five  other  gentlemen  of  Hartford,  for  the  sake  of 
secrecy  and  despatch  and  without  communicating  their  purpose  to 
the  Assembly  then  in  session,  obtained  from  the  colony  treasury,  on 
their  personal  obligations,  £300  to  be  used  in  the  undertaking. 
This  was  on  Friday,  the  28th  of  April.  The  same  day  two  Hart- 
ford men  were  despatched  with  the  money  to  the  northward,  and 
the  next  day  six  others  to  accompany  them.  At  Pittsfield  those 
were  joined  by  John  Brown  (just  returned  from  Canada)  and  Colonel 
James  Easton,  and  messengers  were  sent  thence  to  Bennington  to 
engage  Colonel  Ethan  Allen  in  the  enterprise  with  his  easily  to  be 
enlisted  men  on  the  Grants.  Money  makes  the  mare  go;  and  the 
£300  in  the  hands  of  the  Connecticut  men,  now  increased  to  sixteen 
in  number,  so  pushed  on  the  enterprise  from  behind  that  Colonel  Eas- 
ton had  little  difficulty  in  enlisting  forty-one  men  in  Williamstown 
and  Hancock,  and  Colonel  Allen  a  much  larger  number  on  the  Grants. 
On  Wednesday,  the  3d  of  May,  all  these  enrolled  men  were  in  Ben- 
nington, amounting  to  nearly  two  hundred ;  when  it  was  agreed  that 
Colonel  Allen  should  be  in  command  of  the  entire  party.  On  Sunday 
evening,  the  7th  of  May,  all  were  at  Castleton,  the  place  of  rendez- 
vous, only  a  little  more  than  twenty  miles  from  Ticonderoga.  On 
Monday  a  council  of  war  was  held,  of  which  Captain  Mott  of  Con- 
necticut was  chairman,  at  which  it  was  decided  that  Captain  Her- 
rick  of  the  Grants  with  thirty  men  should  take  Major  Skene  of 
Skenesborough  (now  Whitehall)  into  custody  as  a  well-known  Tory, 
and  that  the  remainder  should  proceed  to  the  lake  shore  opposite 
Ticonderoga,  cross  over  in  boats  prearranged  to  be  brought  there, 
and  attack  the  fort  by  surprise.  Allen  was  to  be  and  was  first  in 
command,  Easton  second,  and  Captain  Seth  Warner  the  third,  they 
ranking  according  to  the  number  of  men  they  had  respectively 
raised  for  the  exploit. 

In  the  meantime  Benedict  Arnold,  intelligent  and  patriotic  and 
ambitious  and  restless,  had  taken  a  commission  from  the  Massa- 


26  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

chusetts  Committee  of  Safety,  dated  the  3d  of  May,  in  terms  as 
follows :  — 

To  Benedict  Arnold  Esq.  Commander  of  a  body  of  Troops  on  an  Expedition  to 
subdue  and  take  possession  of  the  Fort  of  Ticonderoga. 

Sir :  Confiding  in  your  Judgment,  fidelity  and  Valor,  we  do  by  these  Presents 
constitute  and  appoint  you  Colonel  and  Commander  in  Chief  over  a  Body  of 
Men  not  exceeding  four  hundred,  to  proceed  with  all  expedition  to  the  Western 
parts  of  this  and  the  neighboring  Colonies,  where  you  are  directed  to  enlist 
those  Men  and  with  them  forthwith  to  march  to -the  Fort  at  Ticonderoga  and 
use  your  best  endeavors  to  reduce  the  same,  taking  possession  of  the  Cannon, 
Mortars,  Stores,  and  also  the  vessel  and  other  Cannon  and  Stores  upon  the 
Lake  ;  you  are  to  bring  back  with  you  such  of  the  Cannon  and  Mortars,  Stores, 
&c.,  as  you  shall  judge  may  be  serviceable  to  the  Army  here  [Cambridge],  leav- 
ing behind  what  may  be  necessary  to  secure  the  Post  with  a  sufficient  Garrison. 
You  are  to  secure  suitable  Provisions  and  Stores  for  the  Army,  and  draw  upon 
the  Committee  of  Safety  for  the  amount  thereof,  and  to  act  in  every  exigence 
according  to  your  best  skill  and  discretion  for  the  publick  Interest  —  for  which 
this  shall  be  your  sufficient  Warrant. 

BENJA  CHURCH  Jun'r, 

By  Order,  Chairman  Com'tee  of  Safety. 

WILLIAM  COOPER,  Setfy. 

It  is  said  in  Sparks's  "  Biography  of  Ethan  Allen,"  and  also  in  his 
"  Life  and  Treason  of  Benedict  Arnold,"  in  Hall's  "  Early  History  of 
Vermont,"  and  in  many  another  good  book  of  History,  as  these  are, 
that  Arnold,  in  accordance  with  these  instructions,  proceeded  to  Stock- 
bridge,  where  he  had  but  just  begun  to  enlist  men  for  his  enterprise, 
when  he  heard  that  a  party  from  Connecticut  and  from  Berkshire  had 
already  preceded  him  upon  the  same  errand,  whereupon  he  started  at 
once  to  overtake  them.  This  is  a  very  considerable  error  in  statement. 
Arnold  did  not  go  within  forty  miles  of  Stockbridge  upon  this  occa- 
sion. There  lies  open  before  the  writer  at  the  present  moment  an 
exact  transcript  of  the  original  Bill  of  Expenses  presented  by  Arnold 
to  the  Provincial  Congress  of  Massachusetts  for  what  he  calls  his 
"  Disbursements  from  Cambridge  to  Ticonderoga."  This  document 
has  never  before  the  present  time  been  used  for  historical  purposes. 
It  was  rendered  by  Arnold  in  connection  with  several  letters  to  the 
same  authorities,  the  first  of  which  was  sent  on  the  llth  of  May, 
the  day  after  the  capture  of  the  fortress,  "  per  express,"  as  Arnold 
says  in  a  later  letter  dated  the  14th.  This  bill  of  items  from  the 
4th  to  the  20th  of  May  is  here  given  entire,  because  it  settles  forever 
the  question  of  the  route  he  took,  and  involves  the  settlement  of 
several  other  subordinate  questions. 


WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    BENNINGTON.  27 

THE  HONORABLE  PROVINCIAL  CONGRESS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS  BAY 

To  B.  ARNOLD,  Dr. 
Disbursements  from  Cambridge  to  Ticonderoga. 

1775  £     s.      d. 

May  4  —  To  shoeing  horses  on  the  road  -      8      - 

To  dinner,  horse  keeping  &c  at  Concord  -     15      3 

To  shoeing  horse  4s.  Qd.  ;  liquor,  2s.  8d.  -74 

To  supper  and  lodging  at  Shrewsbury  -     17       9 

5  _  To  breakfast  &c.  at  Hold  en  10s.  Wd. ;  dinners,  3s.  4d. ; 

suppers  and  lodging,  5s.  Qd.  -     19      8 

6  —  To  ferrage  at  Deerfield,  Is.  «d.  breakfast  2s.  2d.  3      8 

To  shoeing  horse,  5s.  5c?.  ;  ferrage,  Is.  4d.  -  6  9 

To  cash  paid  Capt.  Oswald  at  Shrewsbury,  expenses,  18  17  9 

To  cash  paid  Thomas  W.  Dickenson,  expenses  of  cattle,  6 

To  Captain  Brown's  bill  of  expence,  147 
To  dinner  arid  lodging,  4s.  Wd.  ;  paid  Nehemiah  Smed- 

ley  60s.  3  4  10 

7  —  To  dinners,  suppers  and  lodging  -  7  8 

8  —  To  dinners  &c.  -  6  - 
10  —  To  cash  paid  Captain  Warner,  expenses  to  Crown  Point,  -  18  - 

To  —  of  horses  5s.,  paid  the  Commissary  3s.  8 

13  —  TO  cash  paid  Sergt.  Anderson  12  gallons  rum  for  people        28- 

14  —  TO  ditto  paid  Mr.  Romans  for  expenses  to  Albany  and 

Hartford  2     16 

To  ditto  paid  William  Nichols  express  to  Hartford  44- 
To  ditto  paid  Lewis,  expenses  6s.  baking  bread  6s.  4d.  12      4 

To  ditto  paid  spy  for  intelligence  to  St.  Johns  18- 
To  expenses  on  the  road  to  St.  Johns  10 

To  Donihue's  bill  at  St.  Johns  219      6 

To  cash  paid  Lieut.  Lyman's  expenses  -      1       6 

To  Walson's  bills  8s.,  Lyman's  bill  of  expenses  8s.  3d.  -     16      3 
20  —  To  cash  paid  Capt.  Brown's  expenses  to  Cambridge  and 

back  8     18      8£ 
To  ditto  paid  Capt   Nineham,  an  Indian  Ambassador 

from  Stockbridge  to  Caunawauga  3     12 

When  Colonel  Arnold  turned  his  horse's  head  at  Concord  toward 
Deerfield,  along  the  present  line  of  the  Fitchburg  Railroad,  and  so 
toward  the  present  Hoosac  Tunnel  and  the  river  of  the  same  name 
beyond,  he  demonstrated  that  his  immediate  objective  was  Williams- 
town  and  not  Stockbridge.  He  reached  Williamstown  by  the  old 
Indian  Trail  over  the  Hoosac  Mountain  on  the  evening  of  the  third 
day  from  Cambridge. 

Besides  paying  for  dinner  and  lodging  for  himself  and  single 
companion,  he  also  paid  Nehemiah  Smedley  at  the  same  time  for 
"expenses,"  60s.  What  were  those  expenses?  Looking  back  over 


28  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

the  bill,  we  find  that  he  had  paid  cash  to  "Captain  Oswald  at 
Shrewsbury  expenses"  £18  17s.  9d.  Captain  Oswald  figured  a  little 
later  at  Ticonderoga.  Little  or  no  doubt  remains  that  Arnold,  not 
stopping  in  his  haste  to  enlist  men  himself  in  accordance  with  his 
instructions,  paid  money  to  others  to  enlist  them  and  bring  or  send 
them  northward  as  soon  as  possible.  Provision  was  made  at  Deer- 
field  to  have  men  enlisted,  and  Arnold  bought  there  (see  bill)  £6 
worth  of  cattle  of  Thomas  W.  Dickenson ;  and  we  know  from  other 
sources  that  T.  W.  Dickenson  and  his  younger  brother,  Consider 
Dickenson,  started  the  next  morning  to  drive  the  cattle  to  Ticon- 
deroga. This  little  transaction  was  well  known  and  well  remem- 
bered at  Deerfield;  for  more  than  one  hundred  years  afterward  the 
north  room  of  the  house,  which  was  then  an  old-fashioned  tavern 
kept  by  Talah  Barnard,  was  shown  to  strangers  as  the  place  where 
the  cattle-bargain  was  made,  and  whence  Arnold,  after  taking  a  glass 
of  spirit  (the  usual  accompaniment  of  bargains  completed),  mounted 
his  horse  and  rode  on  up  the  Deerfield  Elver  through  Charlemont  to 
and  over  the  mountain.  Joseph  White,  late  Treasurer  of  the  Col- 
lege, a  native  of  Charlemont,  told  the  writer  more  than  once  that  his 
grandfather  White,  who  was  at  Ticonderoga  as  a  soldier  in  less  than 
a  week  from  this  time  and  witnessed  some  of  the  unseemly  disputes 
there  between  Arnold  and  Allen,  used  to  tell  him  in  his  boyhood 
that  Allen  was  no  match  for  Arnold  in  these  contests,  —  "  he  hadn't 
got  no  grit,  Joe ! "  It  is  certain,  accordingly,  that  Colonel  Arnold  took 
such  steps  along  his  route  as  brought  many  Massachusetts  soldiers 
to  Ticonderoga  almost  as  soon  as  he  got  there  himself.  Indeed,  the 
Connecticut  committee  present  there  reported  to  the  Massachusetts 
Provincial  Congress  the  next  day  after  the  capture,  that  is,  May  11, 
that  there  were  then  at  Ticonderoga  16  men  from  Connecticut,  60 
from  Massachusetts,  and  140  from  the  New  Hampshire  Grants.  As 
Colonel  Easton  admittedly  took  up  to  Castleton  but  41  men  from  Wil- 
liamstown  and  Hancock,  some  20  must  have  been  added  to  these 
before  Thursday,  the  llth.  Where  did  they  come  from?  The 
present  writer  does  not  know  for  certain. 

Only  two  conjectures  are  plausible  —  scarcely  even  possible  —  to 
account  for  the  60  shillings  paid  to  Nehemiah  Smedley  in  the  lat- 
ter's  own  house  on  the  evening  of  the  6th  of  May  "for  expenses" 
over  and  above  the  "dinner  and  lodging"  4s.  10d.  Smedley  was 
then  an  officer  in  the  Williamstown  militia,  probably  captain,  a  rank 
he  certainly  held  a  few  months  after ;  and  with  one  or  two  excep- 
tions, he  was  the  most  prominent  and  influential  citizen  of  the  place. 
The  precedent  of  Captain  Oswald  at  Shrewsbury  makes  it  most 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    BENNINGTON.  29 

likely  that  the  "  expenses  "  in  both  cases  were  the  furnishing  and 
forwarding  of  volunteers  to  Ticonderoga.  It  is  true,  a  good  many 
had  already  gone  from  Williamstown,  but  it  is  also  true  that  that 
place  is  the  nearest  and  quickest  in  Massachusetts  to  the  then  objec- 
tive point.  This  supposition  also  best  accounts  for  the  increase  there 
of  twenty  Massachusetts  volunteers  by  the  following  Thursday, 
although  it  is  clearly  possible  that  men  might  have  reached  there 
from  Deerfield  and  Charlemont  through  Williamstown  in  the  inter- 
val between  Saturday  and  Thursday. 

But  the  only  other  reasonable  conjecture  must  not  be  passed  over 
in  silence.  Smedley  had  raised  the  house  in  which  he  then  lived, 
in  which  he  died  in  1789,  in  his  fifty-seventh  year,  and  which  is  still 
owned  and  occupied  by  one  of  his  lineal  descendants  (B.  F.  Bridges), 
Oct.  8,  1772.  It  was  the  second  two-story  house  ever  lifted  in 
Williamstown;  and  it  is  somewhat  remarkable  that  both  of  these 
are  still  standing  in  good  condition  as  the  nineteenth  century  is 
wearing  close  to  its  end.  Smedley  covered  his  frame  and  rafters  in 
a  substantial  manner,  finished  off  a  cellar-kitchen  into  which  he 
built  a  huge  stone  oven,  —  a  sight  to  behold  till  this  day,  —  and 
then,  as  the  war  clouds  began  to  lower,  said  to  his  children,  who  in 
turn  reported  it  to  theirs,  —  "  We  will  wait  now  and  see  who  is  going 
to  own  it."  When  Benedict  Arnold  lodged  and  dealt  under  that 
roof,  the  big  oven  in  the  basement  was  the  most  striking  thing 
beneath  it.  Arnold  had  bought  live  cattle  at  Deerfield  to  help  feed 
his  troops,  moving  and  in  garrison;  but  how  about  bread  for  the 
same  ?  Two  years  later,  to  our  certain  knowledge,  large  quantities 
of  bread  were  baked  in  that  oven  and  sent  to  Bennington  by  the 
hand  of  the  eldest  son,  Levi  Smedley,  who  lived  to  old  age  to  repeat 
the  tale,  to  feed  Captain  Smedley  and  his  military  company  the  day 
after  the  battle  of  Bennington.  What  was  there  to  hinder  the  sug- 
gestion and  completion  of  the  contract,  that  bread  should  be  baked 
in  that  oven  and  sent  to  the  northward  ?  Smedley's  broad  acres  on 
Green  River  were  by  that  time  growing  an  abundance  of  wheat.  He 
was  a  thrifty  and  forehanded  man.  The  relatively  small  sum  of 
£3  is  perhaps  more  consonant  with  a  trade  of  this  sort  than  with 
one  like  that  with  Captain  Oswald  at  Shrewsbury.  No  matter. 
Williamstown  contributed  in  men  and  other  means  liberally  to  the 
capture  of  Ticonderoga  and  the  holding  of  Lake  Champlain.  It 
must  have  been  at  Williamstown  that  Arnold  first  heard  of  the 
party  from  Connecticut  gone  on  before ;  and  without  any  doubt  he 
showed  his  commission  from  Massachusetts  to  Captain  Smedley, 
which  seemed  at  any  rate  to  give  him  a  right  to  command  any  volun- 


30  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

teers  raised  in  "  the  western  parts  of  this  and  the  neighboring  Colo- 
nies." The  detailed  information  received  here  would  naturally 
quicken  his  pace,  —  if  that  were  possible.  It  had  been  rapid  riding 
before,  involving  a  good  deal  of  horse-shoeing  "  on  the  road,"  as  is 
clearly  shown  on  the  bill. 

Smedley's  folks  kept  " Saturday  night"  in  accordance  with  the 
old  Connecticut  custom,  whence  he  had  come  some  twenty  years 
before,  but  that  did  not  keep  the  parties  from  business,  nor  from 
conning  busily  all  the  circumstances  of  the  case.  Smedley's  wife 
was  Mary  Harwood  from  Bennington.  Arnold  would  naturally  want 
to  know  all  about  the  roads  thither  and  beyond.  He  himself  cer- 
tainly made  good  time  that  Sunday  and  the  next  day,  for  before 
Monday  evening  he  had  overtaken  the  advance  party  at  Castleton, 
less  than  twenty-five  miles  short  of  Ticonderoga.  His  coming  was 
the  signal  for  great  confusion  in  Colonel  Alien's  camp.  Arnold  im- 
mediately and  stoutly  claimed  the  chief  command  by  virtue  of  his 
commission  from  the  Committee  of  Safety  of  Massachusetts,  which 
he  promptly  exhibited,  and  which,  while  indeed  it  directed  him  to 
enlist  his  men  in  "the  western  parts  of  this  and  the  neighboring 
Colonies,"  directed  him  also  "to  act  in  every  exigence  according  to 
your  best  skill  and  discretion  for  the  publick  Interest,  —  for  which 
this  shall  be  your  sufficient  Warrant."  Particularly  it  authorized 
him  to  take  "  possession  of  the  Cannon,  Mortars,  Stores,  and  also  the 
Vessel  and  other  Cannon  and  Stores  upon  the  Lake;  you  are  to 
bring  back  with  you  such  of  the  Cannon  and  Mortars,  Stores,  &c., 
as  you  shall  judge  may  be  serviceable  to  the  Army  here  [Cam- 
bridge], leaving  behind  what  may  be  necessary  to  secure  the  Post 
with  a  sufficieiit  garrison.  You  are  to  secure  suitable  Provisions 
and  Stores  for  the  Army,  and  draw  upon  the  Committee  of  Safety 
for  the  amount  thereof."  It  was  not  a  clear  military  question  by 
any  means  as  between  Colonel  Allen  and  Colonel  Arnold  at  Castleton; 
and  it  is  a  wonder  that,  with  such  disputed  claims  to  the  leader- 
ship, the  fortress  of  Ticonderoga  with  all  its  artillery  and  stores 
surrendered  at  discretion  thirty-six  hours  later. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  no  wonder  that  the  men  already  raised  for 
the  special  expedition  of  reducing  the  fortress  under  the  auspices  of 
Connecticut  men  and  money,  accompanied  by  prominent  men  from 
that  colony  who  styled  themselves  the  "  Committee  of  War,"  officered 
by  those  well  known  to  them,  who  had  actually  enlisted  them  for  a 
definite  purpose,  and  now  already  near  to  the  fort  to  be  attacked, 
should  refuse  to  be  placed  under  an  entire  stranger  coming  with  a 
commission  from  another  colony,  and  should  threaten  to  abandon  the 


WILLIAMSTOWN    AND   BENNINGTON.  31 

Expedition  in  a  body  and  return  to  their  homes,  in  case  the  com- 
mand were  to  be  transferred  to  Colonel  Arnold.  The  point  of  mili- 
tary rank  was  not  wholly  clear ;  colonial  jealousy  as  to  authority  and 
precedence  came  into  the  question ;  Arnold  insisted  on  his  claims 
with  warmth  and  pertinacity,  and  Massachusetts,  whose  commission 
he  bore,  was  coming  to  be  recognized  by  all  as  head  and  front  in  the 
present  quarrel  with  Britain ;  nevertheless,  by  the  determined  atti- 
tude of  the  rank  and  file  already  gathered  at  Castleton,  Arnold  was 
forced  to  yield  for  the  time  being.  Allen  himself  was  more  or  less 
concessive  both  then  and  later,  and  it  was  agreed  that  Arnold  should 
be  allowed  to  serve  as  a  volunteer,  but  without  any  special  command. 
So  the  march  was  resumed.  The  party  arrived  late  on  the  9th  of 
May  at  Shoreham,  nearly  opposite  the  fort  across  Lake  Champlain. 
The  prearrangements  made  for  boats  to  concentre  there  sufficient  to 
carry  the  whole  party  across  had  failed.  A  few  boats  were  gotten 
together  with  great  difficulty,  and  largely  through  the  efficiency  of 
Arnold,  who  was  well  acquainted  with  water  transportation,  and 
with  all  the  arts  of  navigation  as  then  practised.  Eighty-three  men 
crossed  over  with  Allen  and  Arnold.  The  boats  were  to  be  and  were 
sent  back  for  the  rest,  left  under  the  command  of  Captain  Seth  War- 
ner, but  the  day  was  already  beginning  to  dawn  when  the  first  party 
landed  just  below  the  fort ;  and  Allen  and  Arnold  agreed,  that  if  the 
reserve  were  waited  for,  the  fortress  could  not  be  taken  by  surprise. 
There  are  several  contemporary  written  accounts  of  what  imme- 
diately followed,  resulting  in  the  bloodless  capture  of  a  renowned 
fortress  by  a  mere  handful  of  determined  men  on  the  early  morning 
of  May  10,  1775.  One  of  these  and  the  first  one  printed,  the  data 
for  which  were  furnished  by  Colonel  Easton  of  Pittsfield,  is  so  mani- 
festly distorted  by  the  egregious  egotism  of  Easton  himself,  and  is 
so  flatly  contradicted  by  eye-witnesses,  and  by  the  subsequent  state- 
ments of  Captain  Delaplace,  the  British  commander  of  the  garrison  at 
the  time,  as  to  be  historically  worthless.  Easton's  good  name  went 
down  forever  under  his  lack  of  veracity  upon  this  occasion.  Ac- 
counts by  the  respective  partisans  of  Arnold  and  Allen  are  of  course 
somewhat  colored  by  that  circumstance,  while  the  following  contem- 
porary narration  signed  by  "  Veritas,"  which  was  written  indeed  with 
the  purpose  of  taking  the  wind  out  of  poor  Easton,  and  which  does 
not  probably  do  full  justice  to  Colonel  Allen  in  the  premises,  is  yet 
corroborated  in  all  its  main  particulars  by  eye-witnesses  favorable  to 
him.  The  simple  truth  of  history  is,  that  Allen  and  Arnold  both 
performed  their  parts  exceedingly  well  in  this  critical  transaction, 
and  neither  of  them  can  be  safely  praised  or  blamed  at  the  expense 


32  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

of  the  other.  Long  afterwards,  both  of  them  came  into  great  odium, 
Arnold  especially,  for  downright  treason  to  his  country ;  but  so  far 
as  the  capture  of  the  forts  Ticonderoga  and  Crown  Point  is  con- 
cerned, and  the  maintenance  for  the  then  present  of  the  new  power 
over  the  whole  of  Lake  Champlain,  there  is  abundant  credit  for  both 
of  them,  and  no  good  ground  for  the  disparagement  of  either  of  them. 

As  the  above  account  of  the  reduction  of  Ticonderoga,  which  from  its  com- 
plexion, I  suppose  originated  with  that  very  modest  gentleman  (Colonel  Easton} 
himself,  is  so  replete  with  falsehood,  and  is  so  great  an  imposition  on  the  pub- 
lick,  that  I  think  it  my  duty,  in  order  to  undeceive  the  publick,  and  to  do  justice 
to  modest  merit,  to  give  you  a  candid  detail  of  the  whole  matter,  for  the  truth 
of  which  I  appeal  to  every  officer  and  private  who  were  present,  which  is  as  fol- 
lows : 

Some  gentlemen  arrived  in  the  New  Hampshire  Grants  from  Connecticut, 
with  a  design  of  seizing  on  the  fortress  of  Ticonderoga  ;  were  there  joined  by  a 
number  of  men,  among  whom  were  Colonels  Allen  and  Easton;  the  former 
with  the  assistance  of  Captain  Warner,  collected  about  one  hundred  and  fifty 
men,  with  whom  they  marched  to  Castletown,  twenty  miles  from  Ticonderoga, 
where  they  left  Colonel  Easton,  and  proceeded  ten  miles  towards  Shoreham. 
The  next  day  Colonel  Arnold  arrived  at  Castletown  from  Cambridge.  Having 
concerted  in  a  similar  plan,  and  being  commissioned  by  the  Massachusetts  Con- 
gress to  raise  a  regiment,  he  proceeded  on  to  the  party  commanded  by  Colonel 
Allen.  When  Colonel  Arnold  make  known  his  commission,  &c.  it  was  voted  by 
the  officers  present  that  he  should  take  a  joint  command  with  Colonel  Allen, 
(Colonel  Easton  not  presuming  to  take  any  command.)  When  the  party  had 
marched  to  Shoreham,  ten  miles  on  the  lake  below  Ticonderoga,  where  they 
waited  for  batteaus  to  cross  the  lake,  until  midnight,  and  none  arriving,  Colonel 
Arnold,  with  much  difficulty,  persuaded  about  forty  men  to  embark  with  him  in 
a  batteau  accidentally  taken  there,  and  landed  about  half  a  mile  from  the  fort, 
and  immediately  sent  back  the  batteau,  which,  by  reason  of  a  violent  storm  of 
wind  and  rain,  did  not  return  till  break  of  day,  with  a  small  boat,  and  near  fifty 
men  in  both.  It  was  then  proposed  by  some  gentlemen  to  wait  open  day  and 
the  arrival  of  the  remainder  of  the  men,  which  amounted  at  that  time  to  near 
one  hundred.  This  Colonel  Arnold  strenuously  opposed,  and  urged  to  storm  the 
fort  immediately,  declaring  he  would  enter  it  alone,  if  no  man  had  courage 
enough  to  follow  him.  This  had  the  desired  effect ;  he,  with  Colonel  Allen, 
headed  the  party,  and  proceeded  directly  to  the  fort.  When  they  came  within 
about  ten  yards  of  the  gate,  the  sentry  discovered  them,  and  made  a  precipitate 
retreat.  He  was  pursued  closely  by  Colonel  Arnold,  who  was  the  first  person 
that  entered  the  fort,  and  Colonel  Allen  about  five  yards  behind  him.  This  I 
was  an  eye-witness  of,  being  only  a  few  yards  distant.  Colonel  Arnold  imme- 
diately ordered  the  men  to  secure  the  doors  of  the  barracks,  and  went  himself 
with  Colonel  Allen  to  the  commanding  officer,  Captain  Delaplace,  and  desired 
him  to  deliver  up  his  arms,  and  he  might  expect  to  be  treated  like  a  gentleman  ; 
which  he  immediately  complied  with,  as  did  the  whole  garrison. 

I  do  not  recollect  seeing  Colonel  Easton  until  nine  o'clock,  and  was  told  he 
was  the  last  man  that  entered  the  fort,  and  that  not  till  the  soldiers  and  their 


WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    BENNINGTON.  33 

anus  were  secured,  he  having  secured  himself  in  an  old  barrack  near  the  re- 
doubt, under  the  pretence  of  wiping  and  drying  his  gun,  which  he  said  had  got 
wet  in  crossing  the  lake ;  since  which  I  have  often  heard  Colonel  Easton,  in  a 
base  and  cowardly  manner,  abuse  Colonel  Arnold  behind  his  back,  though 
always  very  complaisant  before  his  face.  Colonel  Arnold  was  soon  made  ac- 
quainted with  the  liberty  he  had  taken  with  his  character  ;  and  upon  his  refus- 
ing to  give  proper  satisfaction,  I  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  him  heartily  kicked 
by  Colonel  Arnold,  to  the  great  satisfaction  of  a  number  of  gentlemen  present, 
although  he  (Easton)  was  armed  with  a  cutlass,  and  a  pair  of  loaded  pistols  in 
his  pocket.  I  am  your  humble  servant, 

VERITAS.1 

Who  was  this  "  Veritas  "  ?  The  perfect  clearness  and  the  tone 
of  candor  that  pervade  his  communication  from  start  to  finish 
demonstrate  that  he  did  not  belie  himself  in  his  signature.  If  he 
were  a  subordinate  officer  in  Colonel  Easton's  command,  there  were 
military  and  other  reasons  sufficient  to  justify  the  withholding  his 
own  proper  name.  All  he  says  about  himself  is  in  a  preparatory 
note  to  John  Holt,  then  publishing  a  patriot  newspaper  in  Norfolk, 
Virginia,  to  whom  he  sends  under  date  of  June  25,  1775,  "  the  fol- 
lowing erroneous  account  of  the  reduction  of  Ticonderoga,  which  was 
published  in  Mr.  Thomas'  Oracle  of  Liberty,  the  24th  of  May  last ; 
and  as  the  writer  of  the  account  which  follows  it  [the  clipping  sent] 
had  no  opportunity  of  seeing  it  till  very  lately,  he  being  up  at  the 
forts  ever  since  they  were  taken,  he  could  not  contradict  it  sooner. 
I  beg,  therefore,  you  will  republish  it  in  your  next  journal,  together 
with  the  account  that  follows  it,  which  may  be  depended  on." 

The  present  writer  has  some  slight  reasons  (which  he  will  now 
share  with  the  reader)  for  concluding  that  the  writer  of  the  above 
account  may  have  been  Israel  Harris  of  Williamstown.  At  any 
rate,  the  account  squares  in  general  and  also  in  several  minute  par- 
ticulars with  what  Israel  Harris  in  his  old  age  (he  applied  for  a 
revolutionary  pension  in  1832)  was  accustomed  to  relate  to  two  of 
his  grandsons,  Professor  James  D.  Butler,  of  the  Wisconsin  Univer- 
sity, and  Eev.  Dr.  Jonathan  Harris  Noble,  long  of  Schaghticoke,  New 
York,  Williams  College,  1826,  both  of  whom  told  the  present  writer 
directly  what  they  had  often  heard  from  him.  His  detailed  applica- 
tion for  a  pension  is  now  on  file  at  Washington,  and  is  in  general 
corroborative  at  once  both  of  the  account  and  of  these  conversations. 
"One  of  his  most  interesting  oral  statements  was  that  he  himself  was 
the  third  man  in  the  single  file  to  enter  the  gate  at  Ticonderoga,  and 
that  only  Allen  and  Arnold  were  before  him.  Compare  with  this 
what  the  writer  of  the  above  account  says :  "  The  sentry  was  pur- 
1  See  American  Archives,  Fourth  Series,  2d  Vol.  p.  1086. 


34  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

sued  closely  by  Colonel  Arnold,  who  was  the  first  person  that  entered 
the  fort,  and  Colonel  Allen  about  five  yards  behind  him.  This  I  was 
an  eye-witness  of,  being  only  a  few  yards  distant." 

It  is  almost  certain  from  the  account  above  given,  that  the  writer 
of  it  was  a  Berkshire  man  and  well  acquainted  with  Colonel  Easton, 
who  would  naturally  have  been  among  the  first  to  enter  the  fort,  and 
whose  own  false  account,  the  first  published,  pretended  that  he  was 
among  the  first.  Captain  Delaplace,  the  British  commandant  of  the 
fort,  when  he  saw  afterwards  Easton's  account  of  its  capture,  pro- 
nounced its  particulars  "  to  be  totally  devoid  of  truth ;  for  I  sol- 
emnly declare  I  never  saw  Colonel  Easton  at  the  time  the  fort  was 
surprised,  nor  had  he  and  I  any  conversation  whatever  relative 
thereto,  then,  nor  at  any  other  time  since."  The  author  of  our 
account,  whoever  he  was,  knew  Easton  well,  and  believed  him  to 
be  a  coward  and  a  braggart  and  a  liar.  No  Green  Mountain  Boy 
would  have  had  occasion  to  know  him  so  well.  We  are  not  depen- 
dent alone  on  the  testimony  of  Israel  Harris's  grandsons  that  Harris 
was  among  those  who  "  entered  the  fortress  at  Ticonderoga  on  the 
morning  of  May  10."  He  himself  uses  those  very  words  in  his 
application  for  a  pension.  It  is  plain  from  all  the  accounts  that 
Allen  arranged  his  men  at  the  landing-place  in  three  files,  he  head- 
ing the  central  one,  and  Arnold  at  his  left  heading  another,  and  the 
Berkshire  men  making  up  the  right-hand  file ;  the  road  up  from  the 
landing  would  then,  and  will  now,  take  three  men  abreast ;  but  when 
they  had  almost  reached  the  narrow  gateway  of  the  fortress,  whose 
single  sentry  snapped  his  fusee  at  them  and  ran,  the  files  necessarily 
would  break  up  and  the  men  would  no  longer  stand  upon  the  order 
of  their  going.  They  were  all  alike  individual  volunteers,  nor  were 
they  arranged  in  any  strict  military  subordination  under  officers. 
The  rank  and  file  had  determined  at  Castleton  that  Ethan  Allen 
should  be  their  leader ;  Allen  and  the  Connecticut  civilians  present 
had  also  agreed  that  Arnold  should  have  the  rank  of  Colonel  in  the 
enterprise,  but  without  a  separate  command.  It  is  credible  and 
probable  and  as  nearly  certain  as  that  sort  of  historical  statements 
can  generally  be  made,  (1)  that  Colonel  Arnold  entered  the  fortress 
first  and  foremost ;  (2)  that  Colonel  Allen  entered  next,  in.  conscious 
and  conceded  command  of  the  party  ;  (3)  that  Israel  Harris  of  Wil- 
liamstown  and  the  author  of  the  above-quoted  account  (if  indeed  they 
be  not  the  same  person)  were  at  least  the  third  and  fourth  of  the 
party  to  follow.  So  much  rests  securely  on  the  contemporaneous 
testimony  of  eye-witnesses. 

But  posterity  is  indebted  to  Israel  Harris  alone  for  a  much  more 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    BENNINGTCXN".  35 

interesting  and  suggestive  piece  of  intelligence  in  connection  with 
the  taking  of  Ticonderoga  than  that  which  he  transmitted  as  to  the 
manner  and  order  of  entering  the  fortress.  Ethan  Allen  was  known 
in  his  day  and  generation  as  a  very  profane  and  rough-speaking  man ; 
and  many  persons  in  the  generations  since  have  wondered  that  such 
a  man,  on  the  spur  of  such  a  moment  of  excitement  and  personal 
triumph,  should  have  used  such  a  rotund  and  solemn  form  of  expres- 
sion as  his  demanding  the  surrender  of  the  fort,  —  "  In  the  name  of 
the  Great  Jehovah  and  the  Continental  Congress  !  "  —  especially  as 
the  Congress  had  not  then  assembled,  and  was  only  appointed  to 
assemble  upon  that  very  day.  The  authenticity  of  the  formal 
expression,  however,  is  confirmed,  and  the  consistency  of  the  man's 
speech  and  manner  at  the  same  time  maintained,  by  what  both  of 
Harris's  grandsons  have  told  the  writer  directly  from  him ;  namely, 
that  Allen's  first  exclamation  when  he  reached  the  stairs  that  led 
to  the  apartment  of  Delaplace,  the  commandant,  was,  "Get  out  of 
here,  you  damned  old  rat!"  Later,  when  Delaplace  appeared  half- 
dressed  at  his  door  and  demanded  the  authority  for  such  an  astound- 
ing interruption,  and  Allen  had  had  time  to  sober  down  to  realities, 
then  he  employed  the  famous  phrase  that  has  immortalized  his  name. 
Israel  Harris  was  born  in  Cornwall,  Connecticut,  Feb.  27,  1747. 
His  wife  was  Sarah  Morse.  Both  were  members  of  the  church  here 
in  1779,  when  the  first  extant  list  of  members  was  made  out.  Joseph 
Morse  was  a  brother  of  Mrs.  Harris,  and  so  probably  was  Clark 
Morse,  who  lived  and  wrought  as  a 'hatter  on  North  West  Hill. 
Harris's  military  record  as  a  soldier  and  officer  from  Williamstown 
throughout  the  Revolutionary  War  was  a  good  one  and,  more  than 
that,  he  passed  through  all  the  ranks  from  private  to  captain,  and 
possessed  the  confidence  of  Colonel  Simonds,  who  was  throughout 
his  military  superior,  and  at  whose  order  in  1779  he  commenced  to 
recruit  soldiers  here  for  the  regular  army.  When  the  war  was  over 
he  removed  to  Rutland,  Vermont,  where  he  became  one  of  the  original 
founders  and  members  of  the  church,  Oct.  5,  1788,  and  was  chosen 
deacon  in  1800.  He  removed  from  Rutland  to  South  Hartford, 
Washington  Co.,  New  York,  about  1808,  and  died  there  Nov.  28, 
1836,  in  his  ninetieth  year.  Joseph  Morse,  also  a  constant  soldier 
here  during  the  Revolution,  migrated  to  Rutland  and  died  there  at 
the  house  of  one  of  Harris's  daughters,  not  far  from  the  time  of  his 
own  death.  Clark  Morse's  old  hatter's  shop  on  North  West  Hill 
was  moved  down  by  oxen,  about  1815,  to  become  part  of  a  fulling- 
mill  on  Hemlock  Brook.  The  late  Deputy  Sheriff  John  R.  Bulkley, 
then  a  little  boy,  whose  father's  oxen  were  in  the  line,  ran  alongside 


36  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

with  the  rest  of  the  boys,  and  being  persuaded  by  Collins  Tallmadge 
to  take  quite  too  much  of  the  rum  (always  liberally  provided  on 
such  occasions),  was  carried  home  to  be  cured  by  a  method  which 
now  seems  queer  enough,  as  administered  by  a  woman  who  then 
worked  for  his  mother. 

Israel  Harris  together  with  most  of  those  first  enlisted  from  Han- 
cock and  Williamstown  and  Pownal  were  dismissed  from  Ticonde- 
roga  to  their  homes  a  few  days  after  the  capture,  as  Harris  himself 
tells  us.  Captain  Seth  Warner  with  a  small  party  took  Crown 
Point  also  by  surprise  two  days  after  Ticonderoga.  The  unseemly 
but  not  unnatural  disputes  between  Arnold  and  Allen,  renewed  and 
continued  at  the  latter  place,  were  quieted  down  for  the  time  by  a 
virtual  agreement  that  Arnold  should  command  at  Crown  Point  for 
his  important  and  successful  operations  to  the  northward  by  water 
(because  he  understood  navigation),  while  Allen  continued  in  com- 
mand at  Ticonderoga  until  he  was  superseded  by  Colonel  Hinman 
of  Connecticut,  which  colony  assumed  control  on  the  lake  until  the 
Continental  Congress  tardily  inaugurated  the  disastrous  expedition 
against  Canada.  Israel  Harris,  however,  almost  as  soon  as  he  got 
home  enlisted  as  orderly  sergeant  into  the  Williamstown  company 
commanded  by  Captain  Lemuel  Stewart,  Lieutenant  Ezekiel  Blair, 
and  Second  Lieutenant  Nathan  Smith.  This  company  was  enlisted 
for  six  months  and  was  attached  to  the  regiment  of  Massachusetts 
state  troops  commanded  by  Colonel  James  Easton  and  Major  John 
Brown  as  field  officers.  Easton  had  not  yet  lost  the  confidence  of 
his  contemporaries  at  Boston  and  Pittsfield,  and  John  Brown,  Berk- 
shire born  and  bred,  was  always  a  first-class  officer  till  he  was  killed 
in  the  Mohawk  Valley  in  one  of  the  last  campaigns  of  the  war. 
This  regiment  promptly  marched  from  Berkshire  to  Ticonderoga, 
and  with  three  other  regiments,  all  under  the  command  of  Brigadier 
General  Bichard  Montgomery,  commenced  building  boats  there  to 
carry  this  small  army  against  St.  Johns  as  a  part  of  the  expedition 
against  Canada.  In  August  the  regiments  embarked  for  St.  Johns, 
besieged  it  for  three  months  and  four  days,  and  Montgomery  re- 
ceived its  surrender  Dec.  4,  1775,  and  was  commissioned  major  gen- 
eral by  Congress  five  days  later.  Easton's  regiment,  their  time  of 
service  having  expired,  returned  home.  In  the  meantime  Benjamin 
Simonds  of  Williamstown  was  appointed  colonel  of  the  Berkshire 
regiment,  Aug.  30, 1775.  This  commission  covering  the  levies  of  the 
entire  county,  Simonds  held  in  honorable  activity  at  Ticonderoga 
and  elsewhere  until  April  4,  1777,  when  two  regiments  were  organ- 
ized in  Berkshire  in  place  of  the  single  one,  and  he  received  a  new 


WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    BENNINGTON.  37 

eommission  as  colonel  of  the  Second  Regiment  of  Berkshire  County, 
the  First  now  covering  the  southern  half  of  the  county. 

Captain  Lemuel  Stewart,  under  whom  Israel  Harris  enlisted  for 
Ticonderoga  the  second  time,  bears  a  praiseworthy  record  and  mem- 
ory in  Williamstown.  He  lived  near  the  Square,  in  the  first  house 
on  South  Street,  east  side,  where  Stephen  Hosford  long  afterwards 
kept  a  tavern  and  a  store.  It  is  extremely  probable  that  Captain 
Stewart  kept  a  tavern  there.  The  place  was  called,  at  any  rate, 
11  the  old  red  tavern."  It  was  probably  the  second  tavern  opened  in 
the  hamlet,  Simonds  having  removed  his  stand  from  the  Square 
across  the  Hoosac  River  a  mile  to  the  northwards,  about  the  time 
that  Stewart  came  here,  say  1770,  in  which  year  the  eldest  of  his 
five  children,  whose  births  are  registered  here,  was  born.  Stewart 
held  the  military  command  in  the  town  previous  to  and  subsequent 
to  the  battle  of  Bennington,  posting  guards  certainly  at  the  Green 
Elver  bridge  at  the  east  end  of  the  village,  and  probably  also  at  the 
Hoosac  River  bridge  near  Simonds's  second  tavern-stand.  Ezekiel 
Blair,  who  was  lieutenant  of  the  company,  enlisted  for  Ticonderoga 
and  Canada  in  the  spring  of  1775,  was  of  Scotch-Irish  parentage, 
and  came  here  from  Western  (now  Warren)  in  1764,  and  bought  a 
good  farm  for  £40  of  Samuel  Kellogg  and  Chloe  his  wife,  about 
midway  between  the  two  villages.  His  wife's  name  was  Elisabeth, 
and  they  had  four  children  whose  births  are  registered  here.  After 
about  twenty  years  of  residence  he  passed  on  to  fresh  fields  and 
pastures  new, — a  characteristic  of  the  men  of  his  race  in  New  Eng- 
land, who  generally  had  very  large  families  and  consequently  soon 
became  straitened  in  any  location  first  pitched  upon.  Probably  also 
a  spirit  more  restless  and  enterprising  than  that  of  English  settlers 
in  New  England  at  about  the  same  periods  of  time  was  inherited  by 
the  Scotch-Irish  from  their  migrating  ancestors,  who  landed  at  Bos- 
ton in  August,  1718,  —  five  shiploads  of  them  from  Londonderry 
and  its  neighborhood  in  the  north  of  Ireland,  themselves  descended 
from  Scotchmen  colonized  there  in  Cromwell's  time.  Notwithstand- 
ing this  tendency  in  general,  there  were  many  families  of  this 
remarkable  stock  who  exhibited  in  all  parts  of  New  England  unu- 
sual staying  qualities  from  generation  to  generation.  For  one 
example,  Absalom  Blair,  a  near  kinsman  of  Ezekiel  Blair,  coming 
here  from  the  same  town  and  at  about  the  same  time  with  the  latter, 
transmitted  his  fine  farm  on  the  Green  River  to  his  son  William,  and 
he  to  his  son  Edwin  in  due  succession,  so  that  one  family  cultivated 
the  same  acres  all  held  in  fee  simple  for  considerably  more  than  a 
century.  So  too  Moses  Young,  whose  migrating  ancestor,  John 


38  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

Young,  died  in  Worcester  in  1830,  bought  lands  in  South  Williams- 
town  in  the  sixties  of  the  last  century,  which  have  never  yet  been 
out  of  the  ownership  of  his  direct  descendants  and  do  not  at  the 
present  writing  seem  likely  to  be  for  a  long  time  to  come. 

Only  a  word  or  two  is  here  due  to  the  memory  of  Nathan  Smith, 
the  second  lieutenant  of  this  company  destined  for  Canada  in  1775. 
He  came  here  very  early  from  Western,  the  town  of  the  Blairs  and 
very  likely  in  company  with  them.  He  lived  in  several  parts  of  the 
town,  bearing  in  his  old  age  the  honorary  title  of  "  Govenor  Smith," 
died  in  1820  aged  102  years,  a  person  of  greater  well-authenticated 
age  than  any  other  citizen  of  the  town  down  to  the  present  time. 
He  was  born  in  1718,  the  very  year  of  the  principal  Scotch-Irish 
immigration,  although  he  was  not  of  that  lineage  at  all.  He  pos- 
sessed staying  qualities  of  another  sort.  The  late  Dr.  Sabin  remem- 
bered the  "  Govenor "  well.  He  fell  into  extreme  poverty  in  his 
old  age,  and  desired  to  marry  again,  in  order,  as  he  said,  "  to  have 
some  body  to  convarse  with." 

When  Colonel  Arnold  reported  in  person  in  July  as  well  as  in 
writing  previously  to  the  Massachusetts  body  that  had  employed  and 
commissioned  him,  his  doings  and  difficulties  on  Lake  Champlain, 
it  was  seen  and  recognized  that  they  had  every  reason  to  be  satisfied 
with  his  services  in  general.  He  had  accomplished  with  very  little 
means  and  amid  incessant  animosities  (for  which  he  himself  was 
partly  to  blame)  great  things  in  the  way  of  preparation  for  General 
Montgomery's  advance  on  that  side  toward  the  conquest  of  Quebec, 
which  was  the  grand  objective  in  the  first*  offensive  campaign  of  the 
Colonies  against  the  mother  country.  While  Quebec  still  remained 
the  principal  French  fortress  in  America,  it  was  talked  over  around 
many  an  English  camp-fire  during  the  last  French  war,  and  distinctly 
proposed  by  Governor  Shirley  to  a  military  council  in  New  York  in 
1755,  that  Quebec  was  most  vulnerable  on  its  easterly  side  by  means 
of  the  Kennebec  and  Chaudiere  rivers.  Twenty  years  later  General 
Washington  at  his  camp  in  Cambridge,  in  conference  with  several 
members  of  the  Continental  Congress,  revived  this  scheme,  which 
Arnold  himself  may  have  proposed  at  that  time,  of  a  cooperative 
force  ascending  the  Kennebec  and  descending  the  Chaudiere,  to  meet 
under  the  walls  of  Quebec  General  Montgomery  and  his  army  de- 
scending the  St.  Lawrence.  The  enterprise  was  bold  and  perilous, 
encompassed  with  untried  difficulties,  requiring  in  the  leader  dexter- 
ity and  audacity  and  pertinacity  to  the  last  degree.  Arnold  was 
then  the  only  man  in  Cambridge  fitted  or  willing  to  head  a  party 
in  such  perils.  He  was  commissioned  by  Washington  a  colonel  in 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    BENNINGTON. 


39 


the  Continental  service  and  given  a  body  of  about  eleven  hundred 
effective  men,  consisting  of  ten  companies  of  New  England  musket- 
men  and  three  companies  of  riflemen  from  Pennsylvania  and  Vir- 
ginia. 

It  is  no  part  of  our  present  task  to  tell  the  story  of  this  winter 
expedition,  except  so  far  as  men  from  Williamstown  took  a  hand  in 
it.  The  musket-men  for  Arnold's  force  seem  to  have  been  drafted 
out  of  companies  then  present  in  the  army  at  Cambridge.  Such  a 
company,  holding  29  men  from  Williamstown,  12  from  East  Hoosac, 
9  from  Lanesboro,  4  from  New  Providence,  1  from  Gageborough 
[Windsor],  2  from  New  Ashford,  1  from  Sheffield,  —  a  drummer, — 
and  1  from  Boston,  59  in  all,  yielded  2  officers  and  6  privates  to  the 
body  under  Arnold.  A  muster-roll  of  this  company,  made  out  after 
Arnold  had  started  in  September,  is  fortunately  extant,  and  the  reader 
may  like  to  see  an  exact  copy  of  it,  which  is  herewith  appended :  — 


Samuel  Sloan  Capt.               Williamstown 

Zebediah  Sabin  1st  Lt.                        " 

Enos  Parker  2d  Lt.               E.  Hoosuck 

Asaph  Cook  Sergt.                         " 

David  Johnson  " 

Bartholomew  Woodcock    "  " 

Alexander  Sloan  "                             " 

Barachiah  Johnson  Corp.                         " 

Thaddeus  Munson  "                   Lanesborough 

William  May  hew  "                   New  Providence 

James  McMaster  "                   Williamstown 

Charles  King  Drummer       Sheffield 

Ichabod  Parker  E.  Hoosuck 

Ezra  Church  Williamstown 

William  Spencer  " 

Jesse  Jewell  E.  Hoosuck 

Edward  Bailey  Lanesborough 

Daniel  Johnson  Williamstown 

Charles  Sabin  " 

Foard  Bass  E.  Hoosuck 

James  Andrews  Williamstown 
David  Parkhill 
Elijah  Flynt 
Starling  Daniels 

Joshua  Smedley  " 

Jonathan  Hall  " 

Henry  Wilcox  " 

Nathaniel  Parker  E.  Hoosuck 

Samuel  Pettebone  Lanesborough 

William  Bennett  E.  Hoosuck 

Jere.  Osburn  Williamstown 


On  command  to  Quebec 


Williamstown        On  command  to  Quebec 


On  command  to  Quebec 


On  command  to  Quebec 


On  command  to  Quebec 


40 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 


Anthony  Lamb 
Eliphalet  White 
Benjamin  Dibble 
Samuel  Wilcox 
Israel  Mead 
William  Bates 
Joites  Barns 
Samuel  Clark 
Andrew  Hinman 
Thomas  Whitney 
Isaiah  Honeywell 
John  Hall 
Joseph  Lawrence 
Thomas  Pall 
Seth  Pettebone 
Jeremiah  Collins 
James  Holden 
Moses  Rich 
Ebenezer  Hutchinson 
Timothy  Sherwood 
William  Young 
Absalom  Baker 
Michael  Watkins 
Duncan  Dunn 
William  Popkins 
Alexander  Spencer 
Alexander  Spencer,  Jr. 
Ahasuel  Turret 


Williamstown 
E.  Hoosuck 
fi 

Williamstown 

New  Ashford 
(i 

E.  Hoosuck 
Lanesborough 
u 

u 


Gageborough 
New  Providence 
Lanesborough 
New  Providence 
E.  Hoosuck 
Williamstown 


New  Providence 
E.  Hoosuck 
Boston 
Williamstown 


On  command  to  Quebec 
On  command  to  Quebec 


In  the  train  1  July 
Discharged  1  Oct. 
On  command  to  Quebec 
Discharged  20  Sept. 


This  company  was  evidently  one  of  the  companies  of  minute-men 
summoned  from  all  parts  of  the  State  to  the  seaboard  previously  to 
or  about  the  time  of  the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill,  June  17, 1775.  They 
were  quartered  in  Charlestown.  Washington  assumed  the  command 
of  what  was  then  first  called  the  Continental  Army  fifteen  days  later 
under  the  old  elm  at  Cambridge.  This  company  became  a  part  of 
the  26th  Kegiment,  then  commanded  by  Colonel  John  Paterson,  of 
Lenox.  The  news  of  the  battle  of  Lexington  had  reached  Berkshire 
at  noon  of  the  day  following  it ;  Paterson  himself,  with  parts  of  his 
regiment  of  minute-men,  had  started  at  sunrise  the  next  morning , 
other  parts  followed  a  little  later ;  and  the  United  States  began  to 
commission  for  the  national  service  officers  of  this  and  other  regi- 
ments even  before  Washington  took  command  of  the  army.  It  will 
be  in  order  now  to  give  a  brief  account  of  some  of  the  officers  and  men 
of  this  northern  Berkshire  company  at  Charlestown,  eight  of  whom 
started  with  Arnold  in  September  for  the  Kennebec  and  Canada. 
About  one-half  of  these  reached  Quebec  with  him.  The  field  officers 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   BENNINGTON.  41 

in  this  famous  expedition,  besides  the  chief  in  command,  were  Lieu- 
tenant Colonel  Christopher  Greene,  Lieutenant  Colonel  Roger  Enos, 
and  Majors  Bigelow  and  Meigs.  At  the  head  of  the  riflemen  was 
Captain  Daniel  Morgan,  who  became  renowned  before  the  war  was 
over.  Colonel  John  Paterson  of  the  26th  Regiment  Continental,  of 
which  our  Berkshire  company  was  a  part,  although  he  did  not  go  up 
the  Kennebec  with  Arnold,  was  a  little  afterwards  ordered  to  Canada 
on  the  side  of  Lake  Champlain,  and  took  part  with  him  in  the  disas- 
trous battle  of  the  Cedars.  Paterson  was  a  graduate  of  Yale  College 
in  1762,  was  advanced  to  brigadier  general  in  February,  1777,  and 
later  to  major  general,  and  continued  in  honorable  service  till  the 
close  of  the  war.  He  was  the  youngest  of  all  the  Revolutionary 
major  generals,  excepting  only  the  Marquis  La  Fayette.  No  other 
citizen  of  Berkshire  attained  the  eminence,  during  the  Revolution, 
of  John  Paterson,  and  he  closed  his  military  career  by  heading  a 
detachment  of  the  Berkshire  militia  to  put  down,  in  1786,  what  was 
called  "  Shays's  Rebellion  "  in  western  Massachusetts. 

1.  Samuel  Sloan.  As  he  was  the  captain  of  the  minute-men  in 
1775,  and  after  the  war  a  major  general  of  the  militia,  and  a  very 
prominent  citizen  of  Williamstown  until  his  death  in  1813,  it  is  fit 
that  he  should  be  first  in  this  list  to  be  characterized.  He  was  born 
in  Nor  walk,  Connecticut,  in  1740,  and  removed  to  Canaan  in  the  same 
State,  where  he  practised  the  blacksmith's  trade.  Becoming  asso- 
ciated here  with  Asa  Douglas  and  marrying  into  his  family,  who  had 
been  unsuccessfully  engaged  in  trade  at  Canaan,  and  had  acquired 
by  purchase  of  Josiah  Dean  and  others,  some  630  acres  of  good  land 
in  what  is  now  Hancock,  and  had  settled  on  it  in  1766,  and  after- 
wards built  the  large  and  fine  house  often  called  "  the  palace "  in 
those  days,  now  owned  and  occupied  by  the  heirs  of  the  late  Daniel 
Gardner;  Sloan  bought  in  1764  for  £60,  two  hundred  and  fifty 
acres  of  this  land,  but  sold  a  part  of  it  again  in  1766,  having  in  the 
meantime  appeared  as  "  blacksmith  "  in  South  Williamstown.  He 
bought  first  of  Samuel  Clark  for  £47,  second-division  50-acre  lot  52 
overlooking  the  south  village  on  the  north.  He  commenced  for  a 
home  there,  but  soon  quitted  it  in  favor  of  his  brother  Alexander 
Sloan,  who  afterwards  built  the  gambrel-roof  house  on  the  place, 
which,  after  more  than  a  century  of  constant  service,  has  been  but 
lately  burned  down.  Alexander  Sloan  was  one  in  his  brother's  mili- 
tary company  at  Charlestown  in  1775.  This  house  stood  at  the  top 
of  a  pretty  steep  hill  above  what  then  promised  to  become  a  consid- 
erable village,  and  was  on  the  county  road  indeed  leading  from  Pitts- 
field  to  Bennington;  but  Samuel  Sloan  probably  surmised  that  it 


42  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

would  not  prove  a  favorable  spot  for  a  blacksmith's  stand.  At  any 
rate,  he  quitted  it  to  his  brother,  and  temporarily  established  himself 
by  the  brookside  on  the  next  lot  south,  at  the  opening  of  what  came 
to  be  a  pretty  little  village.  About  six  years  before  Isaac  Stratton 
had  sat  down  there,  and  was  the  sole  dweller  on  that  level  for  three 
or  four  years,  two  children  having  been  born  to  him  and  his  wife 
Mary  Fox  while  they  still  dwelt  north  of  the  brook.  In  August, 
1767,  Stratton  sold  this  lot  53  to  Sloan,  and  moved  his  own  home 
across  the  brook  south  to  a  low  knoll  on  lot  54,  on  which  he  built  in 
1785  the  large  house  still  standing  there.  Sloan  continued  to  enter- 
tain the  few  passing  travellers,  as  Stratton  himself  had  done,  and 
the  stand  has  ever  since  been  practically  kept  as  a  tavern.  But 
Sloan  was  evidently  desirous  to  aggregate  for  himself  a  large  farm, 
which  he  could  not  do  to  advantage  in  his  present  location;  and 
so  we  find  him  buying  50-acre  lots  about  half  a  mile  to  the  west  on 
the  straight  road  laid  out  by  the  surveyor  between  two  tiers  of 
these  lots  "  to  covean"  them.  This  road  is  now  legally  denomi- 
nated the  "Sloan  road"  in  perpetual  memory  of  his  enterprise 
and  success.  It  stretches  straight  from  the  tavern-stand  nearly 
a  mile  to  the  "  Sabin  farm,"  owned  and  occupied  by  Captain  Sloan's 
first  lieutenant,  Zebediah  Sabin,  of  the  company  in  Charlestown  in 
1775. 

Sloan  ultimately  purchased  ten  of  these  50-acre  lots  opposite 
each  other  on  both  sides  of  the  road.  He  placed  his  own  long  and 
large  log-house  near  the  junction  of  the  south  ends  of  lots  41  and  43 
on  the  north  side  of  the  road.  This  house,  primitive  in  its  construc- 
tion, stood  well  into  the  present  century ;  and  the  writer  heard 
Dr.  H.  L.  Sabin  say  (he  died  Feb.  24,  1884)  that  he  had  danced 
many  a  night,  nearly  all  night  long,  when  he  was  young,  under  the 
rafters  of  that  old  log-house.  Sloan  prospered  in  every  way.  He 
came  to  have  the  most  extensive  and  productive  farm  of  his  day  in 
Williamstown.  It  was  sold  not  long  after  Sloan  moved  to  the  North 
Part  to  Ambrose  Hall,  and  Hall  sold  it  in  March,  1818,  to  Griffin 
Eldredge  for  $16,930.  It  is  reckoned  in  this  deed  to  Eldredge  at 
507  acres.  A  strict  survey  would  undoubtedly  have  made  its  area 
considerably  more.  No  farm,  considered  merely  as  such,  ever 
brought  on  sale  in  Williamstown  so  much  money  as  that.  In  this 
deed,  Clarissa  Hall  yields  her  right  of  dower,  and  Nathan  Eossiter 
and  Thomas  E.  Hall  sign  as  witnesses.  This  Ambrose  Hall  built 
the  two-story  house  at  the  South  Part,  which  has  had  an  interesting 
history.  In  it  were  born  his  two  daughters,  who  married  the  famous 
brothers,  Leonard  and  Lawrence  Jerome.  A  daughter  of  Leonard 


W1LLIAMSTOWN    AND    BENNINGTON.  43 

Jerome  became  Lady  Randolph.  Churchill  of  the  English  peerage, 
House  of  Marlborough.  She  is  known  to  prize  highly  the  photo- 
graph, herewith  reproduced,  of  the  modest  country  house  in  which 
her  mother  was  born.  He  became  in  due  order  a  general  in  the  Mas- 
sachusetts militia;  and  in  accordance  with  a  custom  of  those  times, 
was  privileged  to  ride  on  parade  in  his  old  age  at  trainings  and  mus- 
ters of  the  militia.  So  likewise  rode  General  Towner.  James  Smed- 
ley  remembered  to  have  seen  them  both  mounted  on  such  occasions. 
Both  died  within  a  few  weeks  of  each  other  in  the  spring  of  1813, 
though  Towner  was  by  fourteen  years  the  younger  man.  Sloan  was  a 
short  and  thick-set  man  with  much  gray  hair  upon  his  head  in  his  old 
age.  In  the  second  meeting-house  built  here  in  1797,  General  Sloan 
occupied  the  front  pew  on  the  right-hand  side  of  the  broad  aisle  dur- 


ing all  the  opening  years  of  the  century  ;  Judge  Noble  occupied  the 
corresponding  pew  on  the  left-hand  side  of  the  aisle ;  these  were  the 
posts  of  honor  in  a  New  England  meeting-house  at  that  time,  although 
the  second  house  here  was  not  "  seated  "  by  authority  after  the  man- 
ner of  the  first  one. 

The  successful  establishment  of  the  free  school  in  the  North  Vil- 
lage in  1790,  and  its  transformation  into  a  college  in  1793,  together 
with  many  other  signs  that  that  was  to  become  thereafter  the  chief 
place  of  residence  and  influence  in  Williamstown,  was  what  natu- 
rally led  General  Sloan,  in  his  then  affluent  circumstances,  to  leave 
the  South  Part  and  to  plant  himself  in  the  North  Village.  He  pur- 
chased accordingly  House-lot  No.  46,  originally  improved  and  built 


44  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

on  by  William  Horsford,  directly  opposite  on  the  north  side  to  the 
West  College,  which  stood  and  stands  on  a  fine  eminence  within  the 
limits  of  the  main  street.  There  was  then  a  house  of  considerable 
size  and  in  good  condition  upon  that  house-lot,  and  Sloan  caused  it 
to  be  taken  down,  and  the  timbers  to  be  erected  into  a  commodious 
dwelling  still  standing  in  South  Street.  Obadiah  Bardwell  chanced 
to  come  into  town  as  a  permanent  resident  in  the  year  1800,  just  at 
the  time  to  avail  himself  of  this  removal  and  upbuilding  for  a  home 
for  his  family,  which  he  occupied  as  such  for  many  years;  while 
Sloan  proceeded  to  erect  for  himself  upon  the  old  site  in  1801  a 
house  that  surpassed  in  size  and  elegance  any  other  one  built  in  the 
village  for  more  than  a  hundred  years  from  its  beginning.  The 
place  has  been  owned  by  the  college  for  a  long  time  now,  and  three 
successive  presidents  —  Mark  Hopkins,  Paul  A.  Chadbourne,  and 
Franklin  Carter — have  made  it  their  official  residence. 

The  only  son  of  General  Sloan  was  Douglas  Wheeler  Sloan,  born 
May  9,  1784.  He  was  graduated  at  the  college  in  1803,  and  for  the 
three  years  next  following  was  in  attendance  at  the  famous  Law 
School  in  Litchfield,  Connecticut.  No  other  native  of  Williamstown 
in  those  times  had  any  such  opportunities  for  educational  training  as 
this  single  scion  of  a  fortunate  family.  Taller  than  his  father,  he  is 
said  to  have  been  a  remarkably  handsome  man,  especially  on  horse- 
back, and  when  caparisoned  as  a  major  in  the  militia  regiment  once 
commanded  by  his  father.  Young  Dwight  of  Stockbridge,  a  con- 
temporary mounted  officer  of  the  militia  with  Sloan,  was  often 
mentioned  in  conjunction  with  him,  as  if  the  two  were  the  hand- 
somest men  in  Berkshire.  Douglas  Sloan  continued  to  live  with  his 
mother  in  the  new  mansion  until  her  death  in  1828,  but  his  law 
office  here  was  in  a  building  which  disappeared  from  the  spot  a  long 
time  ago  on  the  eastern  edge  of  the  present  Kappa  Alpha  lot  nearly 
opposite  the  old  Mansion  House.  He  had  a  boys'  school  in  the 
Sloan  house  after  his  mother's  death,  and  the  late  Dr.  Alonzo  Clark 
was  principal  of  it  for  a  time  after  his  graduation  from  college  in 
'28,  and  Nelson  E.  Spencer  of  '32  was  an  assistant,  and  afterwards 
engaged  to  be  married  to  the  Major's  third  daughter,  Harriet  Doug- 
las, who,  however,  died  at  eighteen  years  of  age.  Besides  his  law 
practice,  which  was  of  course  small  in  such  a  place  as  this,  the 
Major  busied  himself  with  merino  sheep  and  other  agricultural  ven- 
tures on  a  large  scale,  none  of  which,  however,  proved  remunerative. 
The  large  farm  at  the  South  Part  was  sold  to  Griffin  Eldredge  of 
Hancock,  and  two  of  the  latter's  family,  James  and  Norman  E., 
built  each  for  himself  a  house  on  separate  parts  of  the  farm,  one  on 


WILLIAMSTOWX    AXD    BEXXIXGTOX.  45 

the  south  side  of  the  road  nearly  opposite  the  old  log-house,  and  the 
other  011  the  north  side  somewhat  further  west  and  on  higher 
ground. 

The  cellar  of  the  old  log-house  is  still  partly  visible  immediately 
in  front  of  a  good  farmhouse  recently  built  for  one  of  his  sons  by 
Erastus  Young,  who  came  into  possession  of  the  eastern  portions  of 
the  Sloan  farm  and  settled  two  of  his  sons  upon  them  on  opposite 
sides  of  the  road.  Aug.  11,  1884,  the  present  writer  had  a  peculiar 
experience  in  guiding  a  party  of  strangers  and  of  direct  descend- 
ants of  Samuel  Sloan  to  visit  this  cellar  around  which  gathers  so 
much  interesting  history.  The  party  consisted  of  Mrs.  Cornelia 


GENERAL   SLOAN'S     HOUSE. 
Built  in  1801. 


Sloan  Handy,  youngest  daughter  of  Douglas  Sloan,  with  her  hus- 
band, Mr.  Parker  Handy,  who  had  first  married  Maria,  the  eldest 
sister  of  Cornelia,  Mrs.  Maria  Handy  Bliss,  a  daughter  of  these,  and 
Miss  Grace  Bliss,  a  daughter  of  the  last;  that  is  to  say,  a  grand- 
daughter (Mrs.  Handy),  a  great-granddaughter  (Mrs.  Bliss),  and  a 
great-great-granddaughter  (Miss  Bliss)  of  Samuel  Sloan,  who  had 
built  the  cellar  and  the  house  over  it,  in  which  in  all  probability 
Douglas  Sloan  was  born  just  one  hundred  years  before ! 

In  or  about  1830  Major  Douglas  Sloan  disposed  of  all  the  large 
property  interests  in  Williamstown  left  to  him  by  each  of  his 
parents,  and  removed  to  New  Albany,  Indiana,  where  he  died  in 
1839,  aged  thirty-five.  His  wife  was  Miss  Cogswell,  step-daughter 
to  Ebenezer  Fitch,  first  principal  of  the  free  school  and  first  presi- 


46  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND   WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

dent  of  the  college  in  "Williamstown.  There  was  more  of  wealth 
and  of  what  may  perhaps  be  called  rural  aristocracy  in  the  family 
of  General  Sloan  after  they  moved  into  the  North  Village  than  in 
any  other  family  in  town  at  that  time.  There  were  five  daughters 
and  but  one  son,  the  youngest.  Tradition  has  it  that,  in  the  muddy 
walking  and  crossing  of  the  springtime  (there  were  no  good  side- 
walks in  those  days  as  at  present),  General  Sloan  would  send  out  his 
hired  man  with  two  long  boards  for  the  girls  to  walk  on, — laying 
down  one  in  front  while  they  were  walking  on  the  other  in  the  rear ! 
The  circumstances  of  the  family  were  not  so  stimulating  and  hard- 
ening for  the  only  son  as  fitted  him  best  for  the  part  he  was  called 
on  to  play  in  after  life.  For  obvious  reasons  the  father,  with  all  his 
limitations  in  the  way  of  education  and  opportunity,  led  a  more  suc- 
cessful and  influential  life  than  his  son.  The  mother,  Hannah 
Douglas,  was  daughter  to  Asa  Douglas,  first  settler  in  Hancock  in 
1766,  and  at  times  a  very  considerable  landowner  in  Williamstown. 
He  was  born  in  1715,  and  died  in  Hancock  in  1792.  His  remains 
were  first  interred  on  the  hill  south  of  his  own  fine  house,  but  in 
1809,  on  the  death  of  his  widow,  Rebeckah,  were  reburied  in  the 
cemetery  at  Stephentown,  where  his  son  William  erected  a  monu- 
ment to  their  memory.  This  Captain  William  Douglas,  with  a  con- 
siderable number  of  other  Hancock  men,  was  in  the  battle  of  Ben- 
nington  on  the  patriot  side,  and  three  men  out  of  his  company  were 
killed  in  the  battle,  — Vaughn  and  Gardner  and  Sweet,  —  and  it  was 
vehemently  alleged  at  the  time  that  one  or  more  of  these  were 
killed  by  townsmen  from  Hancock  fighting  in  the  Tory  breastwork 
for  king  and  Parliament.  Even  Asa  Douglas,  though  an  old  man 
born  in  1715,  was  several  times  out  with  this  and  other  sons  in  the 
Revolutionary  service.  This  Captain  William  was  much  trusted  by 
Colonel  Simonds,  who  was  constantly  his  superior  officer.  Once  his 
fleet  mare  brought  him  safely  home  from  hazardous  service  at 
Ticonderoga  (spy  service,  it  is  said),  and  when  he  took  off  her  saddle 
at  his  own  door,  he  said  with  emphasis,  "She  shall  never  do  another 
stroke  of  work  as  long  as  she  lives  I"  She  was  called  "Old  Ti "  ever 
after.  Captain  Douglas's  farm  adjoined  that  of  his  father.  When 
the  captain  died  in  "1811  in  the  69th  year  of  his  age"  (epitaph),  the 
farm  went  to  his  son  William  Douglas,  Jr.,  who  was  the  first  child 
born  in  Hancock,  and  "who  died  Professing  his  entire  Belief  in  the 
Christian  Eeligion  and  its  Divine  author"  (epitaph).  He  died  in 
December,  1821,  aged  fifty-four  years.  The  farm  in  due  time  was 
transmitted  to  his  daughter,  the  late  Mrs.  Hubbard. 

These  facts  in  relation  to  the  Douglas  family,  of  Hancock,  have 


WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    BENNINGTON.  47 

been  given  here  partly  for  their  own  sake,  but  mainly  for  the  sake 
of  a  certain  light  cast  thereby  on  the  Sloan  family  of  Williamstown. 
While  the  Sloans  still  lived  at  the  South  Part  the  Douglases  were 
comparatively  neighbors,  as  well  as  near  relatives.  Hannah  Douglas 
Sloan  was  the  daughter  of  Asa.  'He  had  six  sons,  also,  besides  Cap- 
tain William,  most,  if  not  all  of  whom  settled  around  their  father  in 
the  northern  parts  of  Hancock,  adjoining  upon  Williamstown.  There 
was  apparently  good  blood  in  all  these  families.  One  of  these  sons 
of  Asa  Douglas,  not  otherwise  remarkable,  had  married  a  daughter 
of  Stephen  Arnold  of  Stephentown,  near  by,  and  naturally  named 
his  son  Stephen  Arnold  Douglas.  This  branch  of  the  family  mi- 
grated to  Brandon,  Vermont,  where  in  April,  1813,  the  justly  cele- 
brated Stephen  A.  Douglas  of  Illinois  was  born.  He  was  thus  a 
great-grandson  of  Asa  Douglas  of  Hancock.  That  Samuel  Sloan 
should  have  built  in  Williamstown  a  private  house  by  far  surpassing 
any  other  house  then  and  there  is  made  easier  by  the  fact  that  his 
own  father-in-law  had  already  built  in  Hancock  a  private  dwelling 
so  much  superior  to  all  others  then  and  there  that  it  was  commonly 
called  "  the  palace,"  that  many  persons  came  from  a  distance  to  see 
it,  and  that  the  fresco  in  the  front  hall  was  so  well  done  that  the 
remains  of  it  were  exhibited  as  a  curiosity  a  full  century  after  it  was 
done.  The  military  careers  in  war  and  peace  of  Samuel  Sloan  and 
of  Douglas,  his  son,  were  undoubtedly  facilitated  by  the  martial 
spirits  of  Captain  William  Douglas  and  of  other  members  of  the 
Hancock  family. 

2.  Zebediah  Sabin.  When  Captain  Samuel  Sloan  and  his  first 
lieutenant,  Zebediah  Sabin,  started  to  head  their  company  of  minute- 
men  on  the  road  to  Boston  in  the  summer  of  1775,  they  started  from 
adjoining  farms  in  South  Williamstown.  Not  even  yet  has  the  Sabin 
farm  passed  out  of  the  hands  of  his  direct  descendants.  Within 
about  five  years  after  Sabin  himself  settled  upon  this  rough  farm  to 
subdue  it,  he  left  the  town  on  this  very  occasion,  never  again  to 
return  to  it ;  but  he  also  left  here  a  memory  for  prompt  and  unflag- 
ging patriotism,  which  has  ever  since  honored  the  town  and  for  which 
the  town  will  ever  be  prompt  to  honor  his  name.  Moreover,  he  left 
behind  him  here  a  widow  with  five  children,  and  her  energy  and 
excellence  of  character  were  such,  and  their  individuality  and  that 
of  their  descendants  down  to  the  present  time  have  made  them  so 
much  a  part  of  the  town,  that  we  shall  find  both  a  justification  and 
a  reward  in  tracing  carefully  the  ancestry  of  this  Williamstown 
farmer  and  that  of  his  wife,  too. 

William  Sabin,  a  citizen  of  Rehoboth  as  early  as  1643,  a  signer  of 


48  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

the  original  combination  and  compact  of  government  there  in  1644, 
and  who  was  often  thereafter  a  selectman  and  representative  to  the 
General  Court  from  that  town,  was  the  first  American  ancestor  of 
Zebediah  Sabin.  There  is  a  contemporary  record  of  twenty  children 
born  to  William  Sabin  by  two  wives,  of  whom  the  first  had  twelve 
and  the  second  eight.  Two  of  these  only  need  come  under  our  pres- 
ent notice,  —  Benjamin  of  the  first  wife,  born  in  May,  1646,  and 
John  of  the  second  wife,  born  in  August,  1666.  They  were  thus 
half-brothers,  with  a  disparity  of  twenty  years  in  their  ages.  Ben- 
jamin removed  from  Rehoboth  to  Roxbury  in  1675,  and  living  there 
about  ten  years  became  the  first-mentioned  of  a  band  of  thirteen 
pioneers  to  emigrate  from  Roxbury  to  the  Nipmuck  country,  and 
to  settle  in  what  is  now  Woodstock,  Connecticut,  in  the  spring  of 
1686.  The  town  of  Roxbury,  as  such,  had  made  a  purchase  of  wild 
lands  on  the  river  Quinebaug,  before  it  was  certain  where  the  line 
would  run  between  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut,  and  there  was 
a  profound  interest  in  the  old  town  in  the  proposed  settlement  of 
the  new,  for  it  is  said  that  all  the  people  of  Roxbury  were  then 
divided  into  the  two  classes  of  "  stayers  "  and  "  goers  "  ;  and  there 
is  no  doubt  that  the  benediction  of  the  venerable  John  Eliot  of 
blessed  memory,  pastor  of  the  Roxbury  church,  then  eighty-three 
years  old  and  long  a  consecrated  apostle  to  the  Indians,  rested  be- 
nignantly  on  the  heads  of  the  men  of  this  emigration,  for  infants 
are  recorded  as  having  been  baptized  by  him  "in  the  same  week 
that  we  sent  out  our  youth  to  make  the  new  plantation,"  and  the 
region  of  country  into  which  these  men  pushed  had  been  the  scene 
in  part  of  Eliot's  former  missionary  labors. 

Benjamin  Sabin  became  very  prominent  in  the  settlement  of 
Woodstock,  being  deacon  in  the  church  and  selectman  in  the  town 
and  otherwise  often  in  official  position,  until,  in  1705,  he  moved  a 
little  south  into  what  is  now  Pomfret,  retaining,  however,  his  rela- 
tions to  the  church  in  Woodstock  till  1715,  when  he  was  chosen  first 
deacon  of  the  church  in  Pomfret,  first  selectman,  and  later  first  rep- 
resentative of  the  town  to  the  General  Assembly  of  the  colony  in 
May,  1719.  His  son,  Benjamin,  born  in  Rehoboth,  Dec.  2,  1673, 
succeeded  his  father,  who  died  in  1725,  as  deacon  of  the  church  in 
Pomfret.  He  was  also  an  innholder  there  for  a  great  many  years ; 
and  four  of  his  brothers,  who  with  himself  had  moved  with  their 
father  from  Woodstock  to  Pomfret  in  1705,  became  landholders  and 
influential  citizens  in  that  neighborhood,  and  some  of  the  large 
posterity  of  the  Sabin  family  occupied  for  more  than  a  century  the 
lands  of  their  fathers  situated  on  both  sides  of  the  Quinebaug  River. 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    BENNINGTON.  49 

The  names  of  the  original  William,  and  of  his  three 'sons,  Benjamin, 
Noah,  and  Nehemiah,  repeatedly  recurred  in  the  later  generations ; 
and  the  Williamstown  names  of  Zebediah,  Hezekiah,  Timothy,  Jesse, 
and  Charles  are  all  found  in  the  earlier  records  of  the  two  branches 
of  the  family  on  the  banks-  of  the  Quinebaug. 

John  Sabin,  son  of  William,  continued  in  Rehoboth  till  1691, 
when  he  followed  his  half-brother,  Benjamin,  into  the  wilderness  of 
the  Wabbaquassets.  He  bought  one  hundred  acres  of  land,  a  little 
to  the  south  of  his  brother's  land  and  a  little  south  of  the  present 
south  line  of  Woodstock,  of  James  Fitch  for  £9,  June  22,  1691. 
Here  he  built  a  house  for  his  family,  and  thus  became  the  first  set- 
tler of  Pomfret ;  and  in  this  house  his  son,  Hezekiah,  was  born  Nov. 
5,  1692.  John  Sabin  was  no  chicken.  Prior  to  the  Indian  disturb- 
ances of  1696,  he  had  fortified  his  house,  and  gained  much  influence 
and  authority  over  the  Indians.  By  standing  his  ground,  protecting 
the  frontier,  and  engaging  his  Indian  neighbors  in  the  military  ser- 
vice of  the  English,  he  rendered  most  timely  and  efficient  aid  to  the 
people  of  Woodstock  and  to  the  Colonies  of  Connecticut  and  Massa- 
chusetts both.  The  hunted  and  timid  tribe  of  the  Wabbaquassets 
"  would  not  be  ordered  by  any  but  by  virtue  of  authority  from  Con- 
necticut," and  consequently  John  Sabin  being  a  resident  of  that 
Colony  was  placed  in  command  over  them  as  Captain,  and  also 
left  in  command  of  the  military  forces  (such  as  they  were)  in 
Woodstock.  An  interesting  letter  from  the  Earl  of  Bellemont, 
Governor  of  Massachusetts,  to  John  Winthrop,  Governor  of  Con- 
necticut, dated  "Boston,  1700,"  brings  out  so  fully  the  position 
and  services  of  this  fearless  pioneer  that  it  is  herewith  quoted 
entire :  — 

"  I  have  been  made  sensible  of  the  good  service  done  by  Mr.  John  Sabin,  an 
inhabitant  within  your  government,  refering  to  the  Indian  affairs,  —  he  having 
created  that  confidence  in  them  of  his  friendship  as  to  be  trusted  with  their 
/secrecy,  and  that  during  the  late  troubles  and  war  he  did,  at  his  own  great 
charge  and  expense  to  the  almost  ruining  of  his  estate,  subsist  and  succor  a  con- 
siderable number  of  the  Wabbaquassets  within  a  fortification  about  his  own 
house,  whereby,  he  not  only  prevented  their  defection  but  also  rendered  them 
serviceable  to  the  English,  and  has  since  made  discovery  of  the  combination  and 
consults  had  among  the  Indians  to  make  a  new  resurrection  and  rebellion  and  to 
commit  fresh  hostilities  upon  his  Majesty's  English  subjects.  I  understand,  he 
was  encouraged  by  your  Government  to  hold  his  part  in  the  war  and  that  he 
should  have  allowance  for  his  charge  and  expense  upon  the  Indians,  which  not 
being  adjusted  and  paid  before  the  peace,  he  is  now  neglected.  I  cannot  but 
account  it  very  impolitic  to  lose  so  useful  and  public-spirited  a  man,  or  that  he 
be  discouraged  by  ingratitude,  much  more  by  injustice.  I  pray  in  his  favor, 
that  you  will  effectually  recommend  his  services  and  expenses  to  the  considera- 


50  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

tion  of  your  General  Assembly  for  a  suitable  recompense  to  be  made  him.     I 
shall  not  fail  to  endeavor  some  gratification  for  him  from  this  Government. 
Your  humble  and  faithful  servant, 

BELLEMONT,  Govenor  of  Massachusetts. 

GOVENOB   WlNTHROP." 

Captain  John  Sabin  was  sent  in  October,  1720,  and  for  several 
years  afterward,  to  the  General  Assembly  of  Connecticut  from  the 
township  he  had  founded  and  bravely  defended.  An  old  and  rough 
bridle-path,  such  as  that  which  led  through  this  same  region  from 
Boston  to  Hartford  called  the  "  Bay  Path,"  had  long  led  from  Pom- 
fret  to  Providence,  the  most  accessible  market-town  for  the  new 
settlements  in  northeastern  Connecticut ;  arid  in  1721  a  better  and 
broader  road  was  opened  in  the  same  direction  between  the  two 
points ;  and  this  new  road,  like  the  path  that  preceded  it,  crossed  the 
Quin ebaug  just  below  the  falls  of  that  river  (in  the  present  village 
of  Williamsville)  at  an  old  fording-place  now  greatly  needing  a 
bridge.  After  several  failures  of  others  in  attempts  to  bridge  this 
formidable  stream  at  this  point,  Captain  Sabin  took  the  matter  in 
hand,  and  with  the  aid  of  his  son  constructed  a  substantial  bridge 
"  over  the  Quinebaug  at  if  falls  near  Pomfret  in  1722"  A  Com- 
mittee of  the  General  Assembly  was  sent  out  to  view  the  bridge 
officially,  who  reported  it  "  built  in  a  suitable  place,  out  of  danger  of 
being  carried  away  by  fioods  or  ice,  the  higkth  of  the  bridge  being  above 
any  flood  yet  known  by  any  man  living  there,  and  think  it  will  be  very 
serviceable  to  a  great  part  of  the  government  in  travelling  to  Boston,  — 
being  at  least  ten  miles  the  nearest  way  according  to  their  judgement." 
The  cost  of  the  bridge  was  £120,  and  for  his  service  in  building  it 
three  hundred  acres  of  land  in  the  common  lands  on  the  east  side  of 
the  Connecticut  River  were  allowed  to  Captain  Sabin,  "  on  condition 
he  keep  the  same  in  repair  for  the  fourteen  years  next  coming." 

Captain  Sabin  was  always  a  church-goer  and  an  earnest  Christian. 
He  kept  his  church  relations  together  with  his  brother  in  Wood- 
stock till  1715,  when  the  two,  with  others,  organized  the  original 
church  in  Pomfret.  He  was  appointed  Justice  of  the  Peace  in 
1724 ;  as  the  leading  citizen  and  chief  military  authority  in  the 
northeastern  corner  of  Connecticut,  he  was  appointed  by  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly  in  October,  1726,  the  Major  of  the  Regiment  of  the 
County  of  Windham  at  its  first  organization ;  and  after  fifty-two 
years  of  varied  usefulness  in  Pomfret,  Major  John  Sabin  died  in 
1743,  leaving  a  large  estate  to  be  divided  among  his  four  children  : 
John,  a  respected  physician  in  Franklin  ;  Hezekiah,  a  widely  known 
innkeeper  in  Thompson;  Noah,  who  remained  a  farmer  in  Pomfret;. 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   BENN1NGTON.  51 

and  Judith,  wife  of  Justice  Joseph  Leavens  of  Killingly.  An  inven- 
tory of  the  Major's  estate  showed  sundry  items,  as  follows :  armor, 
valued  £15;  books,  £4;  brass  and  iron,  £35;  husbandry  utensils, 
£64;  stock,  £306;  six  horses,  £90;  one  Indian  girl,  £20. 

In  this  Hezekiah  Sabin,  son  of  John  and  first  child  born  in  Pom- 
fret,  we  are  particularly  interested,  partly  because  he  was  an  interest- 
ing personage  in  himself,  and  mainly  because  he  was  the  father  of  our 
Williamstown  Lieutenant  Zebediah  Sabin.  Directly  east  of  Wood- 
stock and  Pomfret  was  the  long  town  of  Killingly,  near  the  north 
end  of  which  was  Quinnatisset  Hill,  whose  summit  is  now  occupied 
by  the  beautiful  village  and  common  of  Thompson.  This  township 
is  in  the  very  corner  of  Connecticut,  between  Massachusetts  and 
Rhode  Island.  In  John  Sabin's  day  the  boundaries  of  the  Colonies 
in  this  region  were  indistinct  and  disputed,  and  the  rights  in  land 
and  the  limits  in  authority  of  several  tribes  of  Indians  in  the  neigh- 
borhood were  also  a  source  of  trouble  and  contention,  in  all  of  which 
the  Sabins  became  more  or  less  involved.  During  the  terrible 
Pequot  War  in  1637,  the  Mohegan  Indians,  whose  earlier  council- 
fires  had  been  at  Albany  and  Schodack,  on  the  North  River,  but 
who  were  then  mainly  localized  in  the  valley  of  the  Housatonic, 
were  in  faithful  alliance  with  Connecticut  and  Massachusetts ;  arid 
when  these  two  Colonies  divided  the  conquered  Pequot  territory 
between  themselves,  the  whole  Wabbaquasset  country  was  yielded 
by  Massachusetts  to  the  claim  of  Uncas,  chief  of  the  Mohegan  s, 
who,  favored  by  the  government  and  encouraged  by  interested  ad- 
visers, assumed  to  himself  quite  a  share  of  eastern  Connecticut  also. 
A  large  tract  of  this  land  was  given  over  by  Uncas  to  his  son, 
Owaneco,  and  the  two  exercised  a  wavering  authority  for  many 
years  over  the  Wabbaquassets,  Quinebaugs,  Nipmucks,  and  other 
remnants  of  tribes,  until,  in  1679,  Connecticut  adjudged  that  Uncas 
and  Owaneco  should  pass  over  their  Indian  right  of  six  hundred 
acres  of  land  in  satisfaction  for  their  Indians  burning  the  New 
London  County  prison  in  a  drunken  outbreak,  and  ordered  James 
Fitch  as  treasurer  of  the  county  to  dispose  of  the  land  at  his  dis- 
cretion for  that  purpose.  Fitch  selected  six  hundred  acres  lying  on 
both  sides  of  the  Quinebaug.  This  was  in  his  official  position  of 
county  treasurer;  but  in  his  personal  capacity  as  land  speculator 
arid  fast  friend  of  the  Mohegan  chieftains,  his  operations  were  on 
a  much  bigger  scale.  Uncas  was  already  in  his  dotage ;  Owaneco 
was  sottish  and  worthless;  their  chief  patrons  and  advisers  were 
the  sons  of  Major  John  Mason,  the  hero  of  the  Pequot  War,  and 
Rev.  James  Fitch,  long  the  minister  of  Norwich,  whose  second  wife 


52  WILLIAMSTOWIST   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

was  sister  of  these  Masons,  and  Major  James  Fitch,  the  eldest  and 
enterprising  son  of  the  minister.  Connecticut  had  ordered  in  May, 
1680,  that,  "  if  Uncas  hath  right  to  any  land  about  Quinebaug  he  may 
make  it  out  and  dispose  of  it  to  Owaneco,  and  such  gentlemen  as  he 
shall  see  cause"  This  was  an  open  invitation  to  swarms  of  greedy 
land  seekers  to  fasten  on  Owaneco,  but  conscious  of  his  own  weak- 
ness he  yielded  to  the  personal  ascendency  of  Major  James  Fitch, 
and  formally  acknowledged  him  as  guardian  in  the  following  curious 
document :  — 

"  Whereas,  at  a  General  Court  in  Hartford,  May  13,  1680,  my  father,  Uncas, 
had  liberty  to  dispose  unto  me  his  land  upon  Quinebaug  River,  and  the  Court  at 
the  same  time  granting  me  liberty  to  dispose  of  it  unto  gentlemen  among  them, 
as  I  should  see  cause  to  do,  and  a  good  part  thereof  I  have  disposed  of  already  ; 
but  finding  that  some,  through  their  great  importunity,  and  others  taking  advan- 
tage of  me  when  I  am  in  drink,  by  causing  me  to  sign  deeds,  not  only  wronging 
myself  but  may  spoil  it  ever  being  a  plantation  —  for  these  and  other  reasons, 
I  make  over  all  my  right  and  title  of  any  and  of  all  my  lands  and  meadows  unto 
my  loving  friend  James  Fitch,  Jun. ,  for  him  to  dispose  of  as  he  shall  see  cause. 

"  OWANECO, 

"  Dec.  22,  1680.  his  mark." 

Four  years  later  a  deed  of  conveyance  executed  by  Owaneco  and 
confirmed  by  the  Court  of  Connecticut  made  over  in  fee  simple  to 
Fitch,  a  man  of  much  shrewdness  and  energy  and  business  capacity, 
nearly  the  whole  of  the  territory  now  embraced  in  Windham 
County.  It  was  from  him  that  the  town  of  Koxbury  made  its  land 
purchase  of  Woodstock  in  1685 ;  and  we  have  already  seen  that  the 
same  hand  signed  the  deed  of  land  to  John  Sabin  in  Pomfret  in 
1691.  This  James  Fitch,  lord  of  the  Quinebaug,  special  patriarch 
of  Canterbury,  brave  participator  in  King  Philip's  War,  was  the 
great-grandfather  of  Ebenezer  Fitch,  first  Preceptor  of  the  Williams- 
town  Free  School  and  first  President  of  Williams  College.  A  firmer 
ground  of  perpetual  distinction  is  laid  for  him  in  the  fact  that  he 
was  the  first  public  donor  to  Yale  College  aside  from  the  trustees, 
endowing  it  in  1701  with  637  acres  of  land  in  Killingly,  and  pledg- 
ing at  the  same  time  all  the  glass  and  nails  needed  in  building  the 
proposed  college  edifice.  This  timely  benefaction  is  said  to  have 
exerted  much  influence  in  procuring  the  charter  of  the  college  from 
the  Colony  of  Connecticut,  and  in  stimulating  its  former  friends  to 
labor  on  in  its  behalf. 

There  were  land  troubles  of  other  sorts  in  this  quarter.  Quinna- 
tisset  Hill,  over  whose  summit  passed  the  famous  "  Bay  Path"  from 
Boston  tb  Hartford  —  an  immemorial  Indian  track  from  the  Charles 


WILLIAMSTOWN    AND   BENNINGTOJST.  53 

River  to  the  Connecticut,  and  the  line  followed  in  general  by  the 
earliest  emigrants  from  Massachusetts  in  1635  had  been  a  seat  of 
some  of  Eliot's  "  Praying  Indians  "  of  about  twenty  families  and  one 
hundred  souls,  whom  Eliot  himself  had  visited  in  1674,  though  the 
meeting-place  was  a  few  miles  distant  more  convenient  to  all  the 
bands  of  Praying  Indians  in  that  region.  The  Apostle,  however, 
and  his  assistant,  Gookin,  "  saw  and  spake  with  some  of  the  principal 
people  of  Quinnatisset,  and  appointed  a  sober  and  pious  young  man  of 
Natick,  catted  Daniel,  to  be  their  minister,  whom  they  accepted  in  the 
Lord."  Nine  years  after  this,  and  three  years  before  the  Eoxbury  peo- 
ple came  into  Woodstock,  two  thousand  acres  of  forest  land,  including 
the  whole  of  this  hill,  were  conveyed  to  Thomas  Freak  of  Hamington, 
England,  for  £250,  and  as  much  more  in  upland  and  meadow  ad- 
joining it  to  Robert  Thompson  of  Newington,  England,  for  £200. 
Thompson  was  a  very  noted  personage,  president  of  the  Society  for 
the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  in  Foreign  Parts,  and  a  devoted 
friend  of  the  Colonies.  His  own  name  is  now  borne  by  the  town- 
ship within  which  his  land  was  located,  and  the  name  of  his  own 
English  town  in  Middlesex  is  borne  by  another  in  Connecticut  near 
to  Hartford.  The  jurisdiction  over  the  Quinnatisset  region  was  not 
only  in  dispute  as  between  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut,  to  which 
latter  Colony  it  belonged  without  a  doubt  and  was  much  later  reluc- 
tantly yielded,  but  also  the  township  of  Killingly  being  persuaded 
that  these  Massachusetts  grants  of  land  to  Freak,  Thompson,  and 
others  were  within  her  lawful  limits,  assumed  a  threatening  attitude 
to  these  proprietors,  and  menaced  forcible  seizure  of  the  farms 
already  settled  by  those  who  had  purchased  from  them.  Under 
these  circumstances  Josiah  Wolcott  of  Salem  and  Mary  his  wife, 
niece  of  Thomas  Freak,  who  had  come  into  possession  of  Freak's  land, 
sold  in  1716  to  Captain  John  Sabin  of  Pom  fret  four  hundred  acres 
on  the  summit  of  Quinnatisset  Hill  for  £200,  the  sellers  agreeing  ((to 
defend  said  Sabin  in  quiet  and  peaceable  possession  of  the  premises  so 
that  he  be  not  forcibly  ejected"  The  experienced  John  Sabin,  backed 
by  Wolcott,  proved  too  strong  to  be  molested,  and  he  soon  made 
over  his  purchase  to  his  son,  Hezekiah  Sabin,  who  put  up  a  house 
there  and  settled  down  with  his  family,  the  first  resident  propriet6r, 
and  for  a  long  time  the  sole  inhabitant  of  what  is  now  Thompson 
Hill.  This  house  was  built  directly  on  the  old  Boston  path  to  Hart- 
ford, which  before  long  became  enough  improved  to  be  dignified  by 
the  designation  of  the  "Connecticut  Road,"  and  was  much  fre- 
quented by  land  grabbers  and  other  travellers  both  ways;  and  in 
accordance  with  the  custom  of  niou  so  situated  in  those  days,  Sabin 


54  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

soon  opened  his  house  as  a  tavern,  and  continued  to  keep  it  as  such 
certainly  till  about  the  time  of  Wolfe's  great  victory  at  Quebec  in 
1759.  This  house  was  about  seventy  miles  from  Boston  and  about 
fifty  from  Hartford  as  the  old  road  went,  and  it  became  in  time  as 
"Sabin's  red  tavern"  one  of  the  most  noted  way-marks  between 
those  two  important  points,  and  to  it  came  no  end  of  dignitaries  in 
Church  and  State,  no  end  of  land-hungry  speculators  from  the  east- 
ward, and  no  end  of  poor  families  from  the  seaboard  seeking  a  better 
home  in  the  newer  valleys  of  Connecticut.  We  can  easily  imagine, 
though  no  one  can  accurately  describe  the  stirring  scenes  amid 
which  Zebediah  Sabin,  the  youngest  child  of  the  landlord,  baptized 
Jan.  23,  1736,  grew  up  to  manhood.  All  the  news  that  was  agoing 
in  New  England  throughout  the  French  and  Indian  wars  of  the 
period  came  sooner  or  later  to  the  old  red  tavern-stand.  Mine  host 
himself  was  appointed  Major  in  1739  of  the  Eleventh  Connecticut 
Eegiment,  when  it  was  first  constituted  from  the  militia  companies 
of  the  five  new  towns  in  the  northeastern  corner  of  the  Colony.  To 
the  famous  hostelry  on  the  hilltop  travelled  in  due  time  the  tidings 
of  the  taking  of  Fort  Massachusetts  by  the  French  and  Indians  in 
1746;  the  tidings  of  the  hastily  patched-up  Peace  of  Aix  la  Chapelle 
in  1748 ;  news  of  the  defeat  of  Braddock,  and  very  shortly  after  of 
the  dearly  bought  victory  of  Lake  George  in  1755;  and  we  know 
that  the  alarm  following  the  capture  of  Fort  William  Henry  by 
Montcalm  in  1757  swept  young  Zebediah  Sabin  into  the  ranks  as  a 
private  in  one  of  the  four  volunteer  companies  that  marched  from 
Windham  County.  His  father  had  been  Colonel  of  the  Eleventh 
Regiment,  and  bore  the  title  till  his  death,  but  was  now  too  old  to 
take  the  field. 

In  the  meantime  young  Sabin  was  taking  an  education  in  a  quite 
different  line  from  that  of  arms.  Before  he  was  born  his  father's 
house  was  the  rally  ing-place  for  the  first  public  meeting  of  the 
inhabitants  north  of  the  old  parish  of  Killingly.  They  now  wanted 
a  new  religious  society  of  their  own.  Eude  bridle-paths  led  up 
from  various  neighborhoods  to  the  windy  and  still  heavily  wooded 
heights  of  Quinnatisset,  a  place  that  had  long  had  an  odor  of  sanc- 
tity about  it,  though  Sabin  was  then  its  sole  inhabitant,  because  the 
ruins  of  the  old  wigwam  of  Quinnatisset's  Praying  Indians  were 
visible  on  its  summit.  A  public  meeting  was  warned  "  at  the  dwell- 
ing-house  of  Hezekiah  Sabin  in  said  precinct "  for  July  9,  1728.  The 
society  was  organized  then  and  there;  Sampson  Howe,  a  name 
familiar  in  Williamstown  thirty  years  later,  was  chosen  clerk;  a 
divine  service  was  shortly  after  held  in  Sabin's  house,  and  it  was 


WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    BENNINGTON.  55 

soon  voted  successively  that  the  meeting-house  should  be  fifty  feet 
long  and  forty  feet  wide  and  twenty-four  feet  stud,  arid  that  it 
should  stand  "  right  before  the  door  of  the  house  of  Hezekiah  SaUn 
about  twenty  rods  from  said  house,  near  where  was  an  old  wigwam.'' 
Sabin  gave  to  the  new  society  an  acre  of  land  including  the 
appointed  site  of  the  meeting-house,  which  was  near  the  centre  of 
the  present  Thompson  common,  and  was  chosen  with  others  to  take 
care  to  provide  for  the  "raising"  of  the  building;  and  when  it  was 
completed,  and  a  good  "training-place"  provided  in  proximity  with 
it  for  the  new  militia  company,  a  marvellous  zeal  was  manifested  in 
the  region  round  about  to  open  up  roads  from  all  quarters  to  the 
new  Hill  of  Zion.  Accordingly  in  all  the  associations  and  training 
of  the  son,  the  practical  religion  of  the  father  and  grandfather 
mingled  in  with  the  local  attachments  and  the  military  ardor  and 
the  hatred  of  the  French  and  the  strong  love  of  country,  and  the 
breezy  zest  for  novelty  that  hovered  round  the  country  tavern  of 
New  England  about  the  middle  of  the  last  century.  In  1754  Colo- 
nel Sabin  sold  for  £160  "eight  acres  northeast  from  Thompson 
meeting-house  on  the  Boston  road  ; "  and  in  1757  Sabin  bought  of 
John  Corbin,  who  occupied  the  southern  extremity  of  the  hill,  his 
homestead  with  thirty  acres  of  land.  Here  we  leave  the  good  Colo- 
nel. He  had  eight  children  and  a  handsome  property.  His  wife 
was  Zerviah  Hosmer,  and  he  had  a  daughter  Zerviah  next  older  than 
Zebediah ;  his  eldest  son  was  Hezekiah,  who  died  in  New  Haven  in 
1791,  and  he  had  also  a  son  Jesse,  baptized  in  January,  1727 ;  and 
we  shall  find  that  all  these  names  reappear  in  Williamstown  in  the 
next  two  generations. 

It  is  doubtful  whether  Zebediah  Sabin  married  Anna  Dwight, 
then  living  in  New  Haven,  before  or  after  he  marched  as  a  private 
to  the  northward  on  the  alarm  over  the  capture  of  Fort  William 
Henry,  Aug.  9,  1757.  It  was  probably  after,  as  the  marriage  took 
place  at  any  rate  October  12th  of  that  year ;  and  as  Montcalm  and 
his  motley  forces,  satisfied  with  the  terror  they  had  caused  and  the 
ruin  they  had  wrought,  shortly  retired  again  to  Canada,  after  caus- 
ing the  demolition  of  the  fort  at  the  hands  of  twelve  hundred  men, 
and  after  lading  on  boats  by  about  a  thousand  more  the  vast  stores 
of  plunder  acquired,  the  militiamen  who  had  mustered  to  the  num- 
ber of  twenty  thousand  dispersed  also  to  their  homes,  and  Sabin 
may  have  claimed  his  bride  on  his  return  to  Connecticut.  She  was 
three  years  older  than  he,  and  had  been  brought  up  with  him  within 
the  limits  of  Thompson  Parish.  Her  father,  John  Dwight,  was 
prominently  concerned  in  the  building  of  the  meeting-house  and 


56  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

was  ensign  of  the  military  company  that  first  trained  under  its 
shadow,  although  his  home  was  on  the  west  side  of  the  Quinebaug, 
over  which  he  and  a  neighbor  had  managed  to  throw  a  cart-bridge 
without  any  public  help,  so  that  they,  too,  might  reach  the  meeting- 
house of  their  choice.  In  1750,  Dwight,  in  the  meantime,  become 
a  captain,  lost  his  l^ouse  by  fire,  a  negro  servant  perished  in  the 
flames,  and  all  his  "household  goods,  clothes,  corn,  meat,  books, 
bonds,  and  notes  of  hand"  were  destroyed.  When  he  died,  three 
years  later,  his  estate  was  in  consequence  so  heavily  encumbered 
that  his  widow  removed  to  New  Haven,  where  some  of  his  children 
had  previously  settled.  The  Dwight  lineage,  intertwined  by  this 
marriage  and  otherwise  with  that  of  the  Sabins,  a  pleasant  memorial 
of  which  connection  was  the  name  of  Dwight  Sabin,  United  States 
Senator  from  Minnesota  in  the  last  decade  but  one  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  was  a  remarkable  lineage.  John  Dwight,  ancestor  of  all 
the  Dwights  in  this  country,  came  from  England  in  middle  life  in 
or  about  1635,  and  was  one  of  the  first  settlers  of  Dedham,  which 
is  said  to  have  been  named  by  him  from  his  resident  hamlet  in  the 
old  country.  His  son,  Timothy,  was  also  born  in  England  and  died 
in  Dedham  in  1718,  aged  eighty-eight.  The  site  of  the  old  Dwight 
mansion  in  Dedham  was  pointed  out  to  the  writer  in  1885,  just 
where  the  old  carriage  road  to  Boston  passes  under  the  railroad 
bridge,  only  a  few  rods  from  the  station.  Eev.  Josiah  Dwight,  the 
first  minister  of  Woodstock,  who  was  settled  there  in  1690  and  who 
died  in  Thompson  in  1748,  was  one  son  of  this  Timothy  of  Ded- 
ham, and  John  Dwight,  father  of  Anna  Sabin,  was  the  minister's 
son.  Another  son  of  Captain  Timothy  of  Dedham  was  Captain 
Henry  of  Hatfield,  whose  son,  General  Joseph  Dwight  of  Great  Bar- 
rington,  played  so  large  a  part  in  the  early  history  of  our  Berkshire 
County. 

Zebediah  Sabin  took  the  freeman's  oath  in  Thompson,  April  7, 
1760.  The*  greatest  question  of  that  century  in  America  having 
been  settled  the  autumn  before  on  the  Heights  of  Abraham  above 
Quebec,  the  world  to  the  northwest  along  the  Hoosac  and  the  upper 
Hudson  lay  open  to  the  young  men  who  had  traversed  the  region  in 
the  various  campaigns  against  the  French,  "  where  to  choose."  We 
do  not  know  the  reasons  that  led  Sabin  and  his  wife,  with  one  or 
more  children  in  the  family  already,  to  leave  Connecticut  as  a  home. 
We  only  know  that  he  was  the  youngest  of  eight  children,  and  it  is 
probable  that  an  older  brother  had  already  assumed  to  himself  the 
"  good  will "  of  the  old  red  tavern  and  the  ownership  of  the  adjacent 
acres.  He  had  a  brother  nine  years  older  than  himself,  named  Jesse. 


WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    BENNINGTON.  57 

At  any  rate,  we  find  him  and  his  growing  family  in  New  Providence, 
now  a  part  of  the  township  of  Cheshire,  about  a  dozen  miles  south- 
east of  Williamstown,  amid  settlers  mostly  from  Ehode  Island,  of 
whom  the  chief  was  Colonel  Joab  Stafford,  in  the  spring  of  1768. 
The  place  was  commonly  called,  and  is  locally  known  still,  as  "  Staf- 
ford's Hill."  An  old  deed  reveals  the  fact  that  Zebediah  Sabin 
bought,  on  the  25th  of  June,  1768,  for  £65  sixty-five  acres  in  New 
Providence,  "  a  part  of  Lot  No.  6,  as  is  to  be  seen  on  the  plan  drawn 
by  Colonel  Joab  Stafford."  One  son,  Timothy,  was  born  to  the  Sabins 
at  New  Providence,  June  1,  1770.  But  Stafford's  Hill  did  not  sat- 
isfy them.  Williamstown,  on  the  Hoosac,  was  at  that  time  growing 
rapidly;  its  first  framed  meeting-house  had  just  then  been  fin- 
ished on  the  "  Square,"  and  the  Kev.  Whitman  Welch,  a  native  of 
Connecticut  and  a  graduate  of  Yale,  was  then  a  settled  minister 
giving  much  satisfaction  to  his  people.  Before  the  boy  Timothy 
could  toddle,  the  family  was  in  Williamstown,  two  100-acre  lots  had 
been  bought  in  succession,  the  first  on  what  is  now  the  Potter  road, 
No.  22,  and  the  other  the  home-lot,  No.  41,  bordering  on  what  was 
already  the  Sloan  farm.  About  four  years  of  unremitting  la,bor 
there  on  the  part  of  both  father  and  mother,  assisted  by  the  two 
older  boys,  John  and  Charles,  had  made  good  beginnings  as  toward 
a  permanent  home,  when  the  affairs  of  Lexington  and  Concord  and 
Bunker  Hill  sent  westward  a  ringing  summons  to  the  brave  men 
and  true. 

Sabin's  commission  by  the  Colony  of  the  Massachusetts  Bay  as 
first  lieutenant  in  Captain  Sloan's  company  is  dated  the  19th  of 
May,  1775,  his  commission  to  the  same  rank  by  the  United  Colonies 
in  Congress  assembled  is  dated  July  1,  1775,  and  both  are  here 
appended  in  full  as  copied  verbatim  from  the  original  commissions. 

THE  CONGRESS  OF  THE  COLONY  OF  THE  MASSACHUSETT  BAY. 
To  ZEBEDIAH  SABINS,  GENTLEMAN.  GREETING  : 

We,  reposing  especial  Trust  and  Confidence  in  your  Courage  and  good 
Conduct, 

Do,  by  these  Presents,  constitute  and  appoint  you  the  said  Zebediah  Sabins 
to  be  Lieutenant  of  the  Foot  Company  in  the  Regiment  of  Foot  Whereof  John 
Patterson  Esq.  is  Colonel  raised  by  the  Congress  aforesaid,  for  the  Defence  of 
said  Colony. 

You  are,  therefore,  carefully  and  diligently  to  discharge  the  Duty  of  a  Lieu- 
tenant in  leading,  ordering  and  exercising  the  said  Company  in  Arms,  both 
inferior  Officers  and  Soldiers,  and  to  keep  them  in  good  Order  and  Discipline  ; 
and  they  are  hereby  commanded  to  obey  you  as  their  Lieutenant,  and  you  are 
yourself  to  observe  and  follow  such  Orders  and  Instructions  as  you  shall,  from 


58  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

Time  to  Time,  receive  from  the  General  and  Commander  in  Chief  of  the  Forces 
raised  in  the  Colony  aforesaid,  for  the  Defence  of  the  same,  or  any  other  your 
superior  Officers,  according  to  Military  Rules  and  Discipline  in  War,  in  Pursu- 
ance of  the  Trust  reposed  in  you. 

By  Order  of  the  Congress. 

Jos.  WARREN,  President  P.  T. 
Dated,  the  19th  of  May  A.D.  1775. 

SAM.  FREEMAN,  Secretary  P.  T. 

IN  CONGRESS. 

The  delegates  of  the  United  Colonies  of  New-Hampshire,  Massachusetts-Bay, 
Rhode-Island,  Connecticut,  New  York,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  the  Counties 
of  New  Castle,  Kent,  and  Sussex  on  Delaware,  Maryland,  Virginia,  North  Caro- 
lina, and  South  Carolina,  to  Zebediah  Sabins,  Gent — 

We  reposing  especial  Trust  and  Confidence  in  your  Patriotism,  Valour,  Con- 
duct and  Fidelity, 

Do  by  these  Presents,  Constitute  and  appoint  you  to  be  —  Lieutenant  of  Capt. 
Sloan's  Company  in  the  26th  Regiment,  Commanded  by  Col.  Paterson  —  in  The 
Army  of  the  United  Colonies,  raised  for  the  Defense  of  American  Liberty,  and 
for  repelling  every  hostile  Invasion  thereof.  You  are  therefore  carefully  and 
diligently  to  discharge  the  Duty  of  Lieutenant  by  doing  and  performing  all 
Manner  of  Things  there  unto  belonging.  And  we  do  strictly  charge  and  require 
all  Officers  and  Soldiers  under  your  command,  to  be  obedient  to  your  Orders  as 
Lieutenant.  And  you  are  to  observe  and  follow  such  Orders  and  Directions 
from  Time  to  Time,  as  you  shall  receive  from  this  or  a  future  Congress  of  the 
United  Colonies,  or  Committee  of  Congress  for  that  Purpose  appointed,  or  Com- 
mander-in  Chief  for  the  Time  being  of  the  Army  of  the  United  Colonies,  or  any 
other  your  superior  Officer,  according  to  the  Rules  and  Discipline  of  War,  in 
Pursuance  of  the  Trust  reposed  in  you.  This  Commission  to  continue  in  Force 
until  revoked  by  this  or  a  future  Congress. 

July  1st,  1775  —  By  Order  of  the  Congress. 

JOHN  HANCOCK,  President. 
Attest.  CHAS.  THOMSON,  Secy. 

Captain  Sloan's  company  went  into  camp  at  Charlestown.  When 
the  draft  was  made  from  it  for  Arnold's  Expedition  up  the  Kenne- 
bec,  Lieutenant  Sabin  and  Sergeant  David  Johnson,  both  from  South 
Williarnstown,  were  the  officers  taken,  and  six  privates,  of  whom 
one  only,  Alexander  Spencer,  was  from  Williamstown.  The  sword 
that  Sabin  carried  with  him  to  Quebec,  the  powder-horn  also  en- 
graved while  he  was  still  at  Charlestown,  are  extant  and  carefully 
preserved  here  in  town.  The  powder-horn  bears  this  inscription :  — 

"LIKUT  ZEBADIAH  SABEN 
His  horn  Charles  Town 
Camp  No.  3,  Decr  ye 

3d;  A.D.  1775  I  M." 


WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    BENNINGTON.  59 

Lieutenant  Sabin  took  with  him  to  Quebec  his  two  sons,  John  and 
Charles.  Charles  was  a  private  in  Sloan's  company  at  the  time, 
although  he  was  but  sixteen  years  old ;  but  he  was  not  drafted  with 
the  others.  Probably  he  volunteered  at  his  father's  request.  Cer- 
tainly he  went  and  returned,  and  brought  back  with  him  the  sword 
and  powder-horn  just  referred  to ;  and  he  lived  to  become  seventy 
years  old,  in  South  Williamstown.  The  good  pastor  here,  at  any 
rate,  Rev.  Whitman  Welch,  a  young  man  in  whose  bones  the 
fire  burned,  volunteered  to  accompany  the  party  from  Chaiiestown, 
paying  his  life  as  the  forfeit,  dying  of  small-pox  near  Quebec,  the 
following  March.  The  Lieutenant  himself,  with  his  eldest  son 
John,  after  enduring  the  incredible  hardships  of  the  winter's  march 
through  the  unbroken  wilderness,  and  so  enrolling  his  name  forever 
among  the  famine-proof  veterans  of  the  Quebec  and  the  Chaudiere, 
both  succumbed  to  the  small-pox  on  the  retreat  of  the  survivors  of 
both  divisions  of  the  army  up  the  St.  Lawrence  and  Lake  Cham- 
plain,  probably  at  what  is  now  Whitehall. 

3.  Charles  Sabin.  Two  soldiers  who  had  enlisted  from  Pownal, 
Caleb  Morgan  and  John  Potter,  certainly  went  with  the  Sabins  to 
Quebec,  and  are  believed  to  have  accompanied  Charles  Sabin  from 
Whitehall  to  their  respective  homes  in  this  neighborhood.  We 
happen  to  know  also  the  military  experiences  of  another  Pownal 
man,  Josiah  Dunning,  during  the  first  two  years  of  the  war,  who 
served  with  Williamstown  men,  and  whose  story,  as  told  by  him- 
self, in  an  application  for  a  pension  long  afterward,  throws  light 
upon  our  records  of  Williamstown  men,  his  neighbors  and  associates. 
Michael  Dunning,  born  in  Newtown,  Connecticut,  in  1730,  was  one 
of  the  very  first  settlers  in  Pownal,  locating  his  home  on  the 
Hoosac  at  the  northern  foot  of  Northwest  Hill.  He  was  own 
cousin  of  Deacon  Matthew  Dunning  of  South  Williamstown,  born 
in  Newtown,  in  1714,  and  becoming  as  an  old  man  the  principal 
founder  of  the  Baptist  Church  in  South  Williamstown.  His  son 
Matthew,  at  the  time  of  his  father's  death  in  1807,  was  a  citizen  of 
Lanesboro.  But  Michael  Dunning  left  a  large  posterity  in  Pownal. 
His  son  Josiah,  born  in  Newtown  in  October,  1755,  was  seven  years 
old  when  the  father  came  northward,  presumably  to  Pownal. 
Josiah  Dunning  continued  to  live  in  Pownal  till  1827.  He  gave 
substantially  the  following  account  of  his  war  service  in  his  appli- 
cation for  a  pension,  which  is  on  record  in  the  Pension  Office  at 
Washington :  — 

Some  time  in  April,  1775,  while  living  in  Pownal,  Vermont,  he, 
as  a  private,  assisted  in  organizing  a  volunteer  company  to  capture 


60  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

Fort  Ticonderoga,  that  elected  Samuel  Wright  as  captain,  and  part 
of  the  company  marched  to  Castleton,  Vermont,  where  Colonel 
Ethan  Allen  took  the  command  and  crossed  over  Lake  Champlain 
in  boats.  The  other  portion  of  the  company,  including  Dunning, 
marched  to  Skenesboro,  now  Whitehall,  where  they  joined  the  forces 
under  Colonel  Benedict  Arnold,  and  sailed  in  a  schooner  down  the 
lake,  arriving  at  Ticonderoga  in  the  morning  after  the  surrender  of 
the  garrison.  He  witnessed  the  exciting  dispute  between  Colonel 
Allen  and  Colonel  Arnold,  relative  to  which  one  of  them  was  en- 
titled to  the  command  of  the.  troops ;  the  former  claiming  the  right 
in  consequence  of  having  taken  the  fort  with  volunteers,  and  the 
latter  in  virtue  of  his  commission.  Both  had  drawn  their  swords, 
and  the  men  under  their  respective  commands  had  raised  and  cocked 
their  muskets,  and  presented  their  bayonets,  when  a  private  named 
Edward  Kichards,  stepping  forward  with  great  tirmness,  commanded 
both  officers  to  put  up  their  swords,  and  to  the  soldiers  of  both 
parties  to  arrest  them  if  they  did  not  immediately  desist.  The 
angry  officers  then  abandoned  the  dispute,  with  a  stipulation  for  a 
duel  to  take  place  between  them  after  the  war,  and  Dunning  thinks 
that  Colonel  Arnold  then  assumed  the  command. 

In  a  few  days  Colonel  Arnold,  with  a  body  of  soldiers,  proceeded 
in  the  before-mentioned  schooner,  and  in  batteaux,  to  Crown  Point 
and  then  to  St.  Johns,  in  Canada,  where  a  British  vessel  was  cap- 
tured ;  and  the  troops,  including  Dunning,  returned  to  Crown  Point 
and  were  employed  on  the  lake  and  forts  until  the  following 
September,  when  his  company  was  dismissed. 

About  the  1st  of  April,  1776,  he  ran  away  from  his  father's  to 
Albany,  where  he  entered  the  service  under  Captain  John  Hunnr 
who  a  part  of  that  year  was  in  the  Quarter-master  Department,  and 
Dunning  was  employed  as  a  waiter  to  Captain  Hunn,  and  going 
express  to  Fort  George,  at  the  head  of  Lake  George,  to  Whitehall,, 
to  Stillwater  and  other  places,  as  well  as  in  other  duties,  until  the 
end  of  December,  1776.  In  1776  he  served  about  two  months  as  one 
of  the  guards  to  the  public  stores  in  Sunderland,  Bennington  County,. 
Vermont,  under  the  command  of  Samuel  Robinson  of  Bennington,. 
who  is  mentioned,  later  in  the  year,  as  Colonel. 

About  July  1,  1777,  when  he  was  Orderly  Sergeant  of  a  company 
of  militia  in  Pownal,  Vermont,  under  Captain  Eli  Noble,  the  news 
was  received  of  the  arrival  of  General  Burgoyne  from  Canada,  at 
Ticonderoga,  and  he  was  ordered  to  warn  out  his  company,  who 
volunteered  to  go  to  Bennington,  where  was  "headquarters."  They 
were  employed  in  guarding  the  public  stores,  in  scouting  parties 


WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    BENNINGTON.  61 

after  the  British  and  Tories,  until  the  battle  of  Aug.  16,  1777,  at 
Bennington;  but  it  seems  that  Dunning  had  been  previously  de- 
spatched with  others  on  a  reconnoitring  expedition,  to  ascertain  the 
position  of  the  reinforcements  (under  Colonel  Breyman),  which  were 
known  to  be  several  miles  in  the  rear  of  the  advance  of  the  main 
body  under  General  Batim,  and  did  not  return  until  the  close  of  the 
day  of  the  battle.  After  caring  for  the  wounded  and  prisoners, 
Dunning  with  his  company  proceeded  toward  the  State  of  New 
York,  and  near  Tull's  Mills  they  were  fired  upon  by  an  ambuscade 
of  a  small  body  of  Indians,  which  killed  two  men.  They  crossed 
the  North  River  at  Stillwater,  and  were  stationed  as  garrison  at 
Fort  George  for  a  time,  but  were  present  at  the  operations  of  the 
army  at  Saratoga,  prior  to  and  at  the  surrender  of  General  Burgoyne 
in  October;  after  which  he  was  discharged  in  November  at  Ben- 
nington. 

The  mother  of  Charles  Sabin,  while  she  must  have  welcomed  with 
rejoicing  the  survivor  of  the  three  whom  she  had  sent  out  in  the 
autumn  to  take  the  risks  for  their  country,  must  also  have  been 
overwhelmed  for  the  moment  by  the  magnitude  of  her  losses.  But 
she  was  made  of  too  stern  a  stuff  to  bate  a  jot  of  heart  or  hope.  She 
had  four  little  children  around  her  knees,  now  fatherless,  besides  the 
son  who  had  now  come  home  from  paths  of  peril  and  camps  of  con- 
tagion and  death-scenes  of  terror.  She  rose  to  the  occasion.  She 
took  possession  of  her  slender  opportunities.  She  did  not  scorn 
hard  labors  in  the  field.  She  directed  what  she  could  not  personally 
perform.  She  lived  for  more  than  thirty  years  after  her  distressful 
widowhood,  carrying  on  her  farm  and  bringing  up  her  children  in 
the  nurture  and  admonition  of  the  Lord.  Her  grandson,  the  late 
Dr.  H.  L.  Sabin,  remembered  to  have  ridden  with  her  to  religious 
meetings,  and  remembered  particularly  her  funeral,  as  conducted 
in  her  own  and  her  old  farmhouse.  Charles  Sabin  married  in  due 
time  the  sister  of  two  of  his  comrades  in  the  company  of  minute- 
men  who  marched  from  here  to  Charlestown  in  the  summer  of  1775, 
namely,  David  and  Barechiah  Johnson.  She  bore  him  two  sons, 
Zebediah  and  Hezekiah  (commonly  called  Zeb  and  Kiah),  who  came 
in  time  to  inherit  the  old  homestead,  and  both  lived  upon  it  and 
died  there. 

In  the  meantime,  or  rather  a.t  some  time,  Charles  Sabin  became 
possessed  of  a  smaller  farm  about  half  a  mile  south  upon  the  same 
road,  and  lived  there  with  his  second  wife,  Mehitable  Skinner,  who 
bore  to  him  three  daughters,  Maria  and  Betsey  and  Alice.  The 
father  was  a  character  in  South  Williamstown  so  long  as  he  lived,  — 


62  WILLIAMSTOWK    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

honorable-minded  and  sharp-witted  and  much  too  much  given  to 
strong  drink  and  a  capital  story-teller.  His  wife  was  much  dis- 
turbed by  the  bills  constantly  run  up  at  the  village  store  then  kept 
by  Lyman  Hubbell,  —  bills  contracted  a  good  deal  faster  than  they 
were  paid  off.  One  day  he  went  home  in  a  hilarious  mood  with  his 
word  of  comfort  for  her,  —  "  I've  settled  with  Hubbell !  He  gave  me 
credit  for  jugs  returned!"  Sometimes  his  sallies  of  hilarity  were 
directed  to  inappropriate  parties.  Lyman  Hubbell  had  the  name  of 
being  a  penurious  man,  and  doubtless  the  neighbors  often  joked 
among  themselves  over  this  peculiarity  of  their  respected  store- 
keeper. At  that  time  all  the  heavy  freights  from  New  York  des- 
tined for  this  part  of  the  country  were  brought  up  the  North  River 
by  sloop  as  far  as  Schodack,  and  then  hauled  overland  up  the 
Kinderhook  and  over  the  slight  and  short  water-shed  to  the  Han- 
cock Brook.  Hubbell  bought  his  goods  in  New  York  and  they  were 
brought  up  along  this  route.  One  time  he  was  delayed  considerably 
beyond  the  time  of  his  expected  return,  and  his  family  and  even  the 
neighbors  became  more  or  less  anxious  about  him.  But  Charles 
Sabin,  after  having  refreshed  himself  as  usual  at  the  store,  felt  no 
anxiety  at  all.  He  climbed  the  short  hill,  and  rapped  loudly  at  the 
door  of  the  storekeeper's  house.  Mrs.  Hubbell  came  much  perturbed, 
when  she  was  accosted  as  follows:  —  "We've  lieerd  from  Hubbell! 
When  he  was  coming  off  the  plank  at  Schodack,  he  saw  a  sixpence  in 
the  ivater  and  he  dove  for  it  and  he  hain't  come  up  yit !  "  It  is  per- 
haps needless  to  add,  that  in  the  store  itself  and  in  a  well-known 
shoemaker's  shop  nearer  to  his  own  home  and  in  other  little  places 
of  public  resort  within  an  isolated  community,  Sabin  was  a  frequent 
visitor  and  a  fluent  political  debater  and  a  welcome  teller  of  stories 
of  his  Kennebec  and  other  Revolutionary  campaigns,  which  last  nat- 
urally accumulated  in  point  and  piquancy  as  he  told  them  o'er  and 
o'er.  His  nearest  neighbor  from  his  second  home  and  his  brother- 
in-law  through  his  first  marriage,  was  a  comrade  of  his  during  the 
first  part  of  the  campaign  up  the  Kennebec,  but  was  unluckily  en- 
rolled in  the  rear-guard  under  Lieutenant  Colonel  Enos,  which  officer 
misinterpreted,  or  rather  under  the  pressure  of  his  own  officers  and 
of  the  circumstances  failed  to  carry  out  an  order  from  Colonel 
Arnold  in  the  front,  and  was  forced  to  order  his  men  to  retreat 
down  the  Kennebec  and  back  to  Cambridge.  They  came  as  near 
starving  to  death  on  the  retreat  as  those  did  who  persisted  in  the 
advance  to  Quebec  ;  but  Enos  was  court-martialled  at  Washington's 
camp  and  honorably  acquitted,  though  he  continued  to  bear  un- 
merited odium,  and  left  the  army  shortly  afterward,  either  knowing 


WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    BENNINGTON.  63 

or  suspecting  that  his  retreat  was  disapproved  of  by  the  Comman- 
der-in-chief. Charles  Sabin  died  June  25,  1829,  aged  seventy  years. 

4.  David  Johnson.  He  was  commonly  called  "  Black  David "  to 
distinguish  him  from  a  well-to-do  contemporary  —  "White  David 
Johnson  "  —  who  lived  on  Stone  Hill.  This  Black  David  was  a  ser- 
geant in  the  rear  division  on  the  Kennebec  in  special  charge  of  five 
or  six  soldiers,  and  retreated  of  course  under  the  orders  of  his  supe- 
rior officer.  He  had  his  own  stories  to  tell  of  mishap  and  starvation 
on  the  retreat,  particularly  one  of  a  chance-caught  moose  divided  up 
among  the  whole  detachment.  A  portion  of  the  entrails  fell  to  the 
sergeant  and  to  his  own  little  squad :  —  "It  was  the  sweetest  morsel  I 
ever  tasted  in  my  life ! "  But  Charles  Sabin  had  the  moral  advantage 
over  David  Johnson  in  debate  and  retort,  in  that  the  former  saw 
Quebec  and  Montreal,  the  St.  Lawrence  River  and  Lake  Champlain, 
in  short,  saw  the  Canada  campaign  through  to  the  end ;  so,  when 
these  two  brothers-in-law  and  near  neighbors  chanced  to  meet  in 
Deacon  Dickinson's  shoemaker's  shop  close  by  or  other  such  place, 
especially  if  there  were  two  or  three  auditors  in  close  quarters,  or  a 
boy  or  two  such  as  the  one  who  long  afterward  informed  the  writer 
about  this,  Sabin  was  apt  to  gibe  the  other  about  what  happened 
in  the  woods  of  Maine.  "  What  do  you  think  has  become  of  them  guns 
that  you  stacked  up  there  in  the  woods  f  "  "  They  are  there  yit  for  all  I 
know  or  care  !  "  Johnson  was  a  Federalist  in  politics,  and  though 
he  probably  never  analyzed  the  matter  to  the  bottom,  he  felt  no  ob- 
jection to  some  little  privileges  accorded  under  the  law  to  those  then 
called  in  common  parlance  the  "  better  class  " ;  Sabin,  on  the  other 
hand,  was  a  Jeffersonian  democrat,  believed  in  equalities  under  the 
law,  as  did  then  the  majority  of  his  townsmen ;  and  in  these  little 
half-accidental,  half-designed  conclaves  in  South  Williamstown, 
which  broke  up  somewhat  the  isolation  and  monotony  of  life  there, 
Sabin  and  Johnson  had  it  out  in  hand-to-hand  contests  that  amused, 
even  if  they  did  not  enlighten,  their  fellow-citizens. 

It  is  no  more  than  due  to  the  memory  of  Colonel  Enos  and  to  that 
of  his  in  some  respects  unfortunate  rear-guard,  to  insert  here  ver- 
batim Arnold's  last  orders  to  him,  and  one  or  two  other  documents 
relative  to  the  court-martial  at  Cambridge  after  their  return. 

ON  THE  DEAD  RIVER,  20  MILES  ABOVE  THE  PORTAGE, 

Oct.  17,  1775. 

DEAR  SIR  :  I  arrived  here  last  night,  late,  and  find  Col.  Greene's  division  very 
short  of  provisions  —  the  whole  having  only  four  barrels  of  flour  and  ten  of  Pork. 
I  have  therefore  ordered  Major  Bigelow,  and  a  Lieutenant  and  thirty-one  men 
out  of  each  Company,  to  return  and  meet  your  division,  and  bring  up  as  much 


64  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

provision  as  you  can  spare,  which  is  to  be  divided  equally  among  the  three  ;  in 
particular,  of  flour.    This  will  lighten  the  rear,  and  they  will  be  able  to  make 
greater  despatch,  and  will  be  no  hindrance,  as  I  shall  keep  the  men  here  making 
up  cartriges.     I  make  no  doubt  you  will  hurry  on  as  fast  as  possible. 
I  am,  with  esteem,  Dear  Sir,  your  humble  servant, 

B.  ARNOLD. 

N.  B.  If  you  find  your  men  much  fatigued,  and  this  party  can  bring  on  more 
of  your  provision  than  their  sharle,  let  them  have  it ;  you  shall  have  it  again 
when  you  come  up,  and  it  will  forward  the  whole.  The  carpenters  of  Colburn's 
Company  have  more  than  they  can  bring  up. 

The  same  day  from  the  same  place  Arnold  gave  the  following 
orders  to  Major  Bigelow  :  — 

SIR  :  You  are,  as  soon  as  possible,  to  go  back  until  you  meet  Colonel  Enos'-s 
division,  and  take  from  him  as  much  provision  as  he  can  spare,  which  you  will 
return  with  as  soon  as  you  can.  Leave  your  batteaus  this  side  the  carrying 
place,  and  one  man  to  take  care  of  the  whole. 

I  am,  Sir,  your  humble  servant, 

B.  ARNOLD. 
MAJOR  BIGELOW. 

A  Court  of  Inquiry  to  examine  into  the  conduct  of  Lieutenant 
Colonel  Enos,  charged  with  "  quitting  his  Commanding  Officer  with- 
out leave,"  was  ordered  at  headquarters  in  Cambridge,  Nov.  27, 
1775,  and  convened  two  days  later,  and  reported  "that  it  is  neces- 
sary for  the  satisfaction  of  this  world  and  for  his  own  honour,  that 
a  Court-Martial  should  immediately  hold  for  his  trial."  Such  Court 
under  the  express  orders  of  the  Commander-in-chief,  consisting  of 
General  Sullivan,  president,  three  colonels,  five  lieutenant  colonels, 
four  majors,  and  a  judge  advocate,  convened  at  headquarters  Decem- 
ber 1 ;  and  being  duly  sworn,  heard  the  Colonel's  own  testimony  and 
that  of  his  officers,  and  took  into  consideration  all  the  circumstances 
of  the  case.  The  verdict  was  as  follows :  — 

The  Court  being  cleared,  after  mature  consideration,  are  unanimously  of 
opinion,  that  Colonel  Enos  was  under  a  necessity  of  returning  with  the  division 
under  his  command,  and  therefore  acquit  him  with  honor. 

JOHN  SULLIVAN,  President. 

This  should  have  settled  the  whole  matter  in  the  Colonel's  favor. 
But  it  did  not.  Murmurs  and  hostile  criticisms  continued  to  stir 
and  spread  throughout  the  army  and  the  general  public.  Five 
months  later,  therefore,  after  the  army  headquarters  had  been  shifted 
to  New  York,  General  Sullivan  published  the  following  voluntary 
statement :  — 


WILLIAMSTOWN    AND   BENNINGTON.  65 

I  hereby  certify  that  I  was  President  of  a  Court-Martial  in  Cambridge,  when 
Colonel  Enos  was  tried  for  leaving  Colonel  Arnold,  with  the  rear  division  of  the 
detachment  under  his  command,  bound  for  Quebeck  ;  and  up  the  trial  it  clearly 
appeared  to  me,  as  well  as  to  all  the  other  members  of  the  Court,  that  Colonel 
Enos  was  perfectly  justifiable  in  returning  with  the  division,  being  clearly  proved 
by  witnesses  of  undoubted  veracity  (some  of  whom  I  have  been  personally  ac- 
quainted with  for  a  number  of  years,  and  know  them  to  be  persons  of  truth) 
that  so  much  provision  had  been  sent  forward,  to  support  the  other  divisions,  as 
lef  them  so  small  a  quantity  that  their  men  were  almost  famished  with  hunger 
on  their  return  ;  and  some  would  undoubtedly  have  starved,  had  they  not,  by 
accident,  come  across  and  killed  a  large  moose.  Upon  their  evidence,  there  re- 
mained no  dought  in  the  mind  of  myself,  or  any  of  the  members,  that  the  return 
of  the  division  was  prudent  and  reasonable  ;  being  well  convinced  that  they  had 
not  provision  sufficient  to  carry  them  half  way  to  Quebeck;  and  that  their  going 
forward  would  only  have  deprived  the  other  division  of  a  part  of  theirs,  which, 
as  the  event  has  since  shown,  was  not  enough  to  keep  them  all  from  perishing  ; 
we  therefore  acquitted  Colonel  Enos  with  honour. 

I  further  testify,  that  by  a  strict  inquiry  into  the  matter  since,  from  persons 
that  were  in  the  division,  that  went  forward,  I  am  convinced  that  had  Colonel 
Enos,  with  his  division,  proceeded,  it  would  have  been  the  means  of  causing  the 
whole  detachment  to  have  perished  in  the  woods,  for  want  of  sustenance. 

I  further  add  that  I  have  been  well  informed,  by  persons  acquainted  with 
Colonel  Enos,  that  he  has  ever  conducted  as  a  good  and  faithful  officer. 

JOHN  SULLIVAN. 

One  month  later  Enos  himself,  impatient  of  undesired  odium,  pub- 
lished an  appeal  "  To  the  Impartial  Publick,"  in  the  form  of  a  signed 
testimonial  given  to  him  by  his  fellow-officers  in  the  army.  General 
Heath,  eleven  colonels  (among  them  John  Stark),  six  lieutenant  colo- 
nels, and  seven  majors.  It  was  of  no  use.  Whether  he  did  protest 
too  much,  or  there  were  something  real  back  of  Washington's  dis- 
trust, he  soon  quitted  the  army  to  become  one  of  the  founders  of 
Vermont,  and  the  father-in-law  of  Ira  Allen.  He  died  at  Colchester, 
Vermont,  in  October,  1808,  aged  seventy-two  years. 

Sabin  and  Johnson  heartily  cooperated  in  practical  efforts  for  the 
improvement  of  their  neighborhood.  They  were  the  two  leading 
men  in  the  construction  of  the  road  over  the  Taconics  to  the  west- 
ward in  1814,  that  has  now  long  gone  by  the  name  of  the  Johnson 
Pass.  Dr.  Porter,  the  physician  and  surgeon,  who  then  lived  on  the 
southern  slope  of  Stone  Hill,  and  who  had  a  considerable  prac- 
tice in  the  valley  of  the  Little  Hoosac  over  the  mountain,  sent  his 
hired  man  to  help  in  the  work  of  making  the  road.  Henry  Green 
also,  a  vigorous  farmer,  father  of  many  children,  who  lived  in  what 
is  still  called  the  "  Green  Hollow  "  on  the  Gore,  where  Erastus  Young 
afterward  lived,  put  his  muscle  into  the  mountain  highway;  and 
the  writer  himself  has  heard  the  late  Henry  L.  Sabin,  who  lived  in 


66  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

his  boyhood  a  good  deal  with  his  Uncle  Charles,  relate  that  he  car- 
ried the  baiting  or  dinner  many  a  time  to  the  men  cutting  and  dig- 
ging on  the  Johnson  Pass.  Beside  working  his  own  farm  in  the 
ordinary  way,  Johnson  built  stone  walls  for  his  neighbors,  and  was 
more  than  a  common  man,  and  left  more  than  a  common  impress 
on  the  community  in  which  he  lived  and  died.  He  died  Dec.  7, 
1836,  aged  eighty-nine  years.  He  came  hither  from  this  same  lo- 
cality with  the  Sabin  family,  that  is,  the  very  northeastern  corner  of 
Connecticut,  a  section  illuminated  as  to  its  settlement  and  early 
families  by  Miss  Lamb's  "  History  of  Windham  County,"  to  which 
the  writer  is  indebted  for  many  particulars  chronicled  in  the  present 
chapter.  The  Johnson  family  came  certainly  from  Thompson,  and 
perhaps  from  Thompson  Hill,  the  immediate  vicinity  of  the  Sabin 
red  tavern  on  the  old  Bay  Path.  Uriah  Johnson,  the  father  of  David 
and  Barechiah  and  Daniel  and  the  first  wife  of  Charles  Sabin,  lies 
buried  here,  having  died  in  1787  in  his  seventy-seventh  year.  He 
was  thus  older  than  Zebediah  Sabin,  though  their  sons  were  contem- 
poraries here.  Barechiah  Johnson  made  a  home  for  himself  on 
100-acre  lot,  No.  22,  near  the  south  end  of  the  Potter  road,  where  the 
remains  of  his  cellar  wall  are  still  visible ;  but  he  moved  away  to 
Otsego  County,  New  York,  and  his  house  was  moved  down  across 
the  Ashford  Brook  to  the  Roe  place,  where  it  stood  till  lately  as  a 
shed  or  wagon-house.  The  other  son  of  Uriah,  Daniel,  studied 
medicine  here  with  Dr.  Samuel  Porter,  and  removed  also  to  Otsego 
County  to  practise  his  profession.  Of  Uriah's  sons,  David  alone  re- 
mained in  William  stown.  He  lived  to  a  good  old  age.  He  survived 
his  wife  Sarah  Eaton  for  twenty-five  years,  and  also  his  compeer  and 
comrade  Sabin  for  seven  years,  and  he  was  cared  for  in  his  old  age  by 
his  own  sons,  Warren  and  Oran,  and  by  his  daughter  the  first  Harty 
Johnson,  who  became  the  wife  of  Ebenezer  Foster.  These  last  hav- 
ing no  children  of  their  own,  practically  brought  up  her  nephew, 
William  Eaton  Johnson,  named  from  his  grandmother,  and  the  son 
of  Warren  Johnson.  Eaton  Johnson,  as  he  was  usually  called  by 
his  townsmen,  passed  a  long  life  in  South  Williamstown  in  conjunc- 
tion and  neighborhood  harmony  with  Benjamin  F.  Mills,  a  grandson 
of  Captain  Samuel  Mills,  who  was  always  a  near  neighbor  of  Black 
David  Johnson.  Of  the  third  generation  from  the  original  settlers 
there,  no  other  two  men  than  these  were  uniformly  held  in  such  high 
estimation  by  their  neighbors  and  contemporaries,  led  such  useful 
and  influential  lives  from  youth  to  age,  and  did  so  much  to  hold  up 
all  things  that  are  good  in  politics  and  education  and  temperance 
and  religion  in  the  small  hamlet  in  which  Providence  had  cast 


WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    BENNINGTON.  67 

their  lives.  Eaton  Johnson  was  buried  at  the  South  Part,  Jan.  18, 
1889. 

5.  Moses  Rich.  In  Captain  Sloan's  company  of  niinute-men  en- 
camped at  Charlestown  during  the  summer  and  autumn  of  1775  was 
another  South  Williamstown  farmer,  whose  name  ought  not  to  be 
passed  by  in  the  .present  connection.  This  was  Moses  Rich  from 
Western  or  its  immediate  neighborhood,  who  came  in  1763  in  com- 
pany with  Robert  McMaster  and  his  brother  John  McMaster,  all 
three  from  the  same  neighborhood  in  central  Massachusetts,  and  the 
three  families  becoming  the  earliest  settled  in  South  Williamstown 
excepting  only  Isaac  Stratton  at  the  junction  of  the  Ashford  and 
Hancock  brooks.  Moses  Rich  and  Robert  McMaster  took  up  adjoin- 
ing farms  on  what  is  now  the  Woodcock  road,  —  the  lands  of  both 
being  mostly  on  the  south  side  of  that  road  among  the  50-acre  lots 
of  the  second  division,  although  McMaster's  house  stood  and  is  still 
standing  on  the  north  side  of  the  road  as  it  now  runs  bending  to  the 
southwest  toward  its  speedy  junction  with  the  Oblong  road.  For 
the  sake  of  easy  access  to  running  water,  both  placed  their  hearth- 
stones near  to  the  Sweet  Brook  that  comes  trickling  and  twinkling 
down  from  the  Kidder  Pass  —  Rich  putting  his  down  the  stream 
further  east  and  considerably  further  from  the  road  to  the  south. 
All  other  traces  of  a  human  habitation  long  ago  disappeared  from 
that  spot  on  the  brook  side,  but  the  hearthstone  itself  that  has  never 
been  stirred  from  its  original  position  still  gives  token  strong  to  the 
sturdy  volunteer  of  1775.  The  writer  questions  whether  any  other 
person  than  himself  knows  the  location  of  the  old  hearth  and  home 
of  Moses  Rich.  He  returned  to  it  from  the  first  Revolutionary  camp 
in  Charlestown,  and  time  and  again  from  other  military  service, 
though  he  had  two  sons  of  full  military  age  while  the  war  was  still 
going  on.  Moses  Rich  was  an  original  member  of  the  Williamstown 
Church.  He  lived  well  into  the  present  century.  Sedgwick  Mills, 
who  was  born  on  the  Oblong  road  in  1795,  told  the  present  writer  in 
1877  that  he  remembered  Moses  Rich  perfectly  throughout  his  own 
boyhood.  He  also  remembered  John  McMaster  and  his  house  on 
the  Sloan  road,  very  near  to  the  spot  where  afterward  was  built  the 
house  of  Norman  E.  Eldredge. 

Elijah  Rich,  son  of  Moses,  and  Hannah  his  wife  had  thirteen 
children,  all  but  one  of  them  born  in  the  substantial  house  still 
standing  on  the  Torrey  road,  which  he  built  in  1786,  about  a  quarter 
of  a  mile  north  of  his  father's.  Asenath  Torrey,  daughter  of  John 
Torrey,  a  near  neighbor,  born  in  1772,  and  consequently  fourteen 
years  old  at  that  time,  lived  with  the  Rich  family  when  the  new 


68  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

house  was  built ;  and  she  saw  from  that  house  the  first  schoolhouse 
built  in  South  Williamstown  burn  down  in  the  night-time.  When 
Asenath  Torrey  married  Walter  Converse,  Jan.  30,  1791,  there  were 
probably  more  school  children  within  a  radius  of  one  mile  from  that 
schoolhouse  than  within  any  similar  circle  in  the  whole  town.  The 
two  Torrey  families,  the  two  Rich  families  (for  the  father  had  five 
children  born  here  1767-77),  the  two  McMaster  families,  and  the 
families  of  Samuel  Sloan  and  Zebediah  Sabin  were  full  of  children  of 
school  age  at  that  time.  Asenath  Torrey  herself  had  taught  a  school 
one  summer  before  her  marriage  in  the  Young  neighborhood,  or  what 
was  afterward  called  the  Sherwood  district.  After  a  useful  life, 
lacking  but  five  days  of  ninety-seven  years,  Asenath  Torrey  Converse 
passed  away,  Sept.  25, 1869.  The  last  time  the  writer  was  privileged 
to  see  her  was  at  a  funeral  at  the  original  Robert  McMaster  house, 
which  was  but  a  short  distance  from  her  birth-spot  on  50-acre  lot, 
No.  20,  near  to  the  Elijah  Rich  house  where  she  spent  a  part  of  her 
youth ;  in  short,  not  distant  from  the  several  places  where  her  very 
long  life  had  been  spent.  Phillip  Rich,  a  younger  brother  of  Elijah, 
built  his  house  (still  standing,  but  now  for  many  years  unoccupied) 
011  a  rise  of  ground  north  of  the  brook  and  close  by  his  father's. 
Mary  Rich,  a  daughter  of  Moses,  married  Elnathan  Holmes  in  1785, 
a  couple  of  months  before  she  was  sixteen,  and  they  spent  their 
lives  in  the  same  immediate  neighborhood  just  a  little  way  off  from 
the  Torrey  road. 

6.  William  Young.  Perhaps  it  will  help  the  reader  the  better 
to  put  himself  back  in  imagination  into  the  primitive  state  of  things 
existing  in  1775  in  Williamstown,  to  be  reminded  at  this  point  that 
there  was  no  Post  Office  here  then  nor  until  twenty-two  years  later. 
At  that  time  there  were  but  four  mail  routes  in  the  entire  country : 
(1)  the  great  seaboard  route  from  Portland  to  Savannah  ;  (2)  the  route 
from  New  York  via  Albany  and  Montreal  to  Quebec ;  (3)  the  incep- 
tion of  the  route  from  Philadelphia  to  Pittsburg ;  and  (4)  the  ocean 
route  from  New  York  to  Falrnouth,  England.  It  is  surprising  how 
information  was  borne  from  the  seaboard  to  such  a  sequestered  place 
as  Williamstown  then  was  with  its  mountains  roundabout  it ;  how 
quickly  military  companies  were  made  up  from  time  to  time  through- 
out the  war  from  every  part  of  the  town  then  settled;  and  how  gen- 
eral and  well  sustained  were  the  heart-beats  here  in  response  to  the 
throbs  at  the  great  vital  centres  at  Boston  and  New  York.  As  an 
illustration  of  the  quickened  intelligence  and  activity  and  patriotism 
that  came  from  local  exigencies  and  experience  as  well  as  from  the 
more  distant  calls  to  counsel  and  action  to  certain  young  men  of 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    BENNINGTON.  69 

scarcely  more  than  ordinary  original  gifts,  and  even  to  some  belong- 
ing to  families  whose  racial  and  personal  characteristics  were  rather 
sluggish  than  otherwise,  William  Young  may  serve  us  a  good  pur- 
pose. He  was  born  in  1754,  in  or  near  Western,  Worcester  County, 
which  county  was  full  at  that  time  of  Scotch-Irish  Presbyterians, 
who  had  migrated  in  1718  from  Londonderry  and  its  neighborhood 
to  Massachusetts,  a  considerable  part  of  whom  had  passed  in  the 
autumn  of  that  year  from  Boston  into  the  then  new  township  of 
Worcester.  Among  those  thus  passing  was  a  Celtic  family  by  the 
name  of  Young,  who  had  become  attached  to  their  Protestant-Scotch 
neighbors  in  the  north  of  Ireland,  and  who  migrated  with  these  to 
Massachusetts.  The  patriarch  of  this  clan,  John  Young,  ninety 
years  old  at  the  time  of  the  immigration,  died  in  Worcester,  June  30, 
1730,  aged  one  hundred  and  seven  years,  and  was  buried  on  Worces- 
ter common.  His  son  David,  thirty-six  years  old  at  the  time  of  the 
coming-in,  died  in  Worcester  in  1776,  aged  ninety-four,  and  was 
buried  by  the  side  of  his  father.  Nearly  all  these  Scotch-Irish  im- 
migrants and  their  immediate  descendants  had  very  large  families 
and  a  remarkable  longevity.  The  Worcester  branch  of  them  in  a  few 
years  colonized  bodily  the  towns  of  Blandford,  Coleraine,  and  Pel- 
ham,  and  in  part  many  other  towns  also,  particularly  Western  (now 
Warren),  Brim  field,  Palmer,  Ware,  and  New  Salem.  Moses  Young, 
a  son  of  the  David  above-mentioned,  moved  from  Worcester  and 
made  a  home  near  the  boundary  line  between  Brimfield  and  Western. 
He  became  a  constable  in  Brimfield,  and  among  his  papers  are 
receipts  from  Harrison  Gray,  Treasurer  of  the  Province  of  Massa- 
chusetts, for  moneys  thus  paid  in  by  him  in  1764  and  1765.  This 
first  Moses  Young  did  not  come  to  Williamstown,  but  three  of  his 
sons  and  two  of  his  daughters  had  made  permanent  homes  here 
before  the  father's  death,  which  fell  in  September,  1781.  The 
youngest  of  these  three  sons  was  William,  and  his  name  is  on  the 
muster-roll  of  the  minute-men  of  Sloan's  company  encamped  at 
Charlestown  in  1775.  He  was  then  but  twenty-one  years  old.  His 
powder-horn  is  still  extant  in  the  hands  of  his  grandson,  George 
Smith,  and  bears  date  "  ye  4th  of  May,  1775,  Charleston."  This  shows 
that  some  of  the  minute-men  from  Williamstown  were  in  camp  at 
Charlestown  in  less  than  fifteen  days  from  the  affair  at  Lexington 
and  Concord,  and  about  forty  days  before  the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill. 
Young  carried  the  same  powder-horn  into  the  battle  of  Benning- 
ton,  Aug.  16,  1777.  He  was  out  at  various  times  in  the  military  ser- 
vice of  the  Colonies  during  the  Eevolutionary  War,  and  reached  the 
rank  of  "  Major  "  in  the  Massachusetts  militia  after  that  war  was 


70  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

over.     His  first  wife  was  a  daughter  of  Lieutenant  Zebediah  Sabin. 
There  were  no  children  of  that  union. 

But  it  is  rather  as  a  civilian  and  politician  and  legislator  and  man 
of  general  influence  in  the  community,  that  William  Young  calls 
for  notice  in  this  place.  His  usual  title  was  "Esquire,"  and  not 
"  Major."  This  and  various  epitaphs  and  other  records  demonstrate 
that  in  general  the  civil  titles  were  held  in  higher  esteem  than  the 
military,  when  both  rested  upon  the  same  person.  His  brother, 
Moses  Young,  who  was  seven  years  older,  and  came  first  and  "  went 
to  chopping  "  on  the  original  100-acre  lot,  No.  34,  which  became  and 
remains  the  centre  of  all  the  Young  properties  in  that  neighborhood, 


* 


WILLIAM    YOUNG'S    HOUSE. 

and  which  is  still  owned  and  carried  on  (never  a  break)  by  the  great- 
grandson  of  this  Moses,  showed  indeed  activity  and  foresight  and 
acquisitiveness,  and  provided  well  for  a  large  family,  the  ancestors 
of  all  who  have  borne  the  name  of  Young  in  Williamstown  since, 
with  a  single  exception ;  but  neither  he  displayed,  nor  any  one  of 
his  descendants,  any  such  enterprise  and  sagacity  and  sustained 
vigor  and  widely  extended  influence  as  marked  the  life  of  the 
younger  brother,  William.  Andrew  also,  two  years  older  than 
William,  who  fixed  his  homestead  on  the  Ashford  Koad,  and  spent 
a  long  life  there,  having  no  children,  was  in  nowise  remarkable 
above  and  beyond  his  average  neighbor.  But  William  Young,  per- 
haps in  part  because  he  began  his  majority  amid  the  stirring  and 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    BENNINGTON.  71 

uplifting  scenes  around  Boston  during  that  first  revolutionary  sum- 
mer, and  beneath  the  eye  of  Washington  himself,  whose  assumption 
of  the  chief  command  under  the  old  elm  at  Cambridge  he  may  very 
likely  have  witnessed,  developed  into  one  of  the  most  prominent 
and  influential  men  of  his  time  in  the  town.  Captain  Samuel  Clarke 
from  Woodbury,  Connecticut,  where  his  first  two  children  were  born, 
the  next  two  having  been  born  in  Williamstown  in  1766  and  1768 
respectively,  bought  the  50-acre  lot,  No.  36,  near  the  east  end  of  the 
Sloan  Eoad  for  £20,  and  built  on  it  the  commodious  house  herewith 
figured,  which  passed  in  a  few  years  into  the  hands  of  William 
Young,  who  lived  and  died  in  it,  and  which  is  now  owned  and  occu- 
pied by  his  grandson,  George  Smith.  Aside  from  his  homestead, 
apparently  augmented  by  the  next  50-acre  lot  east,  Young  soon 
began  to  buy  lands  on  a  large  scale.  For  instance,  in  September, 
1778,  he  bought  seven  100-acre  lots  and  a  50-acre  lot  adjoining  on 
"Trees  Grant,"  as  it  was  called,  that  is,  on  the  "Gore,"  which 
became  annexed  to  Williamstown  in  1837.  He  paid  for  this  prop- 
erty £300.  John  McMaster  and  Isaac  Stratton  sign  the  deed  as 
witnesses.  They  were  then  his  nearest  neighbors,  if  he  had  already 
purchased  the  Clarke  house  and  lived  in  it.  Isaac  Stratton  was 
already  Justice  of  the  Peace  in  South  Williamstown,  and  this  deed 
was  acknowledged  before  him.  Caleb  Tree,  John  Tree,  and  Elijah 
Cunningham  had  obtained  from  the  Governor  and  Council  a  large 
grant  of  this  unattached  land,  and  it  was  of  these  parties  that 
Young  purchased.  John  Tree  was  at  this  time  a  resident  of  Lanes- 
boro.  Ten  years  later  Young  bought  of  Michael  Dunning  of  Pownal 
for  £1500  "current  money  of  Massachusetts,"  that  is,  silver  money 
one  quarter  depreciated  from  sterling,  lands  which  Stephen  Davis 
had  sold  to  "  said  Dunning."  This  deed  was  acknowledged  before 
W7illiam  Towner,  J.  P.  of  the  north  village.  Davis  had  married 
Young's  sister. 

Free  Masonry  flourished  in  Williamstown  at  the  close  of  the  last 
century  and  at  the  beginning  of  this.  William  Young  set  off  one 
of  the  chambers  of  his  house  as  a  place  of  meeting  for  the  South 
Williamstown  body  of  that  famous  secret  society,  and  became  a 
prominent  official  in  tha,t  organization,  which  circumstance  con- 
tributed indirectly  to  the  chief  disasters  of  his  career.  Probably 
also  his  connection  with  the  masonic  body  paid  indirectly  a  con- 
siderable tribute  to  his  remarkable  political  successes.  He  repre- 
sented the  town  in  the  Legislature  of  the  State  in  1792,  1793,  and 
in  1795.  After  an  interval  of  five  years,  during  which  politics  ran 
very  high  in  Berkshire  as  between  the  Federalists  and  the  Demo- 


72  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

crats,  Theodore  Sedgwick  of  Stockbridge  specially  representing  the 
former,  and  Tompson  J.  Skinner  of  Williamstown  the  latter,  Young 
as  a  prominent  Democrat  resumed  his  annual  place  in  the  House  of 
Representatives  at  Boston  for  nine  successive  years,  1800-1808  in- 
clusive. In  the  meantime,  after  a  length  and  variety  of  political 
offices  hoi  den  which  has  never  since  been  paralleled  in  Massachu- 
setts, Skinner  was  appointed  for  1806  and  1807  Treasurer  of  the 
Commonwealth.  The  Treasurer  was  not  then  chosen  as  now  by  the 
people  at  large,  but  was  appointed  by  "  the  Honorable  the  Senate 
and  House  of  Representatives  of  the  Commonwealth."  William 
Young  was  one  of  the  sureties  both  times  on  Skinner's  bond  as 

Treasurer  for  $100,000.  As  will  be 
related  at  length  on  a  future  page, 
Skinner  as  Treasurer  proved  a  de- 
faulter to  the  State,  and  his  bonds- 
men were  prosecuted  at  law  to  recover 
the  deficit.  The  State  took  tempo- 
rary possession  of  all  property  held 
by  William  Young  in  South  Wil- 
liamstown ;  and  after  his  death, 
which  soon  followed  this  catas- 
trophe, it  set  off  twenty-six  acres 
with  the  homestead  for  the  use  of 
his  widow,  arid  afterwards  gave  back 
that  part  to  her  in  fee  simple.  Cap- 
tain Ebenezer  Foster  from  Hancock 
bought  most  of  the  rest  of  the  land, 
and  erected  on  it  the  fine  house  still 
WILLIAM  YOUNG  standing  a  little  to  the  southwest  of 

the  meeting-house.  Dr.  Alanson  Por- 
ter bought  a  portion  of  the  confiscated  land,  and  built  a  good  brick 
house  upon  it  a  little  to  the  east  of  the  meeting-house.  The  meet- 
ing-house itself  stands  presumably  on  that  part  of  the  farm  given 
back  by  the  State  to  the  Widow  Young.  Captain  Foster  repre- 
sented this  town  in  the  Legislature  of  the  State  in  1830  and  1831. 
His  wife  was  Harty  Johnson,  a  daughter  of  Black  David  Johnson, 
and  they  gave  a  home  for  some  years  in  his  boyhood  to  their 
nephew,  the  late  William  Eaton  Johnson.  The  first  wife  of  William 
Young  was  a  daughter  of  Zebediah  Sabin.  She  died  early  and  with- 
out children.  His  second  wife  was  Currence  Meack,  daughter  of 
the  first  physician  at  the  North  Part,  Jacob  Meack ;  and  she  bore 
to  her  husband  one  son  and  several  daughters.  The  son  was  a  ne'er- 


WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    BENNINGTON.  73 

do-weel,  passing  under  the  designation  of  "  Wicked  Bill,"  and  clos- 
ing a  dishonorable  career  in  Canada.  The  widow  lived  during  the 
first  third  of  this  century  in  her  own  house,  and  it  came  later  into 
the  possession  of  Lorin  Smith,  an  excellent  man,  who  had  married 
one  of  the  daughters. 

Besides  these  six  soldiers  in  Captain  Sloan's  company  at  Charles- 
town,  now  characterized  particularly  and  at  length,  there  were  in 
that  company  then  and  there  from  Williamstown  these  additional 
men  as  given  on  the  contemporary  muster-roll :  — 

Absalom  Baker  Ahasuel  Turret 

Alexander  Spencer  Alexander  Spencer,  Jr. 

Timothy  Sherwood  Ebenezer  Hutchinson 

Anthony  Lamb  Jeremiah  Osborn 

Henry  Wilcox  Jonathan  Hall 

Joshua  Smedley  Starling  Daniels 

Elijah  Flynt  David  Parkhill 

James  Andrews  Daniel  Johnson 

William  Spencer  Ezra  Church 

James  McMaster  Barachiah  Johnson 

Alexander  Sloan  Bartholomew  Woodcock 

The  first  aggressive  campaign  in  the  Revolutionary  War,  1775-76, 
began  with  the  frustrated  attempt  to  surprise  and  capture  Quebec, 
and  was  ended  by  the  expulsion  of  the  British  from  their  stronghold 
around  and  in  Boston  under  the  immediate  command  of  Washington 
himself.  We  have  now  seen  something  of  the  important  military 
service  rendered  by  the  men  of  this  town  in  both  parts  of  this  cam- 
paign. Benjamin  Simonds  was  commissioned  colonel  of  the  Berk- 
shire regiment  of  militia,  Aug.  30, 1775.  There  wak  but  one  regiment 
in  Berkshire  till  April,  1777,  when  Simonds  was  commissioned  colo- 
nel of  the  second  or  northern  regiment,  while  the  southern  regiment 
was  at  the  same  time  similarly  officered,  both  in  addition  to  the 
Berkshire  regiment  raised  by  Colonel  John  Paterson  of  Lenox  and 
enrolled  as  a  part  of  the  Continental  army  soon  after  the  affairs  of 
Lexington  and  Concord.  Simonds  was  a  soldier  in  one  of  the  earli- 
est garrisons  in  Fort  Massachusetts,  was  among  those  captured  there 
by  the  French  arid  Indians  in  1746,  and  carried  captive  to  Canada 
for  a  year,  became  one  of  the  very  earliest  of  the  actual  settlers  in 
Williamstown,  served  at  intervals  and  on  occasion  for  several  years 
both  at  Fort  Massachusetts  and  the  West  Hoosac  Fort,  and  after 
the  close  of  the  French  wars  rose  steadily  in  rank  in  the  Provincial 
militia  until  the  Revolution  broke  out.  He  was  in  commission  as 
colonel  from  1775  until  1781.  Owing  in  part  to  his  well-known 


74  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

alertness  and  capacity,  and  in  part  to  the  isolation  and  distance  of 
northern  Berkshire  from  Boston  and  the  directness  of  the  route  by 
the  Hoosac  to  the  North  River  and  Lake  Cham  plain,  he  enjoyed  at 
times  the  remarkable  distinction  of  receiving  at  home  his  orders 
direct  from  Generals  Sclmyler  and  Gates,  in  command  to  the  west- 
ward, without  the  intervention  of  the  Massachusetts  authorities. 

The  second  campaign  of  the  war,  1776-77,  began  on  the  part  of 
the  Americans  with  the  baffled  attempt  to  keep  the  British  out  of 
the  city  of  New  York,  and  ended  by  the  masterly  manoeuvres  and 
retreats  of  Washington  in  New  Jersey  before  he  went  into  winter 
quarters  at  Morristown.  Colonel  Simonds  with  his  regiment  from 
Berkshire  was  in  the  unfortunate  battle  of  White  Plains,  which  was 
fought  on  October  28,  and  soon  after  was  ordered  to  Ticonderoga, 
where  it  passed  the  winter  in  garrison  from  December  16  to  March 
22,  ninety-seven  days.  There  lies  before  the  writer  at  this  moment 
a  copy  of  the  complete  roster  of  the  regiment  while  doing  duty  that 
winter  at  "  old  Fort  Ti."  The  regimental  officers  stand  as  follows :  — 

Colonel,  Benjamin  Simonds,  Williamstown 

Major,  Caleb  Hyde,  Lenox 

Adjutant,  Daniel  Horsford,  Williamstown 

Surgeon,  Erastus  Sargent,  Stockbridge 

Surgeon's  Mate,  Eldad  Lewis,  Lenox 

Quarter  Master,  Phineas  Brown,  Not  known. 

The  surgeon  of  the  regiment,  in  accordance  with  a  custom  not 
then  unusual,  was  also  the  captain  of  a  company.  Doctor  and  Cap- 
tain Sargeant  was  the  only  son  of  the  Indian  missionary,  Rev.  John 
Sargeant  of  Stockbridge ;  his  mother  was  Abigail  Williams,  half- 
sister  to  the  founder  of  the  college.  His  company  at  Ticonderoga 
consisted  of  forty-three  officers  and  men.  Captain  Amos  Rathburn's 
company  consisted  of  fifty-eight  officers  and  men.  Captain  William 
Douglas  of  Hancock  had  seventy-seven  in  his  company,  of  whom 
more  than  half  were  from  Williamstown  and  Lanesboro.  Captain 
Ephraim  Fitch's  company  held  on  its  roll  sixty-three  names.  In 
Captain  David  Wheeler's  company  were  forty-five  men,  several  of 
them  from  Williamstown.  Captain  George  King,  who  died  in  gar- 
rison, Jan.  20,  1777,  enrolled  in  his  company  fifty-seven  men,  some 
of  them  from  Cheshire  and  its  neighborhood.  Captain  William 
Watkins  commanded  forty-four  officers  and  soldiers.  There  were 
thus  seven  companies,  aggregating  three  hundred  and  eighty-seven 
men,  apparently  all  of  them  from  Berkshire,  in  Simonds's  regiment 
at  Ticonderoga.  On  one  of  these  muster-rolls,  among  other  "pri- 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   BENNINGTON.  75 

vates,"  is  found  the  name  of  Joseph.  Simonds,  and  opposite  to  the 
name  is  written,  "  on  duty  with  the  Colonel."  Joseph  was  not  then 
quite  fifteen  years  old,  but  it  was  in  accordance  with  a  custom  of 
those  times  for  officers  to  enrol  the  names  of  their  boys  as  privates 
in  one  of  their  companies,  and  then  to  assign  to  these  duties  at  head- 
quarters as  servants  or  otherwise  to  themselves.  It  was  in  this  way 
that  Lieutenant  Zebediah  Sabin  took  with  him  to  Quebec  his  son 
John,  as  has  been  already  related. 

Before  following  further  the  fortunes  of  Colonel  Simonds  and  his 
regiment  in  the  campaign  of  1777,  particularly  of  the  Williamstown 
men  under  his  command,  we  must  go  back  a  little  to  the  revolution- 
ary action  of  the  town  itself  in  its  corporate  capacity,  and  consider 
the  three  or  four  men  who  may  be  properly  designated  as  a  Commit- 
tee of  Safety  for  the  town  throughout  the  Revolutionary  War,  even 
if  they  did  not  bear  that  distinctive  appellation.  The  following 
original  document  is  of  the  highest  interest:  — 

WILLIAMSTOWN,  BERKSHIRE  COUNTY, 
June  24,  1776. 

At  a  legal  Town-meeting  of  this  town,  held  on  this  day,  for  the  following 
purposes,  the  following  motion  was  made  and  put  to  vote,  viz. :  Whether,  should 
the  honorable  Congress,  for  the  safety  of  the  Colonies,  declare  them  indepen- 
dent of  Great  Britain,  the  inhabitants  of  this  town  will  solemnly  engage  with 
their  lives  and  fortunes  to  support  them  in  a  measure  ? 

Passed  in  the  affirmative,  nem.  con. 

In  all  the  writer's  search  for  original  materials  of  the  book  now 
in  hand,  —  a  search  that  has  continued  at  intervals  during  more  than 
half  a  lifetime  now  no  longer  short,  —  he  has  found  no  distinct  traces 
of  a  single  citizen  of  the  town,  who  maintained  Tory  sentiments  and 
Tory  action.  There  is  abundant  contemporary  evidence  even  upon 
the  official  records  of  the  towns  themselves,  that  Pownal  and  Ben- 
nington  and  Hancock  and  Lanesboro,  the  towns  with  which  Wil- 
liamstown was  then  most  intimately  connected  in  all  ways,  had  each 
considerable  numbers  among  the  citizens  of  even  prominent  Tories ; 
but  so  far  as  now  appears,  Williamstown  had  none  whatever ;  and 
as  regards  all  the  early  landowners  and  leaders  in  the  town,  the 
evidence  is  positive  through  contemporary  muster-rolls  as  well  as 
universal  tradition,  that  all  the  men  and  women  here  were  of  one 
mind  in  relation  to  the  war.  Of  course,  as  always  happens  under 
such  circumstances,  there  were  leaders  and  followers,  men  who 
understood  the  grounds  of  the  colonial  quarrel  with  the  mother- 
country  and  those  who  did  not  understand  them,  but  who  acted  as 


76  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

by  instinct  and  under  impulses  of  various  kinds,  better  felt  than 
easily  explained.  So  far  as  the  taking  up  of  arms  was  concerned, 
the  men  of  Williamstown  had  become  singularly  familiar  with  them 
through  the  old  French  and  Indian  wars.  It  is  questionable  whether 
any  other  town  in  the  Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts  had  such  a 
purely  military  beginning  and  such  a  constant  military  training  as 
Williamstown  had  had.  The  pitch  for  the  revolutionary  song  was 
given  here  very  early  by  the  prompt  action  of  the  minute-men, 
and  by  the  extraordinary  self-devotion  of  the  first  pastor,  Rev. 
Whitman  Welch ;  and  the  song  itself  appears  to  have  kept  up  to 
the  keynote  until  the  very  end.  The  extraordinary  execution  of  the 
extraordinary  plan  of  Burgoyne's  campaign  on  the  part  of  the  British 
brought  home  the  war  to  the  hearts  and  households  of  the  people 
here  in  an  extraordinary  manner.  Burgoyne  was  coming  down  from 
Canada  to  unite  his  army  at  Albany  with  another  British  army 
brought  up  the  North  River  from  New  York  by  Clinton,  and  so 
intended  to  cut  off  New  England  completely  from  the  rest  of  the 
colonies.  Old  Ti  and  Crown  Point  were  household  words  in  every 
framed  dwelling  and  in  every  log  cabin  in  Williamstown ;  Burgoyne 
had  captured  them  both  as  he  slowly  moved  forward  towards  his 
hoped-for  junction  with  General  Clinton.  He  commanded  Lake 
Champlain  and  Lake  George,  and  it  was  now  but  a  toss  to  the  waters 
of  the  upper  Hudson.  Those  lakes  and  waters  in  their  entire 
stretches  were  perfectly  well  known  to  scores  of  men  in  Williams- 
town.  They  had  heard,  too,  about  the  hireling  Hessians  and  Brims- 
wickers  in  Burgoyne's  army.  They  did  not  relish  that  kind  of 
means  employed  by  Britain  for  the  subjugation  of  colonists,  who 
had  loyally  fought  side  by  side  with  English-born  soldiers  against 
the  French  on  many  a  colonial  battle-field.  Hired  Hessians  ?  Not 
a  man  of  these  colonists  but  had  read  in  his  Bible  about  "  putting 
to  flight  the  armies  of  the  aliens."  If  they  could  not  stop  Burgoyne 
and  his  mongrels  before  a  junction  was  made  at  Albany,  they  knew 
well  enough  that  the  war  would  come  to  their  own  doors,  and  that 
the  hated  Hessians  would  feed  from  their  own  corn-cribs. 

Nevertheless,  some  suspicions  of  the  more  ardent  patriots  had 
attached  themselves  early  in  1775  to  David  Noble,  a  native  of  Con- 
necticut and  a  graduate  of  Yale  College  in  1764,  and  who  came  to 
Williamstown  as  a  young  lawyer  in  1770.  The  following  declara- 
tion, and  the  action  of  the  Committee  of  Correspondence  upon  it, 
explain  themselves  and  throw  a  clear  light  on  the  state  of  feeling  in 
the  town  at  the  time :  — 


WILLIAMSTOWN    AND   BENNINGTON.  77 

WILLIAMSTOWN,  Oct.  24,  1775. 

Whereas  the  Committee  of  Correspondence  for  this  Town  have  informed  me, 
that  some  suspicions  have  been  conceived  of  me,  respecting  my  principles  and 
conduct  in  regard  to  our  publick  affairs ;  and  in  particular  when  I  was  Repre- 
sentative for  this  Town  at  the  General  Court  held  at  Boston,  in  A.D.  1773  ;  that 
I  then  acted  in  opposition  to  the  measures  pursued  for  the  defense  of  our  com- 
mon rights  and  privileges,  in  that  I  voted  against  the  petition  and  remonstrance 
to  the  King,  for  the  removal  of  the  then  Govenour  Hutchinson  :  Now,  impressed 
with  a  sense  of  my  duty  to  myself  and  the  publick,  I  sincerely  declare  that  al- 
though at  the  time  above  referred  to,  and  for  some  time  before  then,  I  had  con- 
ceived too  good  an  opinion  of  that  arch  traitor  to  his  Country,  T.  Hutchinson, 
and,  for  want  of  a  thorough  knowledge  of  my  duty  at  that  time,  I  inconsiderately 
opposed  the  abovesaid  petition  and  remonstrance,  and  thereby  justly  incurred 
the  displeasure  of  my  constituents,  and  that  by  anything  whereby  I  have  given 
any  persons  reason  to  suspect  me  to  be  unfriendly  to  my  Country,  I  have  so  far 
deservedly  forfeited  their  good  esteem.  Yet,  to  do  justice  to  myself,  I  must  de- 
clare, that  although  I  have  committed  errors,  and  been  liable  to  mistakes,  in  the 
little  part  I  have  been  called  to  act,  I  have  ever  been  a  cordial  friend  to  the 
liberties  and  true  interest  of  America  so  far  as  I  understood  it,  and  have  ever 
conformed  myself  to  the  advice  and  directions  of  our  several  Congresses,  and 
am  determined  for  the  future  to  unite,  according  to  my  abilities,  in  defence  of 
our  common  rights  and  privileges. 

DAVID  NOBLE. 

The  Committee  of  Correspondence  being  convened  on  the  26th  of  October, 
1775,  the  abovenamed  David  Noble  voluntarily  presented  the  above  declara- 
tion ;  which,  being  examined  and  accepted  by  the  Committee,  was  presented  to 
the  Town,  in  a  publick  Town-meeting,  for  concurrence,  which  being  twice  read, 
was  put  to  vote,  wrhether  the  same  be  satisfactory  to  the  Town.  Passed  in  the 
affirmative.  Attest : 

ISAAC  STRATTON,  Clerk  of  the  com. 

Just  six  months  before  the  above  town  meeting  was  convened, 
and  only  five  days  after  the  affairs  of  Lexington  and  Concord  on  the 
19th  of  April,  there  assembled  another  town  meeting  in  Williams- 
town,  in  response  to  a  call  from  the  Central  Committee  of  Safety  for 
a  Provincial  Congress  to  assemble  in  the  meeting-house  in  Water- 
town  on  the  31st  day  of  May,  1775.  The  official  record  of  this 
town  meeting  is  interesting  and  stands  in  terms  following :  — 

At  a  meeting  of  the  Inhabitants  of  the  Town  of  Williamstown  on  the  25th  of 
April,  A.IX  1775,  the  Selectmen  being  Moderators  of  the  meeting,  and  Ensign 
Samuel  Kellogg  was  unanimously  chosen  a  Delegate  to  represent  this  Town  in 
Provincial  Congress  ;  and  the  sense  of  the  Town  was  communicated  to  him  for 
his  instruction,  as  follows,  viz.: 

That  it  is  the  sense  of  this  Town,  that  we  are  at  all  times  ready,  as  far  as  our 
circumstances  will  allow,  to  join  in  the  common  cause  of  American  liberty,  and 
to  assist  with  our  lives  and  fortu'nes,  as  occasion  may  require,  to  maintain  our 
rights  and  liberties  against  all  the  hostile  attempts  to  deprive  us  of  our  rights 


78  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

and  liberties,  made  by  the  cruel  and  oppressive  Acts  of  the  British  Parlia- 
ment ;  and  are  always  ready  to  bear  our  proportion  to  defend  our  countrymen, 
and  to  assist  in  repelling  force  by  force  in  such  manner  as  the  collective  wisdom 
of  the  Province  in  Provincial  Congress  convened,  shall  judge  most  expedient. 

The  Town  Clerk  being  absent,  the  meeting  ordered  the  Selectmen  to  sign  in 
behalf  of  the  Town.  . 

NEHEMIAH  SMEDLEY       •)   „ 

x,  ,,T  >  Selectmen. 

NEHEMIAH  WOODCOCK    J 

It  is  worth  noting  here,  that  when  this  congress  gathered  a  month 
later  at  Watertown,  and  the  delegates  presented  their  credentials, 
only  nine  other  towns  in  Berkshire  County  besides  Williamstown 
had  sent  any  delegates.  Pittsfield  sent  none,  nor  Lanesboro,  nor 
Jericho.  These  towns  were  certainly  dominated  at  that  time  by 
the  Tory  sentiments  of  some  of  their  leading  men.  Sheffield,  Great 
Barriugton,  Egremont,  and  Alford  had  united  in  despatching  William 
Whiting;  Tyringham  sent  Major  Giles  Jackson,  John  Chad  wick, 
and  Elijah  Warren;  Sandisfield  sent  Deacon  Samuel  Smith;  Stock- 
bridge  had  chosen  Timothy  Edwards  and  J.  Woodbridge;  Lenox 
was  represented  by  Captain  Caleb  Hyde ;  and  Richmond  by  Captain 
Elijah  Brown.  On  the  contrary,  it  should  in  justice  be  said,  that 
nine  other  towns  in  the  county  besides  these  ten  just  mentioned, 
including  the  three  specially  named,  were  well  represented  in  the 
county  congress  meeting  in  July,  1774,  at  Stockbridge.  The  action 
of  this  county  congress  was  patriotic  throughout,  but  by  no  means 
revolutionary.  The  lines  of  demarkation  among  the  citizens  were 
not  yet  tightly  drawn  in  1774  so  far  as  the  leading  men  in  civil  life 
were  concerned;  as  a  rule  the  officers  and  men  in  the  colonial  mili- 
tia moved  quicker  and  went  further  toward  actual  war  and  later 
toward  independence.  The  first  Provincial  Congress  of  Massachu- 
setts Bay  had  convened  at  Cambridge  in  February,  1775.  This  was 
before  any  overt  action  on  the  part  of  the  British  forces  in  and 
around  Boston  had  taken  place.  Berkshire  was  about  as  fully  repre- 
sented at  Cambridge  in  February  as  at  Watertown  in  May,  although 
blood  had  been  shed  in  the  interval.  Fourteen  towns  had  been 
heard  from  at  Cambridge,  as  represented  by  ten  delegates ;  ten 
delegates  appeared  also  at  Watertown  as  representing  ten  towns. 
Lanesboro  did  not  put  in  an  appearance  at  either  place ;  in  all  prob- 
ability because  the  influence  of  Rev.  Daniel  Collins  tinged  with 
decided  Toryism  predominated  there.  Williamstown  sent  Samuel 
Kellogg  both  in  February  and  May,  while  to  the  county  congress  at 
Stockbridge  in  1774,  she  sent  Robert  Hawkins,  Elisha  Baker,  and 
Jacob  Meack. 


WILLIAMSTOWN    AND   BENNINGTON.  79 

To  intermit  now  for  a  little  the  busy  note  and  bustling  prepara- 
tion of  actual  war  with  the  mother  country,  it  will  perhaps  be  good 
form  to  characterize  in  some  detail  a  few  of  the  leading  men  in 
Williamstown  who  distinguished  themselves  in  this  decade  of  the 
seventies  rather  in  civil  life  than  in  military  action.  Almost  every 
one  of  them,  however,  bore  the  brunt  of  arms  more  or  less  as  officers 
or  privates  as  well  as  the  burdens  of  local  government  in  a  critical 
time.  The  shock  of  prospective  and  actual  war  practically  put  an 
end  to  the  civil  administration  of  the  proprietors  as  such,  which 
had  lasted  full  twenty  years,  —  from  1754  to  1774,  —  and  the  town 
government  which  had  come  into  being  in  1765  came  slowly  into 
exclusive  control  in  the  course  of  ten  years'  time.  We  hear  now  of 
selectmen,  of  representatives  of  the  town  to  the  General  Court,  and 
of  delegates  from  the  town  to  the  Provincial  Congresses.  We  have 
already  learned  incidentally  that  David  Noble  was  the  representa- 
tive to  the  General  Court  in  1773,  and  incurred  the  suspicions  and 
censure  of  his  fellow-townsmen  by  his  conservative  conduct  in  that 
capacity.  We  shall  hear  a  good  deal  more  of  this  man  in  the  sequel, 
but  not  anything  at  all  of  him  in  a  military  way.  It  is  doubtful 
whether  he  ever  recovered  the  full  confidence  of  his  fellow-citizens 
until  the  war  was  over,  even  if  he  did  then.  Of  these  prominent 
civilians  who  rose  to  the  occasion  here,  showing  no  lack  either  in 
intelligence  or  in  activity,  there  were  at  least  six  who  deserve  a 
special  mention  in  this  connection. 

1.  Samuel  Kellogg.  The  Kelloggs  are  of  Scotch  origin,  as  they 
have  always  believed  and  still  believe.  They  have  exhibited  in  every 
generation  since  their  incoming  hither  about  1660,  and  their  settling 
on  the  Connecticut  Eiver  in  Massachusetts  in  Hadley  and  Hatfield, 
certain  peculiar  traits  adapted  to  strengthen  in  us  all  the  belief  in 
hereditary  transmission.  Like  the  Sabins  and  Johnsons  and  Smed- 
leys  and  Mills,  and  several  other  strong  families  in  Williamstown, 
the  Kelloggs  too  came  of  a  thoroughly  good  stock  and  were  capable 
of  perpetuating  it  from  generation  to  generation.  Samuel  Kellogg's 
father  was  Benjamin,  born  in  Old  Hadley  and  married  to  a  Sedg- 
wick,  a  relative  to  those  of  that  name  settled  afterward  in  Stock- 
bridge.  Samuel  was  born  in  Hadley  in  1734,  and  about  the  time  of 
his  majority  seems  to  have  come  to  Williamstown  with  several  other 
young  men  from  northwestern  Connecticut,  —  at  first  scatteringly  and 
afterwards  as  a  part  of  a  military  company  sent  up  by  that  colony, 
—  to  look  out  for  new  homes  for  themselves  and  their  families. 
Four  at  least,  and  probably  some  others  of  that  military  company, 
came  to  be  among  the  earliest  and  firmest  of  the  permanent  settlers 


80  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

here,  all  of  them  serving  at  intervals  for  a  number  of  years  to  help 
garrison  both  Fort  Massachusetts  and  the  West  Hoosac  Fort.  The 
most  enterprising  and  far-seeing  of  the  original  proprietors  of  the 
house-lots,  constituting  the  village  of  Williamstown,  early  perceived 
that  they  could  aggregate  for  themselves  by  purchase  or  exchange  bet- 
ter farms  on  the  outlets  successively  drawn  by  the  owners  of  the  vil- 
lage house-lots.  Kellogg  accordingly  bought  three  or  four  of  the 
first  division  fifty -acre  lots  about  a  mile  east  of  the  east  end  of  the 
hamlet,  bounded  on  the  north  by  the  Hoosac  River  and  on  the  south 
by  the  base  of  Saddle  Mountain,  and  bisected  near  the  middle  by  the 
old  military  path  from  Fort  Massachusetts  to  the  West  Hoosac  Fort. 
When  he  built  his  log  house  on  the  south  side  of  this  path,  the  whole 
tract  was  covered  by  a  dense  forest,  and  the  northerly  part  next  the 
river  by  a  spruce  swamp  so  low  and  wet  that  one  could  only  pass 
through  by  jumping  from  one  fallen  log  to  another.  This  tract  lay 
to  the  east  of  and  adjoining  to  the  farm  of  Nehemiah  Smedley,  one 
of  his  old  comrades  from  Connecticut,  who  had  been  moved  by  the 
same  impulse  to  sell  his  house-lots  with  their  improvements  in  order 
to  get  a  compact  farm  with  a  variety  of  soils. 

On  the  4th  of  March,  1764,  Samuel  Kellogg  married  Chloe  Bacon, 
daughter  of  Daniel  Bacon,  whose  farm  was  a  mile  or  two  south  of 
Kellogg's.  The  Bacon  families  came  from  Middletown,  Connecticut. 
Daniel  Bacon,  Jr.,  a  brother  of  Chloe  Bacon  Kellogg,  was  killed  in 
the  battle  of  Bennington,  while  fighting  in  company  with  his  brother- 
in-law  Kellogg  and  with  Absalom  Blair,  the  father  of  the  second 
Samuel  Kellogg's  wife.  This  young  couple  prospered  in  every  way. 
They  were  Puritans  .from  a  Puritan  stock.  The  blood  of  Major- 
General  Sedgwick  of  Cromwell's  army  had  come  down  into  the  veins 
of  Samuel  Kellogg.  The  names  of  the  husband  and  wife  are  found 
side  by  side  in  the  earliest  list  (1779)  of  the  Williamstown  church 
members.  They  had  seven  children  in  course  of  time.  The  fresh 
farm,  both  upland  and  intervale,  proved  to  be  very  productive.  By 
and  by  another  upland  farm  adjoining  on  the  southeast  was  added 
to  the  lowland  one  for  orchards  and  sugar-bush  and  pasture.  Kel- 
logg had  the  confidence  of  his  fellow-proprietors  from  the  very  first, 
partly  perhaps  because  he  had  been  better  educated  than  the  most 
of  them,  and  certainly  because  he  already  showed  more  capacity  for 
civil  affairs.  Three  times  he  was  moderator  of  important  proprie- 
tors' meetings  under  the  earlier  plan  of  government.  He  was  the 
first  Justice  of  the  Peace  in  the  little  propriety,  bearing  a  commis- 
sion as  such  from  King  George  the  Third,  and  there  is  some  evidence 
still  remaining  that  he  tried  in  that  capacity  certain  alleged  wrong- 


WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    BENN1NGTON.  81 

doers.  As  the  Revolution  began  to  impend  in  a  really  threatening 
way,  and  committees  of  Correspondence  and  Safety  were  appointed  in 
the  country  towns,  and  the  need  of  consultation  and  association  was 
felt  throughout  the  colony,  Kellogg  was  twice  sent  to  Boston  by  his 
townsmen  within  six  months'  time  to  Provincial  Congresses  there. 
He  was  the  fittest  man  to  go.  He  was,  indeed,  formally  instructed 
in  town  meeting  what  general  measures  to  favor ;  but  his  own  pro- 
nounced opinions  gave  color  to  those  of  his  neighbors  as  well  as  took 
color  from  their  opinions.  There  was  in  general  a  remarkable  unanim- 
ity. Nemine  contradicente  is  the  note  appended  to  the  town's  vote  of 
approval  to  the  proposed  Declaration  of  Independence,  about  a  month 
before  it  passed  the  Continental  Congress.  The  writer  has  not  yet 
found,  and  probably  never  will  find,  a  list  of  the  names  constituting 
the  Williamstown  Committee  of  "  Correspondence  "  or  of  "  Safety," 
as  it  was  indifferently  called ;  probably  there  was  some  reason  for 
keeping  the  names  of  the  members  more  or  less  concealed  from  the 
community  at  large.  He  only  knows  for  certain  that  Isaac  Stratton 
was  the  clerk  and  mouthpiece  of  the  Committee,  for  that  appears 
repeatedly  in  official  documents  of  the  time ;  nevertheless,  he  feels 
sure  that  Samuel  Kellogg  was  one  of  the  Committee  from  first  to 
last,  and  that  he  never  shirked  any  patriotic  responsibility  that 
fairly  came  upon  him  as  a  citizen.  He  shouldered  his  musket  for 
the  battle  of  Bennington  and  on  various  other  occasions  during  the 
Revolution. 

He  died  Sept.  2,  1788,  aged  fifty-four  years.  His  epitaph  reads, 
"  A  kind  father,  a  patriotic  and  useful  citizen,  and  a  good  man."  His 
hands  were  certainly  busy  with  the  foundation-stones,  both  military 
and  civil,  of  this  fair  borough  of  Williamstown.  While  it  was  still 
a  Propriety,  there  was  no  place  of  service  and  honor  that  he  did  not 
fulfil.  After  it  became  a  town  in  1765,  the  same  may  be  said.  When 
his  town  took  up  arms  against  the  King,  who  had  commissioned  him 
a  Justice  of  the  Peace,  he  knew  all  the  grounds  of  the  quarrel  and 
took  all  the  risks  of  it.  He  lived  to  witness  the  formation  of  the 
National  Constitution  of  1787,  but  not  the  organization  of  the  gov- 
ernment under  it.  He  left,  as  the  possessor  of  the  commodious  house 
he  had  built  and  of  the  fertile  farm  he  had  subdued  and  tilled,  a 
son,  Samuel  Kellogg,  born  in  1766,  who  lived  till  1829  to  illustrate 
in  his  own  person  those  principles  of  heredity  above  mentioned. 
He  was  a  man  of  great  physical  strength  and  of  more  than  ordinary 
intellectual  activity.  Williamstown  gave  few  advantages  for  educa- 
tion in  his  boyhood,  for  the  Free  School  did  not  open  until  1791, 
when  young  Kellogg  was  twenty-five  years  old  and  had  been  married 


82  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    AVILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

four  years ;  but  he  always  had  a  fondness  for  books,  and  qualified 
himself  by  the  industrious  study  of  them  for  stations  above  those 
ordinarily  held  by  farmers.  Throughout  the  greater  part  of  his  life 
he  filled  one  public  station  or  another  in  his  town  and  county.  Like 
his  father,  he  was  Justice  of  the  Peace,  often  selectman  and  town 
assessor,  and  represented  his  town  in  the  Legislature  of  the  State. 
Eor  eight  consecutive  years,  1809-16  inclusive,  and  once  again  in 
1819,  he  fulfilled  the  duties  of  such  a  representative.  He  was  a 
Democrat  of  the  Jeffersonian  school,  as  was  also  a  steady  majority 
of  his  townsmen  in  those  days.  Indeed,  his  two  predecessors  in  the 
House  of  Representatives  at  Boston  from  William  stown,  and  him- 
self, all  three  Democrats,  filled  up  the  time  there  as  follows :  T.  J. 
Skinner,  1781,  '82,  '83,  '84,  '88,  '99,  1800 ;  William  Young,  1792,  '93, 
'95,  1801-1808  inclusive ;  and  Samuel  Kellogg  (as  above),  1809-16 
inclusive,  and  in  1819.  These  and  other  public  interests  of  his  town 
and  county,  such  as  the  cavalry  company  of  the  former,  said  to  have 
been  the  best  militia  company  in  the  State,  of  which  he  was  long 
captain,  did  not  seem  to  lessen  his  devotion  to  and  success  in  the 
occupation  of  his  life.  He  prided  himself  on  being  a  model  farmer. 
He  was  one  of  the  principal  founders  of  the  Berkshire  Agricultural 
Society  under  the  general  auspices  of  the  celebrated  Elkanah  Wat- 
son, then  a  citizen  of  Pittsfield,  and  Kellogg  received  in  1823  the 
diploma  and  the  premium  of  the  Society  for  the  best  cultivated  farm 
exhibited  in  the  county.  His  livestock  was  usually  fifteen  to  twenty 
horses,  four  yoke  of  oxen,  sixty  cows,  a  thousand  sheep,  not  to  men- 
tion hogs  and  hens  and  geese  and  ducks ;  and  lastly,  to  gratify  a 
neighbor,  who  said  they  were  "  good  to  meditate  on."  he  bought  a 
pair  of  peacocks !  The  early  out-farm  of  his  father,  on  what  we  now 
call  Slope  Hawks,  had  become,  as  it  were,  a  part  of  the  home-farm, 
and  a  large  and  new  out-farm  was  purchased  and  pastured  in  Clarks- 
burg, four  miles  from  the  homestead.  Undoubtedly,  after  Samuel 
Sloan  sold  his  farm  in  South  Williamstown  and  moved  up  to  the 
village,  Samuel  Kellogg  was  the  largest  and  most  successful  farmer 
in  town.  During  the  latter  part  of  his  service  in  the  Legislature  he 
obtained  the  charter  of  the  Agricultural  Bank  of  Pittsfield ;  which 
goes  to  show  (1)  the  opposition  of  the  people  of  Pittsfield  to  a  new 
bank  in  competition  with  the  old  one,  and  (2)  the  general  influence 
of  Captain  Kellogg  over  the  Legislature  itself.  But  a  truthful  pic- 
ture of  the  strong-shouldered  captain  requires  the  addition  of  an 
unpleasant  line.  As  he  grew  older,  he  became  much  addicted  to 
strong  drink ;  and  it  was  on  this  account  and  no  other  that  his  name 
bears  on  the  church  record  the  ominous  symbol  of  "x,"  which  in 


WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    BENNINGTON.  83 

algebra  denotes  an  unknown  quantity,  but  ecclesiastically  in  New 
England  meant  "  excommunicated." 

2.  Elisha  Baker.  As  was  usual  in  the  settlement  and  develop- 
ment of  the  towns  in  New  England,  young  men  did  the  most  of  the 
hard  work,  and  took  the  worst  of  the  risks,  so  it  was  in  Williams- 
town  ;  yet  there  were  two  quite  elderly  men  with  large  families  who 
left  deep  and  lasting  marks  of  their  character  and  influence  here. 
One  of  these  was  Eichard  Stratton,  characterized  at  some  length  in 
the  volume  on  "Origins  in  William  stown,"  and  the  other  was  Elisha 
Baker,  who  was  born  in  Woodbury,  Connecticut,  in  October,  1724, 
and  who  died  in  Williamstown,  May  22,  1797,  in  the  seventy-third 
year  of  his  age.  When  just  turned  of  twenty-two  he  married  in 
Woodbury,  Phebe  Nichols,  and  the  twain  had  eleven  children,  all 
born  in  Woodbury.  Like  other  families  from  Connecticut  they 
moved  northwards  by  degrees.  In  1768  Elisha  Baker  was  represen- 
tative of  the  town  of  New  Hartford  in  the  General  Court  of  Connec- 
ticut ;  the  next  year  the  same  man  represented  in  the  same  the  town 
of  Canaan ;  and  it  was  in  May  of  the  former  year  that  he  bought  of 
the  Down  family  in  Woodbury  several  parcels  of  land  in  Williams- 
town,  all  of  them  the  afterdrafts  of  the  original  house-lot  No.  60. 
The  most  important  of  these  lots,  and  the  one  that  afterward  became 
his  home,  was  the  first  division  50-acre  lot  26,  which  skirts  along  the 
main  road  to  North  Adams  and  strikes  the  westerly  line  of  that 
town  just  south  of  the  Hoosac  Eiver.  The  easternmost  bridge  that 
crosses  the  Hoosac  in  this  town  has  always  been  called  the  "  Baker 
Bridge,"  because  the  crossroad  connecting  by  means  of  this  bridge 
the  two  parallel  roads  to  North  Adams,  the  one  south  and  the  other 
north  of  the  river,  turned  by  his  house  to  the  left  and  crossed  his 
lot  to  the  bridge.  The  town  has  recently  voted  to  call  the  bridge 
by  his  name  in  perpetuity.  His  house  stood  on  the  north  side  of  the 
main  road,  on  a  lift  of  land  rising  up  from  the  low  ground  of  the 
immemorial  brickyard,  just  at  the  turn  towards  the  bridge,  where 
there  has  long  been  and  is  still  a  good  house. 

"Mr.  Elisha  Baker"  (to  quote  from  his  epitaph)  had  five  sons, 
Absalom  and  Eli  and  Ezra  and  Elisha  and  Ira.  All  of  these  with 
their  father  were  in  the  battle  of  Bennington  together  from  Williams- 
town.  The  father  was  then  fifty-three  years  old,  and  he  lived  twenty 
years  longer  till  1797.  His  name  and  that  of  his  wife  stand  together 
upon  the  original  roll  of  church  members.  His  political  abilities  are 
evidenced  in  several  ways,  particularly  by  his  being  chosen  one  of 
the  three  delegates  to  the  Berkshire  Provincial  Congress  at  Great 
Barrington  in  1774.  The  other  two  were  Kobert  Hawkins  and  Dr. 


84  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

Jacob  Meack,  the  earliest  settled  physician  in  town.  When  the  Revo- 
lution was  practically  over,  and  Massachusetts  wished  to  formulate 
her  principles  of  government  in  a  permanent  State  constitution  in 
1780,  Williamstown  sent  as  her  representative  to  that  end  Elislia 
Baker,  who  seems  with  this  honorable  service  to  have  completed 
his  public  and  political  career.  His  sons,  Ezra  and  Elisha,  were 
both  physicians  here  for  a  time,  and  became  prominent  men  else- 
where. The  former  buried  his  first  wife,  Sarah  Tucker,  in  the  old 
graveyard  on  Hemlock  Brook  "  in  her  36th  year  "  in  July,  1796,  and 
afterwards  married  her  sister.  He  became  a  member  of  the  Four- 
teenth Congress  from  New  Jersey,  evidently  inheriting  political 
tastes  from  his  father.  He  died  in  1841,  and  is  said  to  have  been 
a  donor  of  money  to  Williams  College.  Dr.  Elisha  Baker  migrated 
from  Williamstown  to  Benson,  Vermont,  taking  his  widowed  mother 
along  with  him,  where  she  died.  Benson  was  chartered  in  May, 
1780,  to  James  Meacham  and  Ezekiel  Blair,  both  leading  citizens, 
and  became  thereafter  a  sort  of  secondary  Williamstown,  as  did 
several  other  early  Vermont  towns,  particularly  the  one  bearing  to 
this  day  the  old  name.  Mr.  E.  H,  Baker,  of  Rockford,  Illinois,  who 
is  very  intelligent  in  the  genealogy  of  the  whole  family,  is  a  grand- 
son of  Dr.  Elisha  Baker.  Ira  Baker,  another  son  of  Elisha,  Sr.,  mar- 
ried Mary  Burbank,  of  South  Williamstown,  in  1786.  Her  father 
was  in  the  battle  of  Bennington  from  there  with  the  six  Bakers  from 
the  north  part.  No  wonder  marriage  alliances  and  many  children 
followed.  There  was  an  earlier  Mary  Baker,  sister  of  the  first 
Elisha,  who  became  the  mother  of  General  Ethan  Allen  and  Ira 
Allen,  and  other  Aliens  well  known  in  the  early  history  of  Vermont. 
Remember  Baker,  brother  of  Elisha  and  Mary,  was  the  father  of  the 
Remember  Baker  so  closely  associated  with  the  Aliens  and  with 
Colonel  Seth  Warner  in  the  famous  struggles  of  the  Green  Mountain 
Boys.  Indeed,  Remember  Baker,  2d,  was  own  cousin  to  Ethan 
Allen  and  Seth  Warner,  and  these  were  own  cousins  to  each  other. 
This  Baker  was  killed  by  the  Indians  near  St.  Johns,  under  General 
Montgomery,  in  1775.  He  was  then  a  captain,  and  was  thirty-five 
years  old.  Nabby  Warner,  a  daughter  of  Colonel  Seth  Warner,  mar- 
ried James  H.  Meacham  of  Williamstown.  She  died  in  April,  1862. 
Thus  was  the  family  of  Deacon  James  Meacham,  one  of  the  sturdy 
originals  of  Williamstown,  intimately  associated  with  the  founders 
and  fighters  of  Vermont.  It  is  a  pleasant  reminder  of  our  Elisha 
Baker  and  of  his  official  relations  with  this  town,  that  a  living  great- 
grandson  of  his,  E.  H.  Baker,  of  Illinois,  has  now  in  his  possession 
the  original  receipt  for  £60  paid  to  Pardon  Stark  for  services 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   BENNINGTON.  85 

rendered  to  the  town  of  Williamstowu  by  Elisha  Baker  under  date 
of  Jan.  17,  1781. 

3.  Nehemiah  Woodcock.  In  August,  1766,  Barnabas  Woodcock, 
Jr.,  of  Milford,  Connecticut,  seaman,  bought  of  Ephraim  Seely, 
landgrabber,  for  £30,  the  100-acre  lot  No.  24,  the  last  lot  but  one  on 
the  Ashford  Road  going  south.  By  this  purchase  far  inland  Barna- 
bas evidently  did  not  intend  to  abandon  the  sea,  nor  his  home  on  the 
Sound  near  the  mouth  of  the  Housatonic,  but  he  did  intend  in  all 
probability  to  assist  his  two  brothers  Bartholomew  and  Nehemiah  to 
keep  comfortable  in  his  old  age  their  honored  father.  The  following 
epitaph  in  the  cemetery  at  the  South  Part  is  significant  of  much : 
"  Here  lies  interred  the  body  of  Mr.  Barnabas  Woodcock,  who  was 
born  in  Dedham  25  Sept.  1710,  and  departed  this  life  March  14, 
1786,  aged  76  years  5  months  and  18  days."  About  the  same  time 
that  this  brother  of  the  sea  bought  lot  24,  Bartholomew  bought  for 
himself  the  adjoining  100-acre  lot  26,  and  settled  on  it,  dwelling 
there  a  very  respectable  farmer  till  1820,  when  he  sold  the  farm  to 
Andrew  Beers,  his  foster-son  (he  had  no  children),  and  bought  the 
Isaac  Stratton  place  in  the  South  Village,  where  he  died.  Bartholo- 
mew, always  called  "  Thol,"  was  in  the  battle  of  Bennington  with 
all  his  neighbors,  and  his  name  is  borne  on  several  other  muster- 
rolls  of  the  Revolutionary  times ;  but  he  did  not  rise,  like  his  brother 
Nehemiah,  into  influential  civil  positions  in  the  town  and  the  State. 
Neither  name,  moreover,  is  to  be  found  on  the  records  of  the  church, 
at  least  in  Williamstown. 

Nehemiah  Woodcock  early  established  himself  on  the  county 
road  about  a  mile  north  of  the  south  hamlet  at  a  point  where  that 
road  is  crossed  at  right  angles  by  an  east  and  west  road  now  legally 
denominated  the  "  Woodcock  Road."  The  spot  has  been  popularly 
called  for  a  century  "Woodcock's  Corner."  It  is  a  sightly  place. 
The  house  disappeared  not  far  from  1850,  but  the  cellar  is  still 
rudely  open,  and  some  one  has  lately  trimmed  up  a  chance  young 
tree  growing  within  it.  Woodcock  was  five  years  younger  than 
Nehemiah  Smedley  at  the  North  Part ;  and  the  two  were  very  much 
associated  together  officially  in  the  town  affairs  both  peaceful  and 
warlike.  We  have  already  had  occasion  to  notice  that  both  were 
selectmen  in  1773,  and  did  not  hesitate  to  take  responsibility  in  re 
David  Noble.  In  civil  capacity  and  opportunity  throughout  the 
Revolution  and  afterwards,  Woodcock  undoubtedly  surpassed  Smed- 
ley ;  while  the  latter  kept  his  hand  more  firmly  grasping  the 
military  chances  of  influence  and  efficiency  in  his  country's  cause. 
While  Smedley  was  captain  in  command  at  Bennington  under 


86  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

Colonel  Simonds  and  General  Stark,  Woodcock  was  sergeant  in  Cap- 
tain Samuel  Clark's  company  under  General  Lincoln  a  month  later  in 
the  rear  of  Burgoyne's  army  at  Pawlet.  In  the  Committee  of  Cor- 
respondence, in  needful  journeys  to  Boston  and  elsewhere,  and  in 
civil  services  generally,  Woodcock  was  more  like  Samuel  Kellogg 
and  Isaac  Stratton  than  was  Smedley.  His  epitaph  was  not  over- 
charged. "  Erected  to  the  memory  of  Nehemiah  Woodcock :  he  was 
one  of  the  first  settlers  of  William  stown,  a  firm  supporter  of  his 
Country's  Eights  and  Independence."  He  died  March  10,  1816,  in 
his  seventy-ninth  year. 

Heredity  in  the  line  of  transmission  has  its  word  of  illustration  as 
to  the  civil  abilities  of  Nehemiah  Woodcock.  His  son  David  Wood- 
cock, born  in  August,  1784,  for  a  time  a  member  of  Williams  College 
in  the  class  of  1807,  became  a  distinguished  lawyer  in  Ithaca,  New 
York,  was  a  member  of  Congress  from  that  district,  and  received  the 
honorary  degree  of  Master  of  Arts  from  the  college  in  1830.  Two 
years  later  his  son  Don  Carlos  Woodcock  was  graduated  from  the 
college,  became  district  attorney  of  Chemung  County,  New  York, 
from  1841  to  1844,  and  later  removed  to  practise  his  profession  in 
Troy,  where  he  died  in  1884,  aged  seventy  years.  It  is  pleasant  to 
be  able  to  add,  in  reference  to  a  man  so  devoted  to  public  duty  in 
rude  times  as  was  Nehemiah  Woodcock,  that  one  of  his  grand- 
daughters married  Stephen  Booth  Gushing,  Williams  College,  1832, 
and  Attorney  General  of  the  State  of  New  York,  and  another  of 
them  married  Mr.  Ferris,  sometime  Secretary  of  the  Territory  of 
Utah;  and  that  one  of  his  great-grandsons,  Fenn  Woodcock,  was  a 
useful  and  prominent  citizen  of  the  new  State  of  Washington,  while 
his  sister,  Mary  Woodcock,  became  the  wife  of  Dr.  F.  W.  Chamber- 
lain, a  practising  physician  in  the  city  of  New  York. 

4.  Robert  Hawkins.  Of  the  three  delegates  from  William  stown  to 
the  County  Convention  convened  at  Stockbridge  in  July,  1774,  to  take 
such  action  as  might  seem  best  as  to  the  non-consumption  of  British 
manufactures  and  as  to  resisting  the  raising  and  collecting  of  British 
revenue  in  America,  Robert  Hawkins  is  named  first  in  the  official 
minutes  of  the  convention  or  congress,  as  it  was  then  called.  Very 
little  indeed  can  be  ascertained  about  this  man,  who  must  have  been 
for  a  time  in  a  position  of  considerable  influence  here.  Whence  he 
came  and  whither  he  went  are  alike  unknown.  He  built  a  good 
house  on  Pine  lot  No.  1,  at  the  junction  of  the  North  Hoosac  Road 
with  the  Simonds  Road,  a  few  rods  north  of  the  Moody  bridge  over 
the  Hoosac.  This  house  is  still  standing  and  has  always  been  occu- 
pied by  well-to-do  families.  It  is  herewith  figured  as  it  looked  in 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   BENNINGTON. 


87 


the  decade  of  the  eighties.  Colonel  Simonds  owned  it  and  lived  in 
it  during  the  last  ten  years  of  his  life  (he  died  in  1807),  and  used 
often  in  fine  weather  to  sit  in  its  front  doorway  in  Continental  cos- 
tume greeting  his  acquaintances  among  the  passers-by.  The  late 
Dr.  B.  F.  Morgan  of  Bennington  told  the  present  writer  many  years 
ago,  that  when  he  was  a  small  boy  living  with  his  father  in  Pownal, 
the  latter  had  frequent  occasion  to  drive  to  Williamstown,  and  that 
he  himself  had  more  than  once  seen  the  Colonel  in  full  wig  and  regi- 
mentals courteously  receiving  and  giving  greetings  thus  and  there. 
The  doctor's  mother  was  Abigail  Thomas,  who  came  when  a  child 


THE    HAWKINS    HOUSE. 

from  New  Hampshire  to  Bennington  with  her  father,  crossing  the 
Connecticut  River  from  Lyme  into  Thetford,  and  so  over  the  Green 
Mountains.  The  father  was  a  worker  in  iron,  a  "bloomer"  so- 
called,  and  had  a  shop  in  the  north  part  of  Bennington.  The 
daughter  married  Ezra  Morgan  of  Pownal,  who  was  a  son  of  that 
Caleb  Morgan  already  referred  to  as  one  of  the  famine-proof  and 
pox-pitted  veterans  of  the  Kennebec  and  the  St.  Lawrence.  Caleb 
Morgan  was  originally  from  Milford,  the  home  of  the  Woodcocks. 
Dr.  B.  F.  Morgan's  son  was  Dr.  E.  N.  S.  Morgan,  Williams  College, 
1844,  and  the  latter's  son  Francis  E.  Morgan,  Williams  College,  1871. 
This  old  Hawkins  house  became  in  1825  the  home  of  the  Thomas 
family,  a  family  which  brought  to  Williamstown  quite  distinctive 


88  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

features,  and  maintained  them  here  more  than  fifty  years  in  one 
locality.  A  little  space  will  not  be  wasted  on  the  ancestry  of 
Dwight  Thomas.  William  Thomas  was  probably  the  very  earliest 
white  settler  in  the  town  of  Hardwick,  Massachusetts,  for  he  is 
known  to  have  been  living  there  in  his  own  house  in  December,  1732. 
His  great-grandson  of  the  same  name  migrated  to  Hardwick,  Ver- 
mont, where  he  became  the  first  teacher,  and  where  his  son  Dwight 
was  born  Sept.  17,  1800.  This  father  and  son  moved  to  Powrial  in 
1819,  and  to  Williamstown  in  1821.  The  father  died  in  1857,  aged 
eighty-two.  The  son,  Dwight,  died  in  the  same  house  in  1878.  Both 
maintained  similar  lines  of  characteristics ;  both  were  more  intelli- 
gent than  the  average  of  their  neighbors;  both  were  church  mem- 
bers, the  father  continuing  in  active  church  work  till  old  age,  always 
speaking  his  mind  and  feelings  in  the  annual  church  meetings, 
while  the  son  became  somewhat  alienated  from  his  brethren  before 
his  death ;  both  were  very  enterprising  in  adapting  their  business  to 
changed  and  changing  conditions ;  both  were  six  feet  high  and  very 
erect,  and  both  served  frequently  and  successfully  as  chosen  arbiters 
in  neighborhood  disputes.  Dwight,  particularly,  often  balanced  the 
books  and  accounts  of  the  neighbors,  when  these  had  gotten  more  or 
less  by  the  ears  on  account  of  mutual  debts.  Besides  the  "  Seelye 
farm"  so-called,  bought  by  the  father  in  1825,  Dwight  purchased 
early  for  himself  a  sawmill  and  its  appurtenances  and  lands  at- 
tached. These  joined  his  father's  lands,  and  were  by  mutual  con- 
sent merged  with  them  into  one  property  and  management.  Their 
lands  included  several  of  the  original  "Pine  lots"  of  the  town. 
They  manufactured  water-proof  dry-goods  boxes  out  of  the  abundant 
pine.  These  were  sold  to  the  neighboring  factories  for  shipping 
calico  by  open  conveyance  to  New  York  and  Philadelphia.  They 
also  entered  into  the  home  carrying  trade  from  North  Adams  to  the 
Hudson  and  to  New  Haven.  Thus  the  forest  and  the  mill  and  the 
workshop  and  the  road  and  the  farm  and  the  orchard  all  contrib- 
uted to  occupy  and  reward  their  industry  and  enterprise.  They 
made  a  specialty  of  Baldwin  apples.  They  also  kept  bees.  Wil- 
liam B.  Thomas,  a  younger  brother  of  Dwight,  born  in  1804,  learned 
the  cabinetmaker's  trade  of  Amasa  Shattuck,  and  died  in  Williams- 
town  in  1891.  It  is  from  him  that  the  new  street  at  the  east  end 
of  the  village  is  named  "Thomas  St."  It  is  noteworthy  that  this 
Thomas  happened  to  be  the  last  person  to  stand  upon  the  "Table 
Bock  "  at  Niagara  before  it  fell  in  1863.  He  kept  a  small  store  on 
the  Canada  side  at  some  distance  below  the  falls,  and  had  passed 
Table  Rock  scores  of  times  without  feeling  any  impulse  to  go  upon 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    BENNINGTON.  89 

it.  This  day,  however,  as  he  passed  it,  he  experienced  a  strong 
desire  to  do  as  others  did,  as  a  family  party  were  doing  at  the 
moment.  As  they  stepped  off  upon  the  highway,  he  took  their 
place,  and  remained  for  some  time  alone  at  his  leisure  examining 
the  Horseshoe  Fall  from  'the  best  point  to  observe  it,  and  looking 
down  into  the  depths  below  the  rock.  He  passed  off  and  took  his 
way  to  the  north  towards  his  place  of  business,  when  he  heard  a 
sort  of  rush  and  swash,  and  turning  instantly  round  he  saw  a  cloud 
of  dust  rising  up  and  filling  the  air  where  the  Table  Rock  had  been. 
5.  Jacob  Meack.  More  than  the  usual  mystery  clouds  the  name 
and  memory  of  the  first  settled  physician  in  Williamstown.  Clear 
tradition  has  it,  that  his  contemporaries  pronounced  his  name  as  if 
it  had  been  "Mick."  This  makes  it  seem  probable  that  he  was  a 
German,  and  that  the  vowel  of  his  name  bore  in  that  shrift  the 
umlaut  above  it.  But  he  may  have  been  a  Hollander,  and  have 
crept  up  the  Hoosac  like  scores  of  others  from  Albany  or  its  neigh- 
borhood. At  any  rate,  he  was  no  Yankee.  He  came  very  soon 
after  the  town  was  incorporated  in  1765.  There  is  the  official  record 
of  five  daughters  born  to  him  and  his  wife  Betsey  during  the  years 
1768-1776.  His  wife  survived  him,  for  she  is  called  "relict  of 
Doct.  Jacob  Meack,'7  on  her  tombstone.  She  died  in  1797.  All  of 
the  daughters  lived  to  be  married  in  town,  and  three  of  them,  Mrs. 
Hannah  Kilborn,  Mrs.  Currence  Young,  Mrs.  Sally  Young,  spent 
their  lives  here.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  nationality  of  the 
father,  it  is  plain  that  neither  he  nor  his  family  were  regarded  in 
the  light  of  "  cussed  f urriners  "  after  the  pattern  of  a  hundred  years 
later  in  New  England.  In  February,  1774,  Jacob  Meack  was  the 
moderator  of  an  important  Proprietors'  meeting  held  (as  usual)  in 
the  meeting-house,  and  in  July  of  the  same  year  he  was  chosen  by 
the  town  as  one  of  their  three  representatives  in  the  county  con- 
gress at  Stockbridge.  He  was  evidently  much  trusted  in  the  civil 
concerns  of  the  town,  as  well  as  in  the  families  to  which  his  patients 
belonged.  Even  the  brook  that  flowed  past  his  "regulation  house" 
on  house-lot  No.  12,  was  commonly  called  "  Doctor's  Brook  "  down  to 
a  time  within  the  memory  of  many  still  living.  And  the  house 
which  he  certainly  occupied,  even  if  he  did  not  build  it,  is  still  stand- 
ing intact  by  the  brookside,  as  his  daughter  and  granddaughter 
owned  and  dwelled  in  it  as  an  inheritance  from  him.  Hannah 
Meack  Kilborn  united  with  the  church  in  the  year  1800 ;  her  sisters 
Currence  and  Sally  in  1826,  and  her  daughter  Marcia  in  1808,  and 
son  Frederick  in  1817.  The  last  named  was  a  non  compos  mentis 
with  certain  religious  tendencies  and  impulses,  so  that  it  was 


90  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

thought  proper  to  admit  him  into  the  church  at  his  own  desire. 
Naturally  enough  he  did  not  prove  to  be  a  particularly  exemplary 
member.  He  heard  of  course  a  good  deal  of  swearing  in  the  street, 
the  significance  of  which  he  did  not  understand,  and  he  sometimes 
indulged  himself  in  such  language,  which  brought  on  him  such 
reproofs  as  the  following :  "  Fred,  you  mustn't  swear  so,  —  the  min- 
ister will  be  after  you;  and  you  never  can  get  into  heaven."  "  Well, 
then,  I'll  bear  it,  and  stay  out ! "  Marcia  Hilborn,  the  last  descend- 
ant here  of  Dr.  Jacob  Meack,  and  the  last  representative  of  the 
several  Kilborn  families  from  Litchfield,  who  purchased  lots  here 
very  early,  —  John,  James,  Jonathan,  —  lived  poor  and  unmarried 
and  partially  supported  by  the  church  till  past  the  middle  of  the 
century. 

6.  Isaac  Stratton.  It  may  perhaps  be  reasonably  questioned 
whether  the  civil  services  of  Isaac  Stratton  to  his  time  and  locality 
surpassed  in  importance  his  strictly  military  service  to  the  same; 
both  were  more  than  respectable,  for  both  were  entirely  adequate  to 
the  exigencies  of  the  situation,  but  the  writer  is  constrained  in  his 
own  judgment  to  reckon  what  may  be  fairly  called  the  civil  and 
social  merits  of  this  admirable  pioneer  as  first  and  foremost.  Ac- 
cordingly he  is  treated  in  the  present  list  and  connection.  The 
judgment  of  his  family  and  contemporaries,  when  he  died  in  April, 
1789,  aged  fifty  years,  was  consonant  with  our  own ;  for  we  may 
still  read  on  a  substantial  headstone  at  the  South  Part,  "Isaac 
Stratton,  Esq."  He  was  the  eldest  son  of  Richard  Stratton  of 
Western  (now  Warren),  and  was  coming  of  twenty-one  when  the 
entire  family  moved  to  West  Hoosac  in  1760.  Very  shortly  after 
his  coming  the  father  bought  three  or  four  house-lots  on  the  Hoosac 
level,  in  the  northeast  quarter  of  the  village  plat,  on  one  of  which 
(No.  56)  he  proceeded  after  a  little  to  build  for  himself  a  home  in 
the  first  two-story  house  erected  in  the  town,  which  is  still  standing 
in  good  shape  essentially  as  he  built  it,  and  in  which  he  died  a  few 
years  later.  He  also  bought  at  about  the  same  time  two  fifty -acre  lots 
of  the  second  division,  lying  at  the  junction  of  the  Hancock  and 
Ashford  brooks  in  the  present  hamlet  of  South  Williamstown.  These 
lots,  Nos.  53  and  55,  Richard  Stratton  in  September,  1766,  both  sells 
and  gives  to  Isaac,  "both  husbandmen,"  "for  £7,  together  with  that 
parental  love  and  affection  which  I  have  and  do  bair  to  him  the 
said  Isaac  Stratton,  my  well-beloved  son."  The  son  was  twenty-six 
years  old  when  he  thus  took  title  to  the  first  settled  farm  in  South 
Williamstown,  but  he  had  been  there  for  three  or  four  years,  making 
himself  a  home  on  the  north  side  of  the  brook  at  a  spot  which  has 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    BEKNINGTON.  91 

been  ever  since  the  only  tavern-stand  in  the  harnlet.  For  about  two 
years  he  was  entirely  alone  there,  so  far  as  neighbors  were  con- 
cerned ;  but  he  soon  thought  best  to  sell  that  place  to  Samuel  Sloan, 
and  to  cross  the  brook  and  to  put  his  house  nearer  to  the  bulk  of  his 
land.  Twenty  years  later,  that  is,  in  1785,  he  built  there  the  large 
house  herewith  figured  and  still  standing,  in  which  he  lived  but 
four  years  till  his  death.  That  house  stands  on  No.  54. 

During  the  last  twenty-five  years  of  his  life,  at  first  for  his  neigh- 
bors at  the  South  Part,  now  growing  steadily  in  numbers  and  needs 
for  such  services,  and  later  for  citizens  of  the  whole  town,  more  or 
less,  he  drew  their  deeds  of  land  and  also  certified  them  as  a  Justice 


ISAAC    STRATTON'S    HOUSE. 
Built  1785. 

of  the  Peace ;  he  drew  wills  also,  and  other  papers  of  various  kinds, 
and  acted  as  arbiter  in  case  of  disputes ;  he  was  in  1771  the  chosen 
moderator  of  the  May  Proprietors'  meeting,  held,  as  usual  at  that 
time,  in  the  meeting-house ;  he  was  the  town  clerk  most  of  the  time 
from  the  incorporation  of  the  town  in  1765  until  his  death ;  he  was 
the  clerk  of  the  Committee  of  Safety,  and  therefore  its  most  impor- 
tant member,  throughout  the  trying  Eevolutionary  years  preceding 
the  battle  of  Bennington ;  and  he  certified,  as  Justice  of  the  Peace, 
many  of  the  Kevolutionary  muster-rolls  comprising  the  men  of  his 
town  and  sometimes  of  neighboring  towns  also.  These  rolls  were 
usually  made  out  in  the  first  instance  by  the  captains  of  the  com- 
panies, and  sworn  to  by  them  before  the  justice;  but  corrections 
and  additions  often  needed  to  be  made  in  them,  and  Mr.  Justice 


92  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

Stratton,  with  his  relatively  facile  pen,  seems  to  have  been  ready  to 
help  everybody  out  in  every  good  cause. 

In  the  meantime,  he  was  rising  in  rank,  step  by  step,  in  the  militia 
of  the  town  and  county.  In  1777  he  was  the  major  in  Colonel  Sim- 
onds's  regiment,  and  as  such  immortalized  himself  in  the  battle  of 
Bennington.  Nevertheless,  such  side-occupations  as  those  of  Strat- 
ton,  and  many  more  like  him,  during  the  Revolutionary  period,  were 
not  favorable  to  the  accumulation  of  property.  They  came  to  inter- 
fere decidedly  with  the  profitable  tilling  of  their  farms.  War  took 
the  officers  and  men  away  from  their  homes  in  the  seasons  of  seed- 
time and  harvest.  The  Continental  currency,  like  all  irredeemable 
money,  was  impoverishing  to  all  who  were  compelled  to  use  it.  The 
so-called  "  Shays's  Rebellion "  of  1787,  in  Massachusetts,  itself  the 
direct  consequence  of  the  points  just  made,  found  a  good  many  ad- 
herents in  Berkshire  and  some  in  Williamstown,  of  whom  the  most 
conspicuous  was  Deacon  James  Meacham,  who  passed  the  old  Smed- 
ley  house  of  a  Sunday  morning,  gun  on  his  shoulder,  horseback,  to 
join  Shays's  men  to  the  eastward,  to  the  great  scandal  of  young  Levi 
Smedley,  destined  to  become  one  of  Meacham's  successors  in  the  dea- 
conate,  and  whose  views  of  the  movement  of  Shays  were  exactly  the 
opposite  to  Meacham's.  How  Major  Stratton  felt  on  these  matters 
has  not  been  recorded ;  it  is  altogether  likely  that  he  sympathized 
with  the  government  side.  It  is  nevertheless  somewhat  painful  to 
read  in  the  old  book  of  Berkshire  Registry  of  Deeds  a  plain  proof 
that  in  the  years  before  his  death  he  fell  into  financial  straits.  He 
finished  his  large  new  house,  as  the  chimney-top  testifies  to  this  dayr 
in  1785.  The  registry  record  states  that  Isaac  Stratton  sold,  on  the 
7th  of  June,  1788,  for  £105,  "to  Robert  Kinney  and  Robert  Kin- 
ney,  Jr.,  Merchants  of  Albany,  State  of  New  York,  a  part  of  second 
division  50-acre  lot  No.  54."  Now,  54  was  Stratton's  home-lot  that 
held  his  house.  Albany  was  the  market  for  Williamstown  buyers. 
The  Kinneys  were  merchants  who  held  many  claims  on  WTilliams- 
town  farms.  Stratton  would  not  have  sold  a  part  of  his  home-lot 
except  under  pinch  and  duress.  Never  mind.  His  final  discharge 
from  the  earthly  army  came  in  about  six  months.  Whether  he  left 
any  property  or  not  is  of  little  consequence.  He  left  an  unstained 
reputation  and  a  splendid  record  of  good  deeds  done.  His  widow, 
Mary  Fox  Stratton,  both  of  them  members  of  the  church  here  from 
the  beginning,  married  Rev.  Clark  Rogers,  an  itinerant  Baptist  min- 
ister. When  she  died  in  1812,  her  remains  were  brought  hither  and 
interred  by  the  side  of  those  of  her  first  husband. 

We  must  now  go  back  a  little  in  point  of  time,  in  order  to  see  the 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    BENNINGTON.  93 

military  part  played  by  Williamstown  as  a  town,  and  by  its  alert 
and  patriotic  citizens,  in  the  campaign  of  1776.  The  attack  on 
Quebec,  the  nub  of  the  previous  campaign,  had  totally  failed,  although 
Colonel  Arnold  on  his  side  and  General  Montgomery  on  his  had  done 
all  that  mortal  men  could  do  to  make  it  a  success.  About  a  month 
before  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  the  Continental  Congress 
called  on  Massachusetts  for  five  thousand  of  its  militia  to  cooperate 
with  the  Continental  troops  in  Canada  and  at  New  York ;  and  nine 
days  before  the  Declaration  the  colony  of  Massachusetts  passed  a 
resolve  to  raise  the  men  immediately,  and  to  apportion  their  quotas 
among  the  several  towns.  To  carry  out  the  terms  of  this  resolve 
in  the  county  of  Berkshire,  "Mr.  Azariah  Root,. Major  Caleb  Hyde, 
and  Captain  Isaac  Stratton  "  were  appointed  a  committee  by  the 
General  Court,  which  itself  at  the  same  time  made  the  apportion- 
ment of  quotas  to  the  several  towns.  A  century  and  a  quarter  has 
made  great  changes  in  the  relative  strength  and  population  of  these 
towns.  There  had  been  then  no  census  in  the  colony ;  the  quotas 
were  estimated  from  the  reported  numbers  in  the  trainbands  of  the 
respective  towns,  of  which  twenty-four  are  enumerated.  Sheffield 
stands  at  the  head  of  the  list  with  27,  Lanesboro  next  with  19, 
Pittsfield  with  17,  Great  Barrington  with  16,  New  Marlborough  with 
15,  Stockbridge  and  Eichmond  arid  Sandisfield  each  14,  and  Wil- 
liamstown with  13.  According  to  this  rude  count  of  1776,  Williams- 
town  was  the  ninth  in  rank  of  the  county  of  Berkshire.  The  nine 
towns  were  to  furnish  149  of  the  249  men  demanded,  while  the  re- 
maining 15  small  towns  were  to  furnish  the  remaining  100  soldiers. 
Williamstown  has  already  exceeded  in  population  all  of  the  towns 
then  above  her,  except  Pittsfield ;  and  as  the  nineteenth  century  goes 
out,  she  reckons  herself  the  fourth  in  the  county  in  point  of  popula- 
tion. East  Hoosac  was  then  called  upon  to  furnish  nine  men,  but 
it  has  since  been  divided  into  two  towns,  North  Adams  and  Adams, 
each  of  which  is  now  considerably  more  populous  than  is  Williams- 
town.  This  is  on  account  of  factories,  early  established  and  a  good 
deal  extended  along  the  two  branches  of  the  Hoosac  River  which 
flow  through  those  two  towns.  The  excavation  of  the  Hoosac  Tun- 
nel also,  done  by  the  State  of  Massachusetts  directly,  the.  head- 
quarters for  which  operation  were  in  North  Adams,  gave  to  that 
town  an  immense  impulse  both  in  property  and  in  population.  But 
the  remarkable  topographical  position  of  Williamstown,  as  the  nar- 
row pass  through  which  the  upper  Hudson  and  Lake  Champlain  can 
best  (or  only)  be  reached  in  a  military  way  from  New  England,  gave 
to  that  an  importance,  as  well  in  the  old  French  wars  as  also  during 


94  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

the  Revolution,  altogether  out  of  proportion  to  its  population  and 
other  material  resources. 

More  than  a  month  before  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  the 
subjoined  letter  to  General  Schuyler,  then  in  command  on  the  North 
Eiver,  written  by  Mark  Hopkins  as  clerk  of  a  meeting  of  the  com- 
bined committees  of  safety  of  the  several  Berkshire  towns,  gathered 
at  Richmond,  which  was  pretty  centrally  located  for  the  county 
convenience  and  a  much  more  important  town  relatively  than  now, 
and  already  the  home  of  David  R/ossiter,  marks  the  prompt  patriot- 
ism of  those  towns. 

RICHMONT,  May  20  :  1776. 

SIR  :  We  have  just  now  (by  some  soldiers  returned)  heard  that  our  Army  at 
Quebeck  have  obliged  to  decamp  from  before  that  city,  that  they  are  in  want  of 
Provisions,  and  perhaps  of  other  assistance.  Therefore  we  a  number  of  the 
Committees  of  the  County  of  Berkshire,  and  those  parts  of  the  Government  of 
New  York  adjacent  have  sent  the  bearer  hereof  Capt.  Charles  Dibble,  an  express 
to  yourself  to  know  whether  you  do  not  want  assistance  which  we  can  furnish, 
by  Waggons,  Teams  Provisions  or  men  being  willing  to  contribute  all  in  our 
Power  for  the  Belief  of  our  army  aforesaid.  We  are  Sir  your 

Humble  Servants 
To  by  order  of  sd  Committees, 

The  Hon : ble  MARK  HOPKINS,  Clerk. 

[outside]        GENERAL  SCHUYLER. 

A  resolve  of  the  General  Court  of  Massachusetts  passed  Sept.  14, 
1776,  will  confirm  what  has  just  been  said,  and  serve  also  to  explain 
the  great  prominence  of  Colonel  Simonds  during  this  campaign  and 
the  next,  particularly  the  fact,  that  General  Schuyler  and  General 
Gates  commanding  in  the  Northern  Department  send  their  orders 
directly  to  him,  and  not  through  any  superior  officer,  and  he  likewise 
communicates  directly  with  them.  The  movements  of  the  militia  in 
Berkshire  County  are  not,  as  a  rule,  ordered  from  Boston,  owing 
doubtless  in  part  to  the  immense  barrier  of  the  Hoosac  Mountain, 
and  in  part  also  to  the  universal  confidence  felt  in  Simonds  as  their 
natural  and  efficient  head  throughout  the  Revolution  by  the  colony 
and  by  the  heads  of  the  northern  army. 

Whereas  it  has  been  represented  to  this  Court  that  there  is  now  no  Brigadier 
in  the  County  of  Berkshire,  to  put  in  execution  a  late  resolve  of  this  Assembly 
for  raising  and  sending  to  New  York  a  fifth  part  of  the  militia  ;  and  as  the  first 
Colonel  of  the  Militia  there  [Paterson]  is  now  in  the  service  of  the  United  States, 
and  the  other  chief  Colonel  [Fellows]  is  sick,  and  one  Lieutenant-Colonel  of  the 
Militia  there  [probably  Rossiter]  is  also  in  the  said  service.  Therefore, 

Resolved,  That  Colonel  Simonds  of  Williamstown,  Colonel  Root  of  Sheffield, 
and  Deacon  Curtis  of  Stockbridge,  be,  and  they  hereby  are  empowered  and  di- 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    BENNINGTON.  95 

rected  to  execute  the  late  resolve  of  this  Court  above  referred  to,  within  the 
County  of  Berkshire,  in  the  same  manner  and  observing  the  same  directions  that 
are  given  to  the  Brigadiers  or  commanding  officers  in  the  several  counties  by  the 
said  resolve. 

The  following  letter  from  General  Gates  to  Colonel  Simonds  will 
probably  interest  general  readers,  and  certainly  the  numerous  de- 
scendants of  the  Colonel,  now  scattered  widely  over  the  United 
States. 

TTONDEROGA,  Sept.  15,  1776. 

SIR:  I  this  moment  received  your  letter,  dated  Williamstown,  12th  instant. 
As  I  did  not  send  the  orders  for  your  march  to  camp,  I  could  not  take  measures 
more  early  to  stop  your  proceeding.  The  last  account  from  General  Arnold  con- 
vinces me  that  there  is  no  immediate  necessity  for  the  Militia  coming  forward 
at  this  time.  A  copy  of  his  last  letter  to  me  I  send  you  enclosed.  The  alarm 
was  occasioned  by  some  firing  from  our  enemy  on  the  shores  opposite  Isle  aux 
Tetes ;  and  I  believe  a  great  number  of  small  arms  and  cannon  fired  that  and 
the  succeeding  days  by  brigades  of  the  enemy  at  exercise  at  their  post  below, 
all  which  deceived  the  Commanding  Officer  at  Crown  Point. 

A  good  road  will  be  finished  by  this  day  sennight,  from  Rutland  through 
Castletown  to  the  east  foot  of  Mount  Independence,  and  an  excellent  bridge  over 
Otter  Creek  at  Rutland  will  be  finished  in  three  days.  For  the  future,  any  body 
of  men  intended  for  our  succor  should  march  that  way. 

The  United  States  are,  in  general,  obliged  to  you  for  your  alertness  to  succor 
their  army,  and  particularly,  Sir, 

Your  &c.  &c. 

Ho.  GATES. 

To  COLONEL  BENJAMIN  SIMONDS. 

The  letter  to  which  General  Gates  refers  is  given  herewith  entire, 
and  may  serve  as  a  sample  of  many  more  passing  from  the  same 
party  to  his  military  superiors  to  the  northwestward,  especially  to 
General  Schuyler. 

WILLIAMSTOWN,  Sept.  12,  1776. 

SIR  :  Agreeable  to  an  express  from  his  Honour  Major  General  Schuyler,  I 
have  caused  the  Militia  under  my  command  to  be  on  their  march  to  Tyonderoga. 
I  thought  proper  to  send  this  by  express,  so  that  in  case  the  men  should  not  be 
wanted,  they  may  have  early  orders  for  their  return,  that  so  expense  of  their 
march  further  than  necessary  may  be  prevented. 

I  am  your  Honour's  most  obedient  servant, 

BENJ.  SIMONDS, 

Colonel. 
To  GENERAL  GATES. 

One  month  later  than  the  above  letter  from  Gates  to  Simonds, 
General  Schuyler,  the  real  organizer  and  administrator  of  the  North- 
ern Department,  and  who  deserves  with  Arnold  almost  the  entire 


96  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

credit  of  the  defeat  and  destruction  of  Burgoyne  the  next  year,  wrote 
as  follows  to  the  Berkshire  Committee  of  Safety.  The  reader  will 
notice  that  he  dates  his  letter  "  Saratoga,"  but  must  not  suppose  the 
place  to  be  the  modern  watering-place  of  that  name.  The  place 
where  Schuyler  was  encamped  in  1776,  and  where  Burgoyne  sur- 
rendered in  1777,  was  a  good  way  to  the  north  of  the  "  Springs,"  and 
on  both  sides  of  Fish  Creek,  a  noisy  brook  tumbling  into  the  Hud- 
son at  right  angles  on  its  west  side.  The  land  belonged  to  the  Gen- 
eral, and  he  had  a  good  house  there  and  mills  on  the  creek.  The 
place  is  now  very  properly  called  Schuylerville.  On  the  other  side 
of  the  river,  nearly  a  mile  north  of  the  mouth  of  Fish  Creek,  another 
much  larger  stream,  called  the  Batten  Kill,  falls  into  the  Hudson. 
On  a  piece  of  high  ground  something  over  an  acre  in  extent  not  far 
from  opposite  the  mouth  of  Fish  Creek,  there  was  built  in  1709,  dur- 
ing the  course  of  Queen  Anne's  War,  by  Colonel  Schuyler,  great- 
uncle  of  the  General,  a  stockaded  fort,  which  came  to  be  called  Fort 
Saratoga.  The  name  soon  extended  itself  to  the  Batten  Kill,  which 
is  repeatedly  denominated  "Saratoga  Biver"  in  the  documents  of 
the  time  even  in  its  middle  reaches.  Chaplain  Norton,  who  crossed 
it  in  1746  with  the  other  captives  from  Fort  Massachusetts,  calls  it 
in  his  journal  "  Sarratogo  Biver."  The  next  year,  in  November, 
Governor  Clinton  ordered  the  abandonment  of  the  fort  that  had  been 
taken  and  burned  by  the  French  in  June  ;  and  the  name  "  Saratoga," 
gradually  crept  to  the  west  side  of  the  Hudson,  and  was  lost  to  the 
east.1  The  Schuyler  family  had  long  had  six  or  seven  farms  on  Fish 
Creek,  where  the  northern  army  was  encamped  in  1776,  and  whence 
the  General  sent  his  letter  to  Berkshire. 

SARATOGA,  October  16,  1776. 

GENTLEMEN  :  Our  fleet,  which  suffered  severely  in  an  engagement  on  the  12th 
instant  with  the  enemy,  has  been  still  more  severely  handled  in  a  subsequent 
one,  in  so  much  that  the  enemy  are  left  masters  of  the  lake,  and  are  now  com- 
ing on  to  attack  our  army  at  Ticonderoga. 

In  this  situation  of  our  affairs,  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  that  the  Militia 
of  your  State  should  immediately  march  to  sustain  the  army ;  and  such  as  can 
march  expediously,  come  by  way  of  Albany,  should  do  so,  and  the  others  take 
the  route  to  Skenesborough.  Each  man  should  come  provided  with  as  much 
provision  and  ammunition  as  possible.  The  commanding  officer  should  send  me 
information  of  his  numbers,  and  the  progress  in  his  march  from  time  to  time.  I 
shall  be  either  at  Fort  George  or  at  Skenesborough,  but  as  I  can  not  determine 
which,  it  will  be  proper  to  send  expresses  to  both  places,  and  to  forward  copies 
of  this  to  Governour  Trumbull,  and  to  every  Committee  in  your  State  in  a  situ- 
ation of  affording  assistance,  as  also  to  the  neighboring  counties  in  the  State  of 

1  See  for  a  full  account  of  these  changes  Origins  in  Williamstoivn,  pp.  160-166. 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   BENNINGTON.  97 

Connecticut.  I  must  repeat,  gentlemen,  that  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  that 
I  should  be  duly  furnished  with  an  account  of  the  movements  and  numbers  of 
the  Militia. 

From,  gentlemen,  your  most  obedient,  humble  servant, 

PH.  SCHUYLER. 

To  the  Committee  of  the  County  of  Berkshire. 

As  one  result  of  this  pressing  letter  from  Schuyler,  the  county  of 
Berkshire  was  thoroughly  rallied ;  and  the  Committee  of  Safety  in 
Stockbridge  thought  it  was  incumbent  on  them  to  rally  the  adjoin- 
ing county  of  Hampshire,  as  appears  by  the  following  note  hurried 
on  to  the  eastward  :  — 

STOCKBRIDGE,  October  19,  1776. 

GENTLEMEN  :  The  Militia  of  this  County  are  rallied  and  on  their  march,  and 
we  think  it  of  the  utmost  importance  that  you  comply  with  the  General's  request 
immediately. 

ERASTUS  SERGEANT, 
SAMUEL  BROWN,  JUN., 
ASA  BEMENT, 

Committee  of  Stockbridge. 
To  the  Committees  in  Hampshire  County. 

So  intimately  are  the  two  first  names  on  this  Stockbridge  Com- 
mittee connected  with  William  stown,  and  even  with  the  military 
events  whose  current  story  we  are  now  trying  to  tell,  that  it  is 
scarcely  a  digression  to  say  something  of  each  of  them  in  the  pres- 
ent connection.  Erastus  Sergeant  was  the  elder  son  of  John  Ser- 
geant, the  justly  famous  missionary  to  the  Indians  in  Stockbridge, 
who  was  a  native  of  Newark,  New  Jersey,  a  graduate  of  Yale  College 
in  1729,  and  a  tutor  there  for  four  years,  from  1731  to  1735,  when  he 
took  up  his  residence  and  missionary  labors  in  Stockbridge,  not  to 
intermit  them  till  his  death,  in  1749.  His  wife  was  Abagail  Wil- 
liams, eldest  daughter  of  Ephraim  Williams,  who  brought  his  family 
to  Stockbridge  in  1737,  one  of  four  families  coming  at  the  instance 
of  the  General  Court  to  be  examples  to  the  Indians  in  Christian 
living,  and  helpmates  to  the  missionary  and  missionary  teacher, 
Timothy  Woodbridge.  Two  years  after  Ephraim  Williams  came  to 
Stockbridge,  he  made  the  first  survey  of  the  two  towns  on  the  upper 
Hoosac,  afterwards  called  East  and  West  Hoosac,  and  much  later 
Adams  and  William stown ;  and  so  became  the  first  white  man 
known  to  perambulate  these  our  hills  and  valleys.  Although  this 
first  survey  of  1739  did  not  meet  the  views  of  the  General  Court, 
and  was  laid  aside  till  superseded  by  the  survey  of  1749,  it  is  proba- 
ble that  the  interest  in  the  two  townships  of  both  the  father  and  his 
eldest  son  of  the  same  name  was  deepened  and  continued  so  long  as 

H 


98  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

they  lived  by  this  original  survey  of  them.  Ephraim  Williams  was 
grandfather  to  Erastus  Sergeant.  The  latter  studied  medicine  in 
Deerfield  with  his  uncle,  Dr.  Thomas  Williams,  only  uterine  brother 
to  Ephraim  Williams,  Jr.,  the  founder  of  the  college.  He  com- 
menced to  practice  medicine  and  surgery  in  Stockbridge  in  1768. 
While  the  Revolution  was  drawing  on  and  continued,  he  felt  within 
him  the  military  impulse  common  in  his  family  connections ;  he 
went  through  all  the  ranks  till  he  became  major  in  Colonel  Simonds's 
regiment  in  the  campaign  of  1777,  at  the  same  time  acting  as 
surgeon  in  the  same  regiment,  both  at  Ticonderoga  and  until  the 
surrender  of  Burgoyne.  He  was  reputed  a  skilful  surgeon  and 
physician.  More  than  twenty  young  men  were  fitted  for  practice 
under  his  instructions.  He  became  the  principal  surgical  operator 
within  a  radius  of  thirty  miles  of  Stockbridge,  disputing  in  critical 
cases  with  Dr.  Samuel  Porter  of  Williamstown.  The  latter,  how- 
ever, long  survived  Sergeant,  and  known  cases  in  surgery  were 
brought  from  Stockbridge  to  Williamstown  after  Sergeant's  death 
in  1814.  He  was  also  a  deacon  in  the  Church,  and  a  magistrate  in 
the  town  of  Stockbridge. 

Samuel  Brown  represented  another  of  the  four  families  coming 
from  the  east  to  Stockbridge  at  the  instance  of  the  General  Court, 
to  help  in  the  Christianization  of  the  Indians  there.  Josiah  Jones 
of  Weston,  and  Joseph  Woodbridge  of  West  Springfield,  brother  of 
the  schoolmaster,  were  the  heads  of  the  other  two  of  the  four  fami- 
lies. Before  the  Williamstown  village  lots  (laid  out  in  1750)  were 
offered  for  sale  in  Stockbridge,  Ephraim  Williams,  the  father,  had 
fallen  into  much  disfavor  there,  and  in  1752  sold  out  all  his  property 
to  his  son  Ephraim  Williams,  the  founder,  and  moved  to  Deerfield, 
where  he  died  in  1754.  Lieutenant  Brown  showed  his  interest  in 
the  new  "Propriety"  on  the  Hoosac  by  purchasing  three  of  the 
original  lots  at  the  time  of  the  drawing  in  Stockbridge.  His  sons, 
Samuel  Brown,  Jr.,  and  Elijah  Brown,  at  the  same  time  and  in  the 
same  way  purchased  each  one  of  the  lots,  which  made  five  lots  going 
to  one  family.  Twelve  other  original  buyers  took  two  lots  each, 
one  of  the  twelve  being  Captain  Ephraim  Williams.  The  remaining 
thirty-one  lots  offered  for  sale  by  the  colony  went  to  scattered  indi- 
vidual proprietors,  nine  of  them  being  private  soldiers  in  Fort 
Massachusetts.  Lieutenant  Isaac  Wyman,  Sergeant  William  Chi- 
dester,  and  Corporal  Samuel  Calhoun,  of  the  Fort,  took  each  two 
lots.  Thus  the  Brown  family  of  Stockbridge  purchased  at  the  out- 
set one-twelfth  of  the  entire  area  of  Williamstown  through  the  pur- 
chase of  five  of  the  sixty  house-lots.  In  one  of  the  family  deeds  of 


WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    BENNINGTON.  99 

land,  dated  in  May,  1751,  Samuel  Brown  the  father,  is  put  down  as 
"Gentleman,"  and  Samuel  Brown  the  son  as  "Husbandman." 
Elijah  Brown  did  not  become  so  distinguished  as  his  father  and 
brother.  No  one  of  the  three  ever  came  to  Williamstown  to  live, 
but  each  of  the  three  took  a  very  considerable  interest  in  the  new 
settlement.  As  luck  would  have  it,  Samuel  Jr.  drew  lot  No.  1,  the 
most  conspicuous  and  valuable  of  all  the  lots,  inasmuch  as  it  fronted 
directly  011  the  "  Square  "  and  stretched  along  the  original  and  pres- 
ent South  Street  for  one  hundred  and  twenty  rods.  Brown  sold 
the  lot  within  a  year  to  Ezekiel  Hinds  of  Stockbridge  and  Fort 
Massachusetts ;  and  Hinds  sold  it  to  Samuel  Smedley  of  Litchfield, 
October  31,  1752,  for  £27,  husbandman  to  husbandman.  Esther 
Smedley,  the  widow  of  Samuel,  and  John,  his  eldest  son,  deeded  this 
lot  over  to  Nehemiah  Smedley,  son  and  brother,  March  21,  1758,  for 
£27.  This  lot  was  one  of  the  earliest  in  the  hamlet  to  be  cleared 
up  and  built  upon,  and  the  very  earliest  to  receive  an  apple  orchard, 
in  1754,  which  came  into  good  bearing  in  1765,  when  the  new  town 
was  incorporated.  It  is  but  fair  to  say  that  Stockbridge  from  first 
to  last  has  exerted  a  wider  and  deeper  and  more  wholesome  influence 
over  Williamstown  and  the  college  than  any  other  town  in  the 
county.  Ephraim  Williams,  father  and  son ;  Rev.  John  Ser- 
geant and  Deacon  Samuel  Brown;  Rev.  Dr.  Stephen  West  and 
Theodore  Sedgwick ;  David  Dudley  Field,  father  and  son ;  all  four 
of  the  first  graduates  of  the  College,  in  1795,  were  from  Stockbridge ; 
Mark  and  Albert  Hopkins,  great-grandsons  of  John  Sergeant  and 
great-great-grandsons  of  Ephraim  Williams, — all  these,  and  many 
more,  have  united  the  two  places  by  powerful  and  lasting  ties. 

The  general  position  of  WTilliamstown  as  a  narrow  neck  of  land 
early  uniting  south  with  north  and  east  with  west,  is  vividly  illus- 
trated by  the  following  contemporary  documents,  which  are  inter- 
esting on  several  other  grounds  as  well :  — 

WILLIAMSTOWN,  August  4,  1776. 

At  a  meeting  of  the  Committee  of  Safety,  etc.,  of  this  Town, 
Resolved,  That  whereas  we  are  informed  that  Captain  Eddy,  from  Providence, 
in  the  Colony  of  Rhode  Island,  with  thirty-nine  of  his  men,  now  in  the  Conti- 
nental service,  having  been  exposed  to  the  small-pox,  and  having  since  then 
taken  it  by  inoculation,  without  our  knowledge,  and  said  men  appearing  to  us 
to  be  under  necessity  of  immediate  care  taken,  and  provision  made  for  their 
sickness,  we  do  hereby  give  orders  that  the  house  belonging  to  Ephraim  Seelye, 
which  stands  near  said  Seelye's  sawmill,  shall  be  repaired  and  made  convenient 
for  their  reception ;  and  that  David  Noble  be  appointed  to  put  said  house  in 
order,  and  to  make  provision  and  provide  suitable  diet  for  said  company,  from 
the  time  they  go  into  said  house  till  they  each  of  them  obtain  certificates  from 


100  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

their  Doctors  of  their  being  sufficiently  cleansed  from  said  disorder.  And  said 
company  to  depart  to  said  pest  house  next  Wednesday  morning,  and  not  to 
return  into  the  town  till  after  cleansing. 

And  for  the  further  preventing  all  inconveniences  which  may  arise, 
It  is  Resolved,  That  Mr.  Samuel  Kellogg,  and  William  Horsford,  and  Daniel 
Stratton,  be  a  Committee  to  give  their  attendance  at  the  time  of  each  man's 
cleansing,  and  be  fully  satisfied  that  they  are  fully  and  well  cured  and  cleaned, 
and  may  safely  depart.  And  this  Committee  strictly  enjoin  and  order  that  no 
one  of  the  said  infected  persons  shall  come  or  go  within  thirty  rods  of  any 
dwelling-house,  or  town  or  country  road. 

Given  under  our  hands,  this  4th  day  of  August,  A.D.  1776. 

Per  order  :    ISAAC  STRATTON,  Committee's  Clerk. 

This  house  then  belonged  to  Ephraim  Seelye,  and  this  and  his  saw- 
mill near  by  it,  were  the  original  house  and  mill  of  John  Smedley, 
situated  near  the  junction  of  Broad  Brook  and  the  Hoosac  River.  By 
a  special  vote  of  the  Proprietors  passed  in  1763,  Smedley  was  allowed 
to  take  the  raceway  for  his  mill  from  Broad  Brook  at  the  north  end 
of  the  present  bridge  over  the  brook,  along  by  the  public  road  and 
then  across  that  road  around  the  foot  of  the  hill  to  his  millsite  on 
the  Hoosac,  some  rods  below  the  mouth  of  the  brook.  Persons  are 
still  living  in  that  neighborhood  who  remember  to  have  seen  in  place 
the  timbers  of  that  old  sawmill.  The  present  writer  has  himself 
seen  and  examined  the  old  house,  which  stood  part  way  up  the  hill 
toward  the  public  road,  and  had  been  for  a  long  time  unoccupied, 
when  it  was  pulled  down  to  make  way  for  an  excavation  along  the 
roadbed  of  the  Fitchburg  Eailroad.  The  most  striking  thing  about 
the  house,  which  was  then  a  century  old,  was  its  exterior  sheathing, 
constructed  of  extremely  wide  pine  boards  free  from  knots.  Smed- 
ley sawed  his  own  boards  for  his  own  house  at  his  own  mill,  fed 
with  logs  long  and  large  off  his  own  homestead,  Pine  Lots  Nos.  7  and 
8.  Until  he  ran  across  the  above  order  of  the  Committee  of  Safety, 
the  writer  did  not  know  the  reason  why  some  of  the  oldest  inhab- 
itants applied  the  term  "  pest-house "  to  this  old  building.  John 
Smedley  was  a  "joiner"  by  trade.  He  began  operations  on  Broad 
Brook  by  buying  lands  there  as  early  as  1762.  Ephraim  Seelye,  who 
came  here  from  "Amenia  Precinct,"  Duchess  County,  New  York, 
about  1763,  and  who  is  always  denominated  "Gentleman"  in  the 
old  deeds,  evidently  became  the  owner  of  John  Smedley's  lands, 
and  of  many  more  in  that  neighborhood,  as  the  Revolution  drew  on. 
His  son  of  the  same  name,  both  dwelling  more  or  less  at  intervals  in 
Pownal  next  below,  became  later  a  very  large  landowner  in  town, 
and  incurred  justly  or  unjustly  the  epithet  of  "land-grabber."  It 
was  of  him  that  his  neighbors  said,  that  if  he  had  been  shown  "  all 


WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    BENNINGTON.  101 

the  kingdoms  of  the  world  and  the  glory  of  them,"  his  instant  reply 
would  have  been,  "  I'll  take  it,  I  will  !" 

The  following  letter  from  Williamstown  to  General  Gates,  written 
at  the  dictation  of  Captain  Eddy  of  the  Rhode  Island  men  detained 
there,  Dr.  William  Page  being  the  amanuensis,  the  second  in  point  of 
time  of  the  settled  physicians  in  Williamstown,  will  explain  itself. 
It  was  written  two  weeks  after  the  men  were  ordered  to  the  "  pest- 
house":  — 

WILLIAMSTOWN,  August  17,  1776. 

SIR  :  I  am  requested  by  Captain  Eddy,  commander  of  a  company  of  ship 
carpenters  from  Rhode-Island,  to  inform  that  said  captain  and  company  having 
been  exposed  to  take  the  small-pox  on  their  march  from  Rhode-Island  (as  the 
General  will  see  by  the  enclosed),  have  since  been  inoculated,  and  are  now  sick 
with  said  disorder  in  said  Williamstown,  and  that  he  (Captain  Eddy)  being 
taken  with  a  violent  dysentery,  despairs  of  life  ;  but  still  anxious  for  the  welfare 
of  his  soldiers,  desires  the  General  to  do  something  for  them.  They  having 
received  but  one  month's  advance  pay,  have  not  money  sufficient  for  their 
march  to  Skenesborough,  in  case  the  General,  upon  information,  should  give 
orders  for  said  march ;  neither  a  sufficiency  to  return  to  Rhode- Island  when 
discounted  with  their  doctoring  and  nursing.  Said  carpenters'  utensils,  being 
their  own  property,  are  now  at  Skenesborough,  they  will  be  out  of  business  in 
case  of  return.  Ten  of  said  company,  having  formerly  had  the  small-pox,  are 
gone  forward ;  the  remainder  may  safely  march  in  eight  days.  I  send  enclosed 
the  resolve  of  the  Committee  of  Safety  of  Williamstown,  as  also  a  line  Captain 
Eddy  received  from  Brigadier-General  Waterbury.  General  Gates's  orders  for 
the  express,  Mr.  Joseph  Skinner  will  lay  a  particular  obligation  on  Captain 
Eddy  and  company,  and  much  oblige  your  humble  servant, 

W«.  PAGE, 
Per  order  Captain  Eddy. 

N.B.    The  General  will  please  inquire  of  the  bearer  for  particulars. 

The  line  referred  to  above  as  having  been  received  by  Captain 
Eddy  from  General  Waterbury,  and  enclosed,  follows  herewith :  — 

SKENESBOROUGH,  August  12,  1776. 

I  have  received  a  line  from  General  Gates  concerning  you  who  have  been 
inoculated,  which  I  will  communicate  to  you:  "The  companies  of  ship  carpen- 
ters from  Rhode-Island,  who  have  been  inoculated  at  Williamstown,  should  be 
discharged  and  not  suffered  to  come  forward."  The  foregoing  are  the  words  of 
the  General.  I  think  as  much  as  to  say  you  are  not  to  come  in  the  service ;  we 
don't  intend  to  let  any  one  come  into  this  place  that  has  lately  had  the  small- 
pox, (for  you  know  it  has  been  the  bane  of  our  Northern  Army),  and  we  have 
got  it  out  of  this  place  and  Ticonderoga,  and  we  are  determined  to  use  every 
precaution  to  keep  it  clear ;  and  for  men  to  go  and  inoculate,  and  presume  to 
coine  here  among  fresh  troops,  we  think  it  monstrous. 

DAVID  WATERBURY,  JR., 

Brigadier-General 

To  the  Captain  and  Company  of  Carpenters  at  Williamstown. 


102  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

There  is  one  other  public  document  of  the  time  relating  to  this 
business  of  the  inoculation  here,  which  is  a  letter  of  Colonel  Samuel 
Brewer  to  General  Gates,  for  whose  insertion  entire  no  apology 
will  be  demanded  by  the  intelligent  reader. 

BENNINGTON,  August  23,  1776. 

HONOURED  SIR  :  I  am  now  on  my  march  from  this  place  with  part  of  my 
regiment  or  battalion.  The  Council  of  this  State,  or  the  Committee  appointed 
to  provide  my  regiment  with  camp  utensils,  have  not  yet  sent  them,  by  reason 
of  which  my  men  are  entirely  destitute.  My  marching  orders  are  urgent  from 
them  ;  likewise  I  find  the  same  from  you  to  the  Commission  here.  I  am  deter- 
mined to  push  as  far  as  I  can  find  any  kind  of  a  pot  or  kettle  to  look  in.  Have 
sent  my  adjutant  with  this  to  your  Honour,  begging  your  advice  and  instruction 
in  that  matter  ;  also  where  you  would  have  me  repair  with  my  regiment.  The 
other  part  of  my  regiment  will  be  on  their  march  next  week ;  by  them  I  expect 
the  camp  utensils  will  come,  as  I  have  sent  two  expresses  to  Number  Four,  and 
one  to  Watertown,  now  after  them.  Upon  seeing  a  letter  from  you  to  Major 
Hawley  relative  to  the  conduct  of  inoculation  at  Number  Four,  I  find  that  a 
damn'd  puppy  of  a  quack  has  carried  on  the  diabolical  practice  at  Williams- 
town,  about  twelve  miles  from  this.  I  have  made  bold  to  send  your  sentiment 
in  that  matter  to  the  Committee  of  that  town  this  morning,  and  make  no  doubt 
they  will  either  do  him  justice,  or  send  him  to  you  to  receive  his  reward. 

I  am,  sir,  your  Honour's  most  obedient  and  very  humble  servant, 

SAML.  BREWER,  Colonel. 
To  GENERAL  GATES. 

There  are  two  or  three  relevant  considerations  in  connection  with 
these  Revolutionary  documents  in  their  intimate  relations  to  men 
and  things  here  at  that  time,  —  of  which  the  first  is  the  single  gleam 
of  light  thrown  on  Dr.  William  Page,  always  known  to  have  been 
a  settled  physician  in  town  in  the  decade  of  the  seventeen-seventies, 
but  of  whom  almost  nothing  more  has  ever  been  heretofore  ascer- 
tained. The  name  of  William  Page  stands  second  (Jacob  Meack 
alone  preceding  it)  upon  a  list  of  Williamstown  physicians  first 
published  in  1824,  in  Field's  "Berkshire  County."  The  contribu- 
tion to  this  volume  under  the  head  of  "Williamstown,"  made  by 
Professor  Ebenezer  Kellogg  of  the  College,  holds  the  only  other 
old-time  reference  to  Dr.  Page.  Kellogg  obtained  most  of  his  his- 
torical information  from  Deacon  Levi  Smedley,  born  here  in  1764. 
Speaking  of  the  old  Smedley  home  on  house-lot  No.  1,  Kellogg  says 
of  Kehemiah  Smedley :  "  Exchanging  this  place  with  Dr.  Page,  for 
a  lot  purchased  [by  Page]  of  the  Eev.  Mr.  W^elch,  he  built  upon  it 
in  1772,  the  next  oldest  [two-story]  house  now  remaining  in  town, 
occupied  by  his  oldest  son  [Deacon  Levi],  just  across  Green  river." 
Now  at  length,  we  may  take  one  substantial  glance  of  the  old-time 


WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    BENNINGTON.  103 

doctor.  He  believed  in  inoculation  at  a  time  when  public  opinion, 
as  voiced  both  by  the  medical  profession  in  general  and  by  the 
clergy  universally,  was  virulently  opposed  to  it.  He  wrote  from 
this  town  a  very  well-expressed  letter  to  General  Gates  in  behalf  of 
Captain  Eddy  of  Providence,  who  then  supposed  himself  to  be 
dying,  the  letter  breathing  strongly  sympathetic  feelings  of  both 
captain  and  surgeon  toward  the  thirty-nine  men  then  sequestered 
here  in  a  well-known  house  for  small-pox.  In  all  human  probability, 
Dr.  Page  had  inoculated  these  men  himself ;  at  any  rate,  he  was  in 
medical  attendance  upon  them,  and  ready  to  render  them  any  ser- 
vice in  his  power.  It  is  probable  also  that  he  had  an  associate  in 
all  this  business,  and  that  this  associate  was  Dr.  Samuel  Porter, 
who,  just  a  year  later,  certainly  attended  here  upon  large  numbers 
of  wounded  brought  hither  from  the  battle-field  of  Bennington ;  for, 
it  is  quite  noticeable,  that  the  Committee  of  Safety  in  giving  orders 
for  the  sequestration  of  these  men,  insist  that  "each  of  them  obtain 
certificates  from  their  Doctors  of  their  being  sufficiently  cleansed  from 
said  disorder"  It  is  remarkable,  too,  that  this  local  Committee  wash 
their  hands  of  all  responsibility  for  this  inoculation  by  saying  that 
it  was  done  "without  our  knowledge."  The  fact  that  inoculation  was 
practised  at  about  the  same  time  on  some  soldiers  at  Number  Four, 
now  Charlestown,  New  Hampshire,  as  well  as  at  Williamstown,  all 
gathering  for  Ticonderoga,  roused  the  fury  of  the  northern  army, 
which  had  had  the  disease  all  the  way  of  its  retreat  from  Quebec  to 
Skenesborough,  and  had  at  last  gotten  rid  of  it  both  there  and  at 
Ticonderoga.  The  emphatic  prohibition  against  the  inoculated  men 
coming  forward  into  the  service,  and  even  the  demand  for  the  con- 
dign punishment  of  "  that  damned  puppy  of  a  quack  at  Williamstown," 
seem  natural  enough  under  the  circumstances ;  for  the  fact  seems 
to  have  been  established,  that  while  inoculation  was  invaluable  for 
the  inoculated,  it  did  not  lessen  in  the  least  the  liability  of  contagion 
to  others  from  them  while  the  artificial  disease  was  still  current. 
Whether  the  enmity  excited  by  these  events  both  local  and  general 
had  anything  to  do  with  the  falling  of  Dr.  Page's  practice  into 
"  innocuous  desuetude,'7  and  his  memory  into  an  oblivion  unusual  to 
such  a  man,  the  present  deponent  saith  not. 

In  Dr.  Page's  letter  to  General  Gates,  there  is  another  personal 
reference  very  interesting  at  this  late  day,  when  taken  in  connection 
with  the  prodigious  influence  which  that  then  obscure  person  came 
to  exert  for  twenty  years  at  least  in  the  State  of  Massachusetts. 
"  General  Gates's  orders  per  the  express,  Mr.  Joseph  Skinner,  will 
lay  a  particular  obligation  on  Captain  Eddy  and  company."  Who 


104  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

was  this  so-called  Joseph  Skinner  ?  The  annals  of  Williamstown 
contain  his  name  for  the  first  time  in  this  letter ;  but  these  annals 
are  not  vacant  of  his  name  for  a  single  year  thereafter,  till  his  death 
in  Boston,  January,  1809.  During  some  of  the  intervening  years, 
the  references  to  him  in  the  annals  of  the  State  are  profuse.  His 
name  both  in  good  and  evil,  both  in  prosperity  and  adversity,  is  cut 
in  the  record  in  a  more  indelible  and  significant  way  than  that  of 
any  other  citizen  of  the  town  ever  has  been.  He  wrote  his  own 
name  Tompson  J.  Skinner.  He  wrote  it  long  very  high,  and  at 
last  very  low,  on  the  scroll.  In  this  place  we  will  only  just  indicate 
the  beginnings  of  his  career ;  later  pages  will  unfold  it  to  the  full 
and  bitter  end. 

Tompson  Joseph  Skinner,  born  May  24,  1752,  and  Benjamin  Skin- 
ner, born  July  11,  1754,  were  both  sons  of  Rev.  Thomas  Skinner, 
1712-1762,  pastor  of  a  church  in  Colchester,  and  both  came  to  Wil- 
liamstown in  1775,  the  latter  just  turned  of  one  and  twenty,  and 
both  having  served  their  apprenticeship  with  a  carpenter  and  joiner. 
Thus  the  elder  brother,  when  sent  express  in  August,  1776,  to  the 
headquarters  of  General  Gates  on  Lake  Champlain,  was  twenty-four 
years  old.  This  was  obviously  his  first  public  employment.  That 
they  who  sent  him  had  confidence  in  his  intelligence  and  capacity 
is  evident  from  their  Nota  bene :  "  The  General  will  please  inquire 
of  the  bearer  for  particulars."  He  was  scarcely  out  of  public  em- 
ployment, either  military  or  civil,  from  that  day  till  the  day  of  his 
death.  He  was  eager,  tireless,  capable,  quick-witted,  ambitious,  a 
good  speaker,  able  alike  to  do  things  and  to  get  them  done  by 
others. 

The  Continental  military  campaign  of  1776,  which  was  a  desperate 
struggle  on  both  sides  to  gain  and  hold  possession  of  the  Hudson 
River  and  its  approaches,  with  the  city  of  New  York  on  the  south  and 
Ticonderoga  to  the  north  for  its  principal  centres,  resulted  in  the  loss 
of  New  York  to  the  Americans  through  the  disastrous  battles  of 
Long  Island  and  White  Plains,  and  ended  with  the  strong  occupation 
of  Ticonderoga  for  the  winter  under  General  Gates,  and  the  retreat 
of  the  British  General  Carleton  from  Crown  Point  to  Canada.  The 
Berkshire  militia  would  more  naturally  in  such  a  campaign  operate 
to  the  northward,  though  there  were  Berkshire  men  in  the  battle  of 
White  Plains,  and  Colonel  Mark  Hopkins  of  Barrington,  in  military 
service  and  command  there,  died  two  days  before  the  battle.  While 
Carleton  was  still  at  Crown  Point,  Arnold's  flotilla  after  the  bravest 
kind  of  fighting  having  been  twice  beaten  on  the  lower  lake,  Colonel 
Simonds's  regiment  was  summoned  in  October  to  Ticonderoga.  Of 


WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    BENNINGTON.  105 

the  Williamstown  company,  Nehemiah  Smedley  was  captain,  Judah 
Williams  was  first  lieutenant,  Timothy  Bigelow  second  lieutenant, 
and  Israel  Harris  orderly  sergeant.  When  the  roster  was  made  out 
in  November  at  Ticonderoga,  there  were  six  other  companies  in 
Simonds's  regiment  with  an  aggregate  of  333  officers  and  men.  The 
regiment  wintered  there.  With  three  other  regiments  from  Massa- 
chusetts, they  constituted  General  Lincoln's  brigade,  aggregating 
1472  officers  and  men.  The  major  of  Simonds's  regiment  at  this  time 
was  Caleb  Hyde  of  Lenox,  afterward  a  prominent  magistrate  there; 
the  adjutant  was  Daniel  Horsford  of  Williamstown ;  the  surgeon 
and  also  captain  of  one  of  the  companies  was  Erastus  Seargent  of 
Stockbridge,  brother-in-law  of  Colonel  Mark  Hopkins ;  and  the  sur- 
geon's mate  was  Eldad  Lewis  of  Lenox,  afterward  the  principal 
founder  of  the  Berkshire  Medical  Society,  in  1787,  and  its  first  formal 
orator  the  same  year. 

At  old  Fort  Ti  at  this  time  Benjamin  Simonds  probably  came  into 
renewed  association  with  Isaac  Wyman,  his  messmate  in  old  Fort 
Massachusetts,  and  his  fellow-proprietor  and  near  neighbor  from  the 
first  in  West  Hoosac.  Wyman  was  Simonds's  superior  officer 
throughout  the  whole  period  of  the  old  French  and  Indian  wars  on 
the  upper  Hoosac.  The  story  entire  may  be  found  in  the  pages  of 
the  "Origins  in  Williamstown."  Simonds  was  one  of  the  captives  of 
Fort  Massachusetts,  in  1746,  and  as  such  spent  a  year  in  Quebec. 
Wyman  was  lieutenant  at  the  fort  under  Captain  Ephraim  Williams 
till  the  death  of  the  latter  in  battle  in  1755,  and  continued  to  com- 
mand there  with  the  overcommand  at  the  West  Hoosac  fort  so  long 
as  either  maintained  a  military  attitude.  Simonds  served  in  either 
fort  according  to  contingencies.  Wyman  was  naturally  a  stickler 
for  the  precedence  of  the  older  and  larger  fort,  and  Simonds  sympa- 
thized with  his  fellow-soldiers  and  fellow-cultivators  in  the  west 
town;  but  there  is  no  evidence  of  any  personal  rupture  between 
them,  though  there  is  proof  in  plenty  of  Wyman's  unpopularity  in 
the  west  hamlet,  in  which  he  was  an  original  proprietor  and  a  con- 
stant landowner.  At  last  he  sold  out  all  his  lots  in  West  Hoosac 
(1761)  and  migrated  to  Keene,  New  Hampshire,  and  when  the  first 
Eevolutionary  regiment  of  New  Hampshire  was  organized  in  1775, 
we  read  that  John  Stark  was  appointed  colonel  and  Isaac  Wyman 
lieutenant-colonel.  July  11,  1776,  the  New  Hampshire  Committee 
of  Safety  sent  the  following  missive  to  him :  — 

SIR  :  I  send  you  by  the  bearer,  your  commission  as  Colonel  of  a  Regiment  of 
our  Militia  in  the  Service  ;  also,  thirty  pounds,  as  two  months'  advance  wages. 
As  the  troops  will  be  along  in  a  few  days,  it  is  expected  that  you  will  go  along 


106  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

with  them  to  Crown-Point,  and  join  the  Army  there.  The  Captains  Drew, 
Chandler,  Shepard,  Dearborn,  Blanchard,  Harper,  Parker,  and  Weatherbee, 
with  their  companies,  are  to  make  your  regiment.  As  it  is  of  great  consequence 
that  the  men  are  forwarded  with  speed,  therefore  expect  you  will  do  what  is  in 
your  power  that  they  make  no  delay  at  No.  4.  You  will  also  receive  thirty-two 
pounds,  advance  wages,  for  your  Surgeon,  Adjutant,  and  Quartermaster,  with 
this,  and  blank  commissions  for  those  officers  to  be  appointed  by  you.  Implor- 
ing the  divine  assistance  on  your  endeavors  to  serve  your  country,  and  that  you 
may  return  in  safety,  with  laurels  of  victory,  is  the  sincere  desire  of  him  who, 
in  behalf  of  the  Committee,  subscribes  himself  your  very  humble  servant. 
To  COLONEL  WYMAN 

Colonel  Wyman  reached  Ticonderoga  with  his  regiment  in  good 
time ;  but  it  was  not  written  in  the  Book  of  the  Fates,  that  he 
should  get  on  well  in  a  Continental  fortress  who  had  long  been 
chief  in  authority  in  a  sequestered  valley.  He  fell  into  difficulties 
almost  at  once,  the  nature  of  which  we  are  not  permitted  to  divine ; 
but  we  read  in  General  Orders  as  follows :  — 

HEAD-QUARTERS,  September  1,  1776. 

A  General  Court-Martial  to  sit  to-morrow  morning,  at  ten  o'clock,  at  the 
President's  tent,  upon  Mount  Independence,  for  the  trial  of  Colonel  Wyman, 
and  such  prisoners  as  shall  be  brought  before  them  ;  all  evidences  and  persons 
concerned  to  attend  the  Court. 

Nor  a  single  word  further  of  public  record  have  we  been  able  to 
glean  concerning  our  old  crony  of  Fort  Massachusetts  and  of  the 
West  Hoosac  Propriety.  That  Isaac  Wyman  deserves  well  of  the 
two  towns  on  the  upper  Hoosac  to  this  day  no  one  can  doubt  who 
weighs  well  the  ancient  record;  but  no  degree  of  service  at  one 
period,  under  one  set  of  circumstances,  seems  to  become  much  more 
than  a  hindrance  in  these  short  lives  of  ours,  when  we  transfer 
ourselves  over,  in  mature  life,  into  widely  different  sets  of  circum- 
stances. Young  men  are  plastic,  mature  men  are  rigid ;  and  happy 
is  he  who  may  sing  throughout  his  life  the  song  of  which  his  youth 
took  the  initiatory  pitch  ! 

So  far  as  the  northern  army  was  concerned,  the  close  of  the  cam- 
paign of  1776  was  marked  by  the  withdrawal  of  General  and  Gov- 
ernor Carletoii  from  his  post  at  Crown  Point  into  his  province  of 
Canada  for  the  winter,  leaving  a  large  force  of  American  regulars 
and  militia  in  the  fortress  at  Ticonderoga.  It  seems  to  have  been 
expected  that  this  single  fort  at  the  junction  of  Lake  George  and 
Lake  Champlain  would  effectually  stop  the  progress  of  any  invading 
army  from  Canada.  At  the  same  time  the  outlying  Heights  that 
commanded  the  fort  itself  were  not  fortified,  nor  even  occupied ;  and 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   BENNINGTON.  107 

General  Burgoyne  found  no  difficulty  at  the  opening  of  the  next 
campaign,  which  he  confidently  expected  would  be  the  last,  in  driv- 
ing the  Americans  helter-skelter  out  of  their  so-thought  impregnable 
fortress,  by  throwing  artillery  upon  Mount  Hope,  which  commanded 
Ticonderoga,  and  on  Mount  Defiance,  which  commanded  the  whole 
point  of  the  peninsula.  Extraordinary  pains  had  been  taken  in  fit- 
ting out  Burgoyne's  formidable  invading  force  of  7902,  rank  and 
file,  all  men  seasoned  in  war,  —  4135  British  veterans,  3116  hired 
Germans,  148  Canadian  militia,  and  503  Indians.  The  artillery  corps 
and  train  were  of  the  most  serviceable  character,  "  probably  the  finest 
and  most  excellently  supplied  as  to  officers  and  private  men  that  had 
ever  been  allotted  to  second  the  operations  of  any  army." 

Burgoyne's  plan  of  campaign  had  been  made  out  for  him  in  Eng- 
land, and  it  was  an  admirable  one  on  paper.  A  march  of  two  hun- 
dred miles  straight  down  the  Hudson  River  would  bring  him  to 
Albany,  where  a  junction  was  to  be  made  with  General  Howe,  whose 
fleet  was  in  the  harbor  of  New  York,  and  to  whose  ships  the  Hudson 
was  open,  loaded  as  they  were  to  be  with  British  soldiers.  It  was 
also  prescribed  to  Burgoyne  from  the  English  war  office,  that  he 
send  out  a  strong  detachment  from  his  right  flank  by  the  St.  Law- 
rence and  Lake  Ontario  to  Fort  Stanwix  on  the  very  upper  waters 
of  the  Mohawk  River,  occupying  the  site  of  the  present  Rome,  New 
York,  and  designed  to  hold  the  Indians  of  the  Six  Nations  firm  in 
their  somewhat  wavering  British  allegiance.  Fort  Stanwix  had  been 
built  in  1758.  It  stood  on  the  carrying-place  of  the  Mohawk  at 
about  equal  distances  from  what  is  now  Watertown  by  means  of  the 
Black  River  and  Oswego  by  the  river  of  that  name,  both  points  on 
Lake  Ontario,  and  both  on  easy  water  communication  with  Montreal. 
Barry  St.  Leger,  though  only  lieutenant-colonel  under  Burgoyne, 
was  made  nominally  brigadier-general  for  this  purpose,  and  with  a 
strong  detachment  of  over  1000  men  was  ordered  to  Oswego  and 
Fort  Stanwix,  and  from  the  latter  to  pass  down  the  Mohawk  to 
Albany,  there  to  make  junction  with  Howe  and  with  Burgoyne 
himself.  But  in  April,  so  soon  as  Burgoyne's  general  plan  of  inva- 
sion became  known  to  General  Schuyler  in  command  of  the  North- 
ern Department  with  headquarters  near  Albany,  Schuyler  ordered 
Colonel  Peter  Gansevoort  to  take  possession  of  Fort  Stanwix,  and 
to  defend  it  at  all  hazards  against  attacks  or  a  siege  on  the  part  of 
St.  Leger.  In  May,  Colonel  Marinas  Willett,  another  brave  and  com- 
petent New  York  citizen  and  soldier,  was  ordered  to  Fort  Stanwix 
as  second  in  command  to  Gansevoort.  Both  of  these  made  a  splen- 
did record  for  themselves  in  and  near  that  post  that  summer.  Their 


108  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

regular  garrison  was  550  men ;  but  on  the  2d  day  of  August,  the 
very  day  St.  Leger  arrived  to  invest  the  fort,  a  ree'nf orcement  of  200 
men,  convoying  ample  supplies,  was  taken  into  the  fort,  which  had 
been  partially  repaired  during  the  summer.  Two  days  later,  August 
4,  St.  Leger  completely  invested  the  fort  and  began  the  siege.  In- 
stead of  the  unfinished  work  which  he  says  he  had  been  led  to  ex- 
pect, he  found  it  "  a  respectable  fortress,  strongly  garrisoned  with 
700  men,  and  demanding  for  its  speedy  reduction  a  train  of  artillery 
of  which  he  was  not  master.'7 

In  the  meantime  a  body  of  militia  from  along  the  lower  Mohawk 
responded  to  the  call  of  General  Herkimer  (pronounced  Harkimer), 
who  slowly  found  himself  at  the  head  of  about  700  men,  among  them 
a  small  body  of  Oneida  Indians  ;  and  on  the  4th  of  August,  the 
very  day  Fort  Stanwix  was  invested,  Herkimer  moved  his  men  from 
German  Flats  up  the  river,  and  before  night  of  the  next  day  en- 
camped near  Oriskany,  only  two  or  three  miles  from  St.  Leger's  line. 
Herkimer  sent  notice  of  his  approach  to  the  besieged,  and  asked  for 
a  signal  so  soon  as  they  should  get  his  message ;  but  his  messengers 
did  not  succeed  in  getting  into  Fort  Stanwix  until  nearly  noon  on 
the  6th,  when  the  signal  guns  were  fired ;  but  in  the  interval  of  time 
Herkimer's  impatient  militia  were  unwilling  to  wait  for  the  signal 
to  advance,  and  he  could  not  restrain  them,  and  rather  than  lose 
their  confidence  allowed  them  to  attack  that  segment  of  St.  Leger's 
circle  nearest  to  them.  Thus  was  brought  on  what  is  usually  called 
the  battle  of  Oriskany.  It  was  desultory  and  yet  deadly  on  both 
sides.  The  militia  fell  into  an  ambush  but  imperfectly  formed  be- 
tween them  and  the  fort,  and  their  rear  regiment  fled  before  they 
had  fairly  gotten  into  the  fatal  circle  made  up  mostly  of  the  Canada 
Indians,  and  left  their  advanced  companions  to  their  fate.  These 
"  took  tree  "  and  fought  bravely.  Several  of  the  American  officers 
were^  killed,  and  General  Herkimer  was  mortally  wounded.  The 
saddle  was  removed  from  his  horse  and  placed  at  the  foot  of  a  tree, 
and  on  this  the  disabled  general  was  seated  by  his  men,  and  con- 
tinued cool  and  observant  for  several  hours,  indifferent  alike  to  pres- 
ent suffering  and  future  danger.  The  battle,  such  as  it  was,  tem- 
porarily interrupted  by  a  heavy  shower  during  which  both  sides  were 
rearranged  and  reenforced,  was  renewed  for  a  little  when  the  Indians, 
having  lost  thirty-three  killed  and  about  as  many  wounded,  quitted 
the  field,  closely  followed  by  the  English  troops.  At  nearly  the 
same  time  Colonel  Willett  made  a  sally  from  Fort  Stanwix  at  the 
head  of  250  men,  taking  out  with  them  a  three-pound  carronade, 
penetrated  the  English  camp,  secured  a  large  quantity  of  stores  and 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    BENNINGTON.  109 

munitions  of  war  of  all  kinds,  captured  nearly  all  the  books  and 
papers  of  the  expedition,  and  safely  effected  his  return  to  the  fort 
without  losing  a  man.  The  Indians  were  enormously  discouraged 
by  this  loss  of  their  blankets,  tents,  and  camp  utensils.  Herkimer 
had  indeed  been  defeated  and  killed,  and  his  relieving  force  been 
dispersed,  and  the  fort  was  still  besieged,  and  St.  Leger  demanded 
capitulations  from  Gansevoort;  but  all  that  had  been  heard  from 
Albany  by  secret  messengers  from  besieged  and  besiegers  discouraged 
the  latter  the  most,  and  these  suddenly  abandoned  their  camp  on  the 
23d,  and  rapidly  retreated  to  Canada  by  the  route  they  had  come. 

Thus  was  Burgoyne's  much-vaunted  right  wing  completely  clipped 
within  the  same  August  days  of  1777  that  witnessed  the  entangling 
and  encountering  and  discomfiture  of  his  but  slightly  less  important 
left  wing  by  the  Green  Mountain  Boys  on  the  head  waters  of  the 
Wallooinsac.  It  was  on  the  12th,  six  days  after  the  battle  of  Oris- 
kany,  that  Burgoyne  detached  from  his  army,  then  stationed  at  what 
is  now  called  Schuylerville  on  the  upper  Hudson,  the  Hessian  officer, 
Colonel  Baum,  in  command  of  about  five  hundred  regular  German 
troops,  with  perhaps  one  hundred  and  fifty  irregulars,  mostly  Ind- 
ians, and  with  two  light  pieces  of  artillery,  to  his  left,  with  their 
objective  at  Bennington.  To  facilitate  the  operations  of  this  corps, 
and  to  take  advantage  of  their  expected  success,  they  were  supported 
by  another  body  of  British  advanced  to  the  east  bank  of  the  Hudson 
and  posted  on  or  near  the  site  of  old  Fort  Saratoga,  and  also  by 
another  movable  column  constituted  like  Baum's  and  about  as  large, 
pitched  for  the  present  on  the  middle  Batten  Kill,  at  a  point  now 
termed  Battenville,  ready  to  act  as  a  reserve  and  second  line  to 
Baum,  and,  of  course,  placed  under  his  orders.  Colonel  Breimann 
commanded  this  second  line.  This  good  military  disposition  having 
been  made  on  the  part  of  the  British,  Baum  started  on  the  morning 
of  the  12th  of  August,  and  arrived  that  day  at  Cambridge,  or  North 
White  Creek,  since  so  called,  which  is  about  twelve  miles  northwest 
from  Bennington.  This  now  considerable  village  lies  on  both  sides 
of  Owl  Kill,  a  tributary  of  the  Hoosac,  dropping  into  it  from  almost 
straight  north  at  Eagle  Bridge.  It  is  perhaps  worth  notice  in  pass- 
ing, that  precisely  at  that  point  of  the  Owl  Kill  now  spanned  by  the 
bridge  in  the  village  of  Cambridge,  the  path  of  both  these  Hessian 
columns  on  their  way  to  the  battle  of  Bennington  crossed  the  weary 
path  of  the  captive  soldiers  from  Fort  Massachusetts,  in  1746,  on 
their  way  up  the  Owl  Kill  to  their  far  distant  objective  at  Quebec.1 
Curiously  enough,  one  of  those  captive  soldiers,  then  twenty  years 
1  See  Origin*  in  Williamstown,  pp.  152  et  seq. 


110  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

old,  so  weak  in  body  as  to  stir  the  pity  of  the  savages  that  guarded 
him  and  to  call  out  their  practical  help,  lived  to  return  from  Quebec 
to  West  Hoosac,  and  to  rise  to  the  rank  of  colonel  in  the  Berkshire 
militia,  and  on  the  day  when  Bauni  crossed  the  Owl  Kill  headed 
toward  Bennington,  was  in  council  at  that  place  in  the  Catamount 
Tavern  with  the  Council  of  Safety,  and  two  days  later  with  portions 
of  his  regiment  was  in  fierce  battle  with  Baum  and  Briemann.  This 
was  Benjamin  Simoiids. 

The  general  plan  of  our  present  story  now  requires  a  brief  trans- 
ference of  local  scene  from  the  region  northwest  of  Bennington  to 
another  about  as  far  to  the  southeast  of  that  now  memorable  place. 
As  soon  as  Burgoyne's  movements  in  the  spring  and  early  summer 
of  1777  had  fairly  developed  his  plan  of  campaign,  which  was  to 
completely  cut  off  New  England  from  military  cooperation  with 
New  York  and  the  other  middle  colonies,  the  interest  of  Massa- 
chusetts, Connecticut,  New  Hampshire,  and  the  then  so-called  "  New 
Hampshire  Grants  "  (now  Vermont),  was  fully  roused  to  operate  on 
Burgoyne's  left  flank  and  rear  as  he  slowly  descended  the  Hudson. 
Benjamin  Lincoln,  of  Massachusetts,  who  was  a  major-general  of 
militia  at  the  opening  of  the  war,  and  appointed  by  Congress  a 
major-general  in  the  regular  army,  Feb.  19,  1777,  was  sent  in  July 
to  join  Schuyler  in  opposing  Burgoyne.  He  rallied  the  New  Eng- 
land militia  in  large  numbers  ;  and  Williamstown  comes  back  again 
under  our  close  observation  in  this  connection.  Captain  Samuel 
Clark  of  South  Williamstown,  with  his  company  of  forty  men  at- 
tached to  the  Berkshire  regiment  of  Colonel  John  Brown,  operated 
under  General  Lincoln  at  Fort  Ann  from  the  latter  part  of  June  till 
the  last  of  July.  Captain  Nehemiah  Smedley,  of  Colonel  Simonds's 
regiment,  with  a  pretty  full  company  of  North  Williamstown  men, 
went  with  a  number  of  other  companies  belonging  to  the  same  regi- 
ment and  made  up  from  nearly  all  the  Berkshire  towns,  to  Pawlet, 
to  be  used  against  Burgoyne's  flank  or  not  at  the  discretion  of 
Schuyler,  who  lay  in  Burgoyne's  front,  and  of  Lincoln  and  Gates, 
who  hung  on  his  left.  The  military  cue  of  the  Americans  was  not 
only  to  allow,  but  also  in  a  sense  to  entice,  the  whole  British  army 
as  far  away  as  possible  from  its  base  of  supplies  in  Canada,  and  not 
to  fight  the  main  body  until  it  reached  ground  of  Schuyler's  own 
choosing,  well  down  the  Hudson,  wearied  with  a  long  march  and 
impoverished  as  to  supplies.  Accordingly,  it  was  not  good  strategy 
to  make  any  considerable  attack  on  the  enemy's  flank  in  motion 
down  the  river ;  and,  therefore,  bodies  of  New  England  militia  in 
very  considerable  numbers  were  dismissed  the  last  of  July  to  their 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   BENNINGTON.  Ill 

homes,  and  more  of  them  again  about  two  weeks  later.  We  have 
already  given,  a  few  pages  back,  a  letter  entire  from  General  Gates 
to  Colonel  Simonds,  implying  the  military  grounds  of  their  tem- 
porary dismissal.  Food  was  also  very  scarce  in  the  American  camps 
as  well  as  in  the  British  camps  to  the  west  of  the  river,  and  most 
of  the  militia  were  farmers,  and  their  harvests  at  home  needed  their 
strong  hands;  so  that  the  general  dismissal  of  the  militiamen  on 
the  one  hand,  and  the  sending  out  of  Burgoyne's  strong  columns  to 
his  left  ordered  to  gather  food  wherever  they  could  find  it,  and  aim- 
ing at  supposed  large  "  stores  "  at  Bennington,  were,  to  a  considerable 
degree,  brought  about  by  the  selfsame  cause,  — a  scarcity  of  supplies 
in  both  armies.  Moreover,  Burgoyne  had  been  made  to  believe  that 
a  majority  of  the  people  on  the  "New  Hampshire  Grants  and  in  that 
quarter  generally  were  friendly  to  the  royal  cause,  and  were  ready 
to  join  it  whenever  an  opportunity  should  be  given.  There  was  a 
good  deal  of  basis  in  fact  for  this  supposition  of  the  British  com- 
mander. 

General  Stark  with  about  eight  hundred  New  Hampshire  troops 
had  united  at  Manchester  with  the  Vermont  militia  under  the  com- 
mand of  Colonel  Seth  Warner,  to  the  number  of  about  six  hundred ; 
and  on  the  9th  of  August  had  moved  forward  to  Bennington  with 
his  full  force,  excepting  Warner's  own  regiment.  On  the  13th 
Stark  received  express  intelligence  that  a  large  party  of  the  enemy, 
with  some  artillery  and  Indians,  had  just  left  Cambridge  and  were 
advancing  toward  Bennington.  He  immediately  rallied  what  forces 
he  had,  sent  orders  back  to  Manchester  for  Warner's  regiment,  and 
united  with  the  Committee  of  Safety  then  in  session  at  the  Cata- 
mount Tavern  in  an  animated  call  upon  the  neighboring  Berkshire 
militia.  As  most  if  not  all  of  the  companies  of  his  regiment  had 
recently  been  dismissed  from  the  front  to  their  homes,  Colonel 
Simonds  had  remained  in  Bennington  in  constant  counsel  with 
General  Stark  and  with  the  Committee  of  Safety.  Fortunately  we 
possess  the  contemporary  and  official  evidence  of  all  these  facts. 

The  military  call  of  Stark  and  Simonds  was  so  emphatic  and 
effective  as  to  bring  within  forty-eight  hours  into  the  former's  camp, 
now  moved  forward  about  five  miles  to  the  west  of  the  Bennington 
meeting-house,  at  least  five  hundred  fighting  men  from  the  Berkshire 
towns,  of  whom  one  hundred  and  sixty  certainly  were  from  Wil- 
liamstown,  sixty-five  of  them  under  Captain  Samuel  Clark  of  South 
Williamstown,  and  the  rest  under  Captain  Nehemiah  Smedley  of  the 
North  Part.  For  militia  purposes  the  town  had  been  for  some  time 
divided  into  two  sections  by  a  line  running  east  and  west  over  Stone 


112  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

Hill,  placing  about  two-fifths  of  the  then  population  south  of  the 
line.  None  of  Captain  Clark's  men,  as  the  names  appear  on  the 
official  muster-roll  still  extant  in  the  archives  at  Boston,  seemed  to 
have  lived  north  of  this  line.  Captain  Smedley's  men,  all  of  whom 
probably  had  their  homes  north  of  the  line,  sent  in  no  claim  for  pay 
for  their  services  at  Bennington;  and  consequently  there  is  no 
muster-roll  of  their  names,  as  there  is  of  all  the  rest  of  the  compa- 
nies from  Berkshire ;  but  the  proof  is  conclusive  on  other  grounds 
and  from  tradition,  that  there  were  at  least  one  hundred  of  them. 
The  lack  most  felt,  at  Bennington,  was  of  lead  from  which  to  mould 
bullets  for  the  impending  battle.  The  official  Journal  of  the  Com- 
mittee of  Safety  commences  on  the  15th  of  August,  the  day  before 
the  fighting  took  place ;  and  its  very  first  entries,  which  will  be 
quoted  verbally  in  a  moment,  relate  to  a  pressing  message  sent  to 
Williamstown  and  to  Lanesboro  by  a  mounted  express  to  obtain, 
lead,  and  to  a  personal  order  sent  through  the  same  messenger  by 
Colonel  Simonds  to  his  wife  at  their  tavern-stand  in  Williamstown,. 
for  the  same  purpose  of  securing  lead  to  melt  up  into  bullets. 

STATE   OF  VERMONT. 
Bennington.    In  Council  of  Safety,  August  15,  1777. 

SIR  :  You  are  hereby  desired  to  forward  to  this  place,  by  express,  all  the 
lead  you  can  possibly  collect  in  your  vicinity  ;  as  it  is  expected,  every  minute, 
an  action  will  commence  between  our  troops  and  the  enemies,  within  four  or 
five  miles  of  this  place,  and  the  lead  will  be  positively  wanted. 

By  order  of  Council, 

PAUL  SPOONER, 

D.  Setfy. 
THE  CHAIRMAN  OF  THE  COMMITTEE  OF  SAFETY,  WILLIAMSTOWN. 

The  same  request  sent  to  the  Chairman  of  the  Committee,  Lanes- 
boro, the  same  date,  sent  by  Jedediah  Eeed,  Pawlet. 

MADAM  :  Please  to  send  by  the  bearer,  Jedediah  Reed,  6  or  7  pounds  of  lead, 
by  Col.  Simonds'  order. 

By  order  of  Council, 

PAUL  SPOONER, 

MRS.  SIMONDS.  D.  Setfy. 

Whether  this  formal  messenger  got  back  to  Bennington  with  bits 
of  unmolten  lead  in  time  to  have  them  made  into  missiles  before 
the  two  fights  on  the  Walloomsac,  the  afternoon  of  the  next  day, 
may  well  be  questioned;  but  something  much  better  than  these 
from  Lanesboro  and  Williamstown  certainly  reached  that  point  of 
conflict  in  ample  season.  These  towns,  as  such,  had  their  own 


WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    BENNINGTON.  113 

stocks  of  powder  and  lead,  to  tap  which  this  messenger  rode  forth, 
and  with  which  their  own  militia  men  were  furnished  in  time.  Cap- 
tain Daniel  Brown  took  up  from  Lanesboro  a  fine  company  of  forty- 
six  men,  mustered  in  on  the  14th  and  six  days  in  service,  of  which 
the  two  lieutenants,  Isaac  Nash  and  Abel  Prindle,  were  killed  in 
battle,  and  these  two  names  are  inscribed  in  the  town  records  as 
those  of  patriots  and  martyrs,  while  the  General  Court  afterwards 
reimbursed  the  town  of  Lanesboro  in  160  pounds  of  powder  and  580 
pounds  of  lead  and  240  flints,  expended  at  Bennington  from  their 
own  stock.  The  small  and  hilly  town  of  New  Ashford,  through 


SIMONDS   TAVERN-STAND    IN    1777, 
PRINDLE    FARMHOUSE    IN    1897. 

which  both  special  messenger  Reed  and  the  Lanesboro  militia  com- 
pany passed  twice,  sent  Captain  Amariah  Babbitt  and  nineteen  men, 
sworn  to  before  Jedediah  Hubbell,  chairman  of  the  Committee  of 
Safety  in  Lanesboro.  New  Ashford  has  since  become  almost  depopu- 
lated; but  here  are  twenty  names  —  Captain  Babbitt  and  company 
—  on  its  contemporary  muster-roll  who  are  likely  to  remain  known 
citizens  of  that  little  borough  till  the  end  of  Time  !  Hancock,  though 
there  were  many  Tories  there  and  some  in  Lanesboro  also,  responded 
to  Stark's  call  in  Captain  William  Douglas  and  forty-six  rank  and 
file,  whose  names  are  on  the  pay-roll  in  Boston ;  and  besides,  the 
same  captain,  son  to  Asa  Douglas,  the  first  settler  in  that  region  and 
ancestor  to  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  took  the  same  company  in  less  than 
i 


114  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND   WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

a  month  after  the  battle  to  Pawlet,  Vermont,  —  seventy-six  miles. 
Captain  Samuel  Low  took  forty-four  soldiers  from  Cheshire  to  the 
Bennington  battle,  not  indeed  going  over  the  whole  distance  in  a 
day  or  two  before,  for  the  same  captain  and  company  had  been  doing 
duty  from  the  last  day  of  June  to  the  14th  day  of  August  at  a  place 
called  "  Sancoik  "  [St.  Croix],  on  the  Walloomsac,  on  which  last  date 
they  were  summoned  to  Bennington,  over  the  very  road  along  which 
fell  the  fighting  but  two  days  later.  An  independent  company  of 
volunteers  from  New  Providence,  then  a  new  settlement  of  Rhode 
Island  men  on  the  northwestern  edge  of  Cheshire,  now  called  "  Staf- 
ford's Hill,"  though  it  is  bare  of  people,  rallied  to  the  number  of 
forty-one  under  Colonel  Joab  Stafford,  consisting  also  of  some  men 
from  Lanesboro  and  East  Hoosac  (now  Adams)  and  Gageborough 
(now  Windsor),  on  the  14th  of  August,  and  did  their  share  in  the 
battle  of  the  16th,  where  Colonel  Stafford  was  severely  wounded 
in  the  foot  while  helping  to  storm  the  Tory  breastwork ;  and  it  was 
this  same  Joab  Stafford  of  New  Providence  and  Stephen  Davis  of 
"William stown  who  conjointly  petitioned  the  General  Court  for  re- 
imbursement for  powder  and  balls  and  flints  expended  from  the 
stocks  of  the  several  towns,  and  in  response  there  was  voted  to  New 
Providence  40  Ibs.  of  powder  and  120  Ibs.  of  lead  and  72  flints,  in 
addition  to  the  respective  amounts  voted  to  Lanesboro  and  Williams- 
town.  Though  Colonel  Stafford  picked  up  some  volunteers  for  his 
company  in  those  parts  of  East  Hoosac  nearest  to  his  "  Hill,"  Cap- 
tain Enos  Parker's  regular  company  of  Colonel  Simonds's  regiment, 
fifty-one  men,  marched  from  East  Hoosac  to  Bennington,  August 
14-19,  as  that  roll  says,  twenty  miles  from  home.  Jericho,  baptized 
only  the  year  before  into  the  patriotic  name  of  Hancock,  besides 
Captain  Douglas's  company  of  twenty-six,  sent  also  to  Bennington, 
August  14-20,  Captain  Stephen  Smith's  company  of  thirty-one  militia- 
men of  Colonel  Simonds's  regiment;  and  we  must  remember  that, 
if  Williamstown  had  in  1777  two  separate  companies  of  its  militia, 
Hancock  was  more  likely  to  have  them ;  because  Hancock  is  still 
sixteen  miles  long,  and  was  then  much  wider  than  now,  for  the  final 
New  York  boundary  line  sheared  off  in  1787  a  considerable  part  of 
Hancock  into  that  State.  All  these  companies,  except  Stafford's, 
are  enrolled  as  belonging  to  Colonel  Benj.  Simonds's  regiment.  These 
men  amount  in  round  numbers  to  four  hundred  and  forty. 

But  this  was  not  the  whole  of  Berkshire's  contribution  to  the 
battle  of  Bennington.  There  were  two  other  organized  regiments  in 
the  county  at  that  time,  Colonel  Brown's  and  Colonel  Ashley's. 
From  Pittsfield  marched  in  haste  Lieutenant  William  Ford  of 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   BENNINGTOK.  115 

Brown's  regiment  with  twenty-two  men,  but  there  were  individuals 
in  that  number  who  counted  for  ten  in  the  fight  that  followed.  Par- 
son Allen,  the  chaplain  of  that  little  detachment,  is  the  most  pic- 
turesque figure  in  the  whole  movement  to  and  on  the  Walloomsac  on 
either  side.  It  was  raining  furiously  when  these  men  reached 
Stark's  camp  some  time  in  the  evening  or  night  of  the  15th,  and  it 
continued  tox  rain  during  most  of  the  next  forenoon.  Allen  was 
sore,  as  was  many  another  Berkshire  officer,  over  the  recent  dismis- 
sals and  return  from  the  front  of  so  many  companies,  in  conjunction 
with  this  sudden  and  most  urgent  call  on  them  to  double  on  their 
tracks.  In  his  first  interview  with  Stark  he  let  fly  the  common  dis- 
content, and  added  the  threat  that,  if  they  were  not  given  fight  this 
time,  they  would  never  turn  out  again !  The  story  goes,  that  the 
general  asked  the  parson  if  he  wanted  to  turn  out  then  in  the  dark 
and  in  the  rain;  and  promised  that,  if  daylight  and  fair  weather 
should  ever  come  again,  the  Berkshire  men  should  have  the  fighting 
to  their  hearts'  content.  Parson  Allen  did  brave  duty  as  a  common 
soldier  with  his  musket  at  the  Tory  breastworks  that  afternoon. 
What  is  even  better  than  that,  he  left  on  record  as  an  eye-witness 
three  or  four  of  its  most  telling  incidents.  From  Richmond  marched 
Captain  Aaron  Rowley  with  twenty-six  men,  also  of  Colonel  Brown's 
regiment,  and  with  them  went  Lieutenant-Colonel  David  Rossiter  of 
Richmond,  —  no  common  man.  He  fought  on  the  Walloomsac  like 
a  born  soldier  as  he  was.  A  single  line  of  Parson  Allen's  hasty 
sketch  has  immortalized  him.  Captain  Enoch  Noble  of  Colonel 
Ashley's  regiment  was  in  service  twenty  days,  August  1-20,  at  Ben- 
nington,  "at  request  of  General  Stark,  and  order  of  General  Fellows 
and  ye  Committee  of  Safety,  forty  miles  from  home."  These  were 
Stockbridge  men.  There  is  another  roll  from  Colonel  Ashley's  regi- 
ment,—  Lieutenant  Samuel  Warner,  twenty-nine  men,  August  15-24, 
ten  days.  There  may  be  other  rolls  extant  of  Berkshire  men  in  the 
battle  of  Bennington,  but  at  any  rate  these  were  found  in  a  single 
search  among  the  archives,  which,  in  such  matters,  is  rarely  ex- 
haustive. No  reference  is  here  made  to  Captain  Solomon  and  his 
Stockbridge  Indians,  who  are  known  to  have  been  there,  nor  to  vol- 
unteers from  Lenox,  who  are  believed  to  have  been  there.  Linus 
Parker  of  Lenox,  a  sharp-shooter  in  war-time  and  a  hunter  in  time 
of  peace,  was  certainly  there,  and  used  to  tell  of  one  phase  of  the 
fight,  vivid  but  horrible,  not  mentioned  by  any  other  eye-witness. 
Besides  the  militiamen  from  New  Providence  under  Colonel  Staf- 
ford, Sepp  Ives  of  that  precinct  was  killed  in  the  battle  from  out  of 
Colonel  Warner's  Continental  regiment.  Isaac  Cummings  of  Wil- 


116  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

liamstown  was  also  in  that  regiment  at  the  time  of  the  battle.  The 
evidence,  accordingly,  is  direct  and  irrefragable,  that  something  over 
five  hundred  armed  men  from  Berkshire  County  were  in  the  two 
fights  on  the  Walloomsac  on  the  16th  of  August. 

On  the  other  hand,  Colonel  Baum  with  his  Hessians  and  Tories, 
and  with  Indians  in  his  front,  advanced  on  the  morning  of  the  14th 
along  the  road,  which  ran  then  just  as  it  runs  now,  toward  what  is 
now  called  the  village  of  North  Hoosac,  where  Colonel  Gregg  with 
two  hundred  New  Hampshire  men,  sent  by  Stark  the  day  before, 
stood  guard  over  a  grist-mill  which  then  contained  considerable  sup- 
plies of  grain  and  flour.  As  Gregg  had  been  sent  out  only  to  recon- 
noitre and  report,  he  of  course  retreated  before  the  enemy,  who 
were  only  one  mile  in  his  rear,  until  he  met  Stark  advancing  also 
with  his  whole  force,  which  he  immediately  drew  up  in  order  of 
battle.  Baum,  who  had  stopped  long  enough  at  the  grist-mill  to 
write  back  to  General  Burgoyne  —  using  a  flour-barrel  as  a  desk  — 
a  buoyant  despatch  announcing  Gregg's  retreat  as  a  sort  of  victory, 
soon  perceived  the  Americans  to  be  too  strong  to  be  attacked  with 
his  present  force  in  their  position,  halted,  and  commenced  to  in- 
trench himself  on  a  commanding  hill  to  his  left  on  the  north  of  the 
road,  and  close  up  to  the  bridge  over  the  Walloomsac,  which  here 
runs  nearly  due  south.  He  also  sent  back  an  express  to  Colonel 
Breimann  to  hasten  to  his  support.  Naturally  failing  to  draw  them 
from  their  strong  position,  Stark  fell  back  about  a  mile  on  the  road 
toward  Bennington  to  or  just  over  the  line  bounding  New  York  and 
Vermont  with  his  main  force,  but  leaving  a  small  party  to  watch  the 
enemy  and  skirmish  with  them.  The  next  day  and  night  and  the 
following  morning  were  too  rainy  for  a  general  engagement  with 
firelocks,  and  this  unavoidable  delay  not  only  permitted  the  enemy 
to  strengthen  their  fortifications  on  the  hill  north  of  the  road  and 
west  of  the  bridge,  but  also  to  throw  up  a  pretty  strong  breastwork 
on  the  side-hill  east  of  the  stream  and  south  of  the  road.  This  has 
always  been  called  the  "Tory  Breastwork."  Baum's  choice  of 
ground  for  a  defensive  battle  was  not  so  bad  as  it  would  seem  to  be, 
if  we  did  not  remember  that  the  Walloomsac  here  was  small  and 
fordable  at  all  places,  and  that  the  two  works  were  in  plain  sight  of 
each  other.  The  grist-mill  at  North  Hoosac,  from  which  Gregg  had 
hastened,  and  which  Baum  too  had  left  about  three  miles  behind 
him  to  take  up  his  defensive  positions  near  the  bridge,  at  which  mill 
it  may  fairly  be  said  the  battle  began  on  Thursday,  and  near  which 
it  certainly  ended  on  Saturday,  remained  a  long  time  an  object  of 
much  curiosity.  It  was  built  the  year  before  the  battle,  and  the 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   BENNINGTON.  117 

writer  himself  has  seen  on  different  parts  of  the  old  frame  two 
scratch-awl  marks  —  "1776"  —  such  as  carpenters  in  those  days 
used  to  leave  behind  them  in  their  building.  A  tumbling  stream, 
called  Little  White  Creek,  falling  from  the  north  into  the  Walloom- 
sac  at  right  angles,  carried  and  still  carries  the  mill-wheel.  In 
some  sense  the  ground  from  this  point  to  that  where  the  Walloomsac 
itself  drops  into  the  Hoosac  also  at  right  angles  is  holy  ground.  At 
any  rate  it  has  borne  more  or  less  for  a  couple  of  centuries  a  holy 
name,  St.  Croix — blessed  cross.  Written  proof,  even  clear  tradi- 
tion, is  wanting  to  the  writer's  firm  belief,  that  some  Jesuit  priest 
or  priests  from  Canada,  such  as  those  who  founded  mission  stations 
among  the  Indians  all  along  the  St.  Lawrence  and  its  tributaries, 
from  the  Kennebec  to  the  waters  of  the  upper  Mississippi,  —  like 
Father  Jogues  himself,  who  named  our  Lake  George  "St.  Sacra- 
ment" in  1646,  —  may  have  at  some  time  visited  the  region  of  the 
Walloomsac  with  a  missionary  intent,  and  have  left  upon  it  a  sweet 
name  corresponding  to  its  own  natural  beauty,  which  two  centuries 
have  not  yet  effaced.  French  missionaries  from  Canada  discovered 
and  described  Lake  George  long  before  Father  Jogues  christened  it 
so  well.  How  otherwise  came  that  name  to  attach  itself,  and  to 
attach  itself  so  as  to  stick,  to  that  particular  strip  of  territory  ? 
The  term  was  sometimes  loosely  applied  to  land  as  far  west  as  Tya- 
shoke  or  Buskirk's  bridge;  but  it  showed  its  most  persistent  grip 
on  the  valley  soil  between  the  Egyptian  cross  at  what  is  now  Hoosac 
Junction  and  that  other  similar  cross  at  North  Hoosac.  More  than 
half  of  the  contemporary  references  to  the  battle  of  Bennington, 
whether  these  be  British  or  German  or  Yankee,  bring  in  as  a  local 
designation  some  corruption  or  other  of  St.  Croix,  —  Sancoik  being 
perhaps  the  most  common  form. 

The  old  grist-mill  burned  down  on  the  24th  of  October,  1896,  and 
so  excellent  was  its  construction  and  so  large  were  the  timbers  that 
the  building  burned  fully  two  hours  before  it  fell.  It  served  as  a 
grist-mill  just  120  years,  1776-1896.  The  following  is  an  exact  copy 
of  Colonel  Baum's  despatch  to  General  Burgoyne,  written  in  the 
mill  during  his  brief  occupancy  of  it.  The  mill  was  then  owned  by 
one  Van  Schaick,  and  the  story  goes  that  he  turned  over  to  the 
British  side  in  the  hope  of  getting  his  pay  for  the  contents  of  his 
mill.  Two  days  later  the  British  were  defeated,  and  Baum  was 
killed,  and  the  quandam  owner  had  to  flee,  leaving  the  mill  and  all 
it  contained  behind  him. 


118  WILL1AMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

SANCROICK,  14  Aug.  1777. 
9  o'clock. 

Col.  Baum  to  General  Burgoyne 

Sir:  — 

I  have  the  honor  to  inform  your  excellency  that  I  arrived  here  at  eight 
in  the  morning. 

Having  had  intelligence  of  a  party  of  the  enemy  being  in  possession  of  a  mill 
which  they  abandoned,  but  in  their  usual  way  fired  from  the  bushes,  and  took 
their  road  to  Bennington,  a  savage  was  slightly  wounded :  they  broke  down  the 
bridge  which  retarded  our  march  above  an  hour. 

They  left  in  the  mill  1000  bushels  of  wheat,  20  bbl  of  salt  and  about  78  bbls 
of  very  fine  flour  and  £1000  worth  of  pearl  and  potash.  I  have  ordered  30  pro- 
vincials and  an  officer  to  gard  the  provisions  and  the  pass  of  the  bridge. 

By  five  prisoners  taken  there  that  agree  that  1500  to  1800  men  are  in  Ben- 
nington but  are  supposed  to  leave  it  on  our  approach. 

I  will  proceed  as  far  today  as  to  fall  on  the  enemy  tomorrow  early,  and  make 
such  disposition  as  I  think  necessary  from  the  intelligence  I  receive. 

The  people  are  flecking  in  hourly  but  want  to  be  armed.  The  savages  cannot 
be  controlled  they  ruin  and  take  everything  they  please. 

I  am  your  excellency's  most  obedient  humble  servant. 

F.  BAUM. 

Beg  your  excellency  to  pardon  the  hurry  of  this  letter  it  is  wrote  on  the  head 
of  a  barrel. 

GEN.  BURGOYNE. 

The  16th  of  August  was  a  Saturday,  and  it  was  hot.  So  far  as 
the  American  militiamen  were  concerned,  the  battle  was  fought  for 
the  most  part  in  their  shirt-sleeves.  The  long  rain  was  over.  The 
contrast  between  dark  and  bright  was  strong  and  exhilarating,  as 
was  also  the  contrast  a  few  hours  later  between  the  dusk  of  evening 
and  the  glow  of  victory.  The  central  authority  for  the  actual  battle 
on  the  Walloomsac  is  the  copious  letter  of  General  Stark  to  General 
Gates,  written  from  Bennington  six  days  after.  In  the  intervening 
time  Stark  had  been  sick  and  unable  to  write,  but  General  Lincoln 
had  hurried  down  from  the  rear  of  Burgoyne  to  Bennington,  as  it 
were,  at  the  sound  of  the  Hessian  cannon,  and  he,  though  not  an 
eye-witness,  had  written  to  Gates,  "and  I,"  says  Stark,  "joined  with 
him  in  opinion  on  the  subject  of-  his  letter."  Stark's  own  letter  of 
the  22d  is  a  military  letter  from  subordinate  to  superior,  and  lacks 
of  course  all  picturesque  details,  many  of  which  have  been  supplied, 
however,  from  equally  well-authenticated  sources.  General  Gates 
had  written  to  General  Stark  a  congratulatory  letter  on  the  19th, 
"which,"  writes  Stark  on  the  22d,  "gave  me  great  pleasure."  The 
plan  of  the  battle,  as  it  was  actually  fought,  had  been  matured  in  a 
council  of  war,  to  which  Stark  refers  in  his  letter,  at  which  Colonel 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    BENNINGTON.  119 

Seth  Warner,  whose  residence  was  in  Bennington  and  who  knew  all 
the  ground  thoroughly  in  the  region  round  about,  was  the  chief 
councillor.  On  him  Stark  relied  implicitly  both  in  council  and  in 
action.  "  Colonel  Warner's  superior  skill  in  the  action  was  of  extraor- 
dinary service  to  me."  The  plan  was  to  deceive  Baum  by  sending 
two  detachments  on  a  pretty  wide  circuit  round  his  right  and  left  to 
unite  in  his  rear,  and  to  attack  at  a  given  signal,  while  there  was 
"  sent  one  hundred  men  in  their  front  to  draw  away  their  attention 
that  way."  The  Tory  breastwork  east  of  the  river  was  to  be  sur- 
rounded and  attacked  at  the  same  time,  while  the  small  reserve 
under  Stark  himself  was  to  act  in  front  of  Baum  and  to  the  left  of 
the  breastwork,  though  on  lower  ground.  "  I  pursued  my  plan,  de- 
tached Colonel  Nichols  with  two  hundred  men  to  attack  them  in  the 
rear;  I  also  sent  Colonel  Herrick  with  three  hundred  men  in  the 
rear  of  their  right,  both  to  join,  and  when  joined  to  attack"  Baum's 
intrenchment.  Colonels  Hubbard  and  Stickney  in  command  of  two 
of  the  three  New  Hampshire  regiments,  with  Colonel  Simonds  and 
his  Berkshire  men,  were  designated  to  surround  and  to  attack  the 
Tory  breastwork,  in  command  of  which  was  Francis  Pfister,  a  retired 
British  officer  of  the  last  French  war,  who  resided  at  what  is  now 
known  as  the  "Tibbetts  place,"  about  half  a  mile  west  of  Hoosac 
Four  Corners.  In  the  fight  that  followed,  Pfister  was  mortally 
wounded,  and  among  his  effects  was  found  his  commission  on  parch- 
ment as  "Lieutenant  in  His  Majesty's  Sixtieth  or  Royal  American 
Regiment  of  Foot,"  dated  Sept.  18,  1760,  and  signed  by  Sir  Jeffrey 
Amherst.  He  was  commonly  called  by  his  neighbors  Colonel  Pfister. 
It  was  to  be  noted,  however,  that  this  commission  was  signed  a  year 
after  General  Wolfe's  final  battle  at  Quebec. 

"About  three  o'clock  we  got  all  ready  for  the  attack.  Colonel 
Nichols  begun  the  same  which  was  followed  by  all  the  rest.  The 
remainder  of  my  little  army  I  pushed  up  in  the  front,  and  in  a  few 
minutes  the  action  begun  in  general,  it  lasted  two  hours,  the  hottest 
I  ever  saw  in  my  life  [Stark  was  in  the  thick  of  the  battle  of  Bunker 
Hill]  ;  it  represented  one  continual  clap  of  thunder,  however,  the 
enemy  was  obliged  to  give  way,  and  leave  their  field  pieces  and  all 
their  baggage  behind  them.  They  were  all  environed  with  two 
breast  works  with  their  artillery,  but  our  martial  courage  proved 
too  hard  for  them."  The  Tory  breastwork  was  three-quarters  of  a 
mile  southeast  of  Baum's  hill  intrenchment,  and  the  bridge  over  the 
river  was  halfway  between  the  two,  and  the  two  brass  field-pieces 
were  placed  on  the  brow  of  Baum's  hill,  high  enough  to  command 
the  road  and  the  bridge  and  the  plain  to  the  east  of  the  bridge, 


120  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

which  Stark  in  his  letter  twice  calls  "  the  front."  The  two  intrench- 
ments  seem  to  have  given  way  at  just  about  the  same  time ;  never- 
theless, Linus  Parker  of  Lenox,  who  was  an  eye-witness,  used  to  tell 
the  tale  of  Tories  trying  to  escape  from  their  breastwork  and  to 
clamber  up  the  opposite  hill  toward  Baum's  men,  being  shot  in 
numbers  by  the  Americans  and  their  bodies  rolling  down  the  steep 
into  the  Walloomsac.  Captain  Ebenezer  Webster  of  Salisbury,  New 
Hampshire,  father  of  the  great  orator  and  statesman,  is  said  to  have 
been  the  first  to  leap  over  the  barrier  of  earth  and  logs  at  the  Tory 
breastwork.  Stories  have  been  rife  in  Berkshire  for  a  century  of 
the  handy  way  in  which  Parson  Allen  of  Pittsfield  handled  his 
musket  that  afternoon  at  the  same  post.  Joab  Stafford  of  Stafford's 
Hill  carried  away  from  that  place  a  lame  foot,  to  become  to  him  for 
life,  and  to  others  as  well,  a  reminder  of  that  struggle  between 
opposing  countrymen.  It  is  probable  that  most  of  the  Berkshire 
soldiers  killed  that  day  in  battle  were  killed  there ;  and  here  is  a 
partial  explanation  of  the  greater  bitterness  felt  toward  the  Tories, 
and  the  far  worse  treatment  accorded  to  them  as  prisoners  of  war, 
than  fell  to  the  lot  of  the  hired  Hessians.  Baum's  men  were  driven 
down  the  hill  toward  the  northeast,  and  easily  fell  as  prisoners  of 
war  into  the  clutches  of  the  Americans.  Dr.  Oliver  Partridge  of 
Stockbridge,  the  surgeon  of  Berkshire,  professionally  examined  the 
wound  of  Colonel  Baum,  and  pronounced  it  mortal,  as  it  proved  to 
be  in  a  few  hours ;  Colonel  Pfister  also  died  at  about  the  same  time 
and  in  the  same  house,  to  which  they  were  separately  brought,  a 
mile  and  a  half  east  of  the  battle-ground,  and  both  were  buried 
together,  —  the  German  and  the  Briton,  —  on  the  bank  of  the  little 
river  a  few  rods  below  where  stood,  in  1861,  the  paper-mill  of 
Hunter  &  Co.,  but  no  man  knoweth  the  exact  place  of  their  sepul- 
ture unto  this  day.  The  sword  that  Baum  wore  in  the  battle  is 
well  preserved  in  the  Eobinson  family  at  Bennington  ;  and  the  com- 
mission and  other  relics  of  Pfister  have  been  preserved  in  the 
Armstrong  family  at  Dorset,  Jonathan  Armstrong  of  that  place 
being  one  of  the  two  captors  of  the  wounded  man. 

Very  wisely  indeed,  as  only  fully  appeared  in  connection  with  the 
building  of  the  battle  monument  at  Bennington  a  century  after- 
ward, the  militiamen  from  the  three  States  concerned  were  much 
intermixed  in  the  several  detachments  as  they  fought  in  the  field. 
No  one  part  of  the  two  fights  could  be  truthfully  exalted  at  the 
expense  of  the  others,  and  no  one  of  the  three  States  could  at  any 
time  boast  itself  over  either  of  the  other  two.  Colonel  Herrick,  with 
his  three  hundred  men,  mentioned  by  Stark  as  having  been  sent  to 


WILLIAMSTOWN    AND   BENNINGTON.  121 

the  rear  of  Baum's  right,  was  a  Vermonter  and  so  were  his  men. 
Colonel  Nichols  and  his  two  hundred  men  sent  to  the  rear  of  Baum's 
left  were  from  New  Hampshire.  The  two  parties  when  united  were 
to  cooperate  under  Nichols  in  chief  command  at  that  point.  Two 
full  companies  from  the  single  town  of  Bennington,  one  under  Cap- 
tain Samuel  Robinson  and  the  other  under  Captain  Elijah  Dewey, 
the  original  muster-rolls  of  both  companies  being  extant  to  this  day, 
—  Robinson's  holding  seventy-seven  names  and  Dewey's  eighty 
names,  —  made  up  about  half  of  Colonel  Herrick's  soldiers  that 
day,  the  rest  being  Herrick's  own  volunteer  Rangers  and  a  portion 
of  Colonel  Brush's  Vermont  regiment  (a  part  of  these  being  also 
from  Bennington).  So  at  the  Tory  breastwork.  Colonels  Hubbard 
and  Stickney  with  their  two  hundred  men  were  from  New  Hamp- 
shire, but  Colonel  Simonds  and  most  of  his  Berkshire  companies 
certainly  were  there  too.  Who  constituted  the  one  hundred  men 
used  as  a  feint  in  Baum's  "  front  to  draw  away  their  attention  that 
way  "  will  never  be  known  to  a  certainty.  They  may  well  have 
been  Berkshire  men  in  part.  Stark  kept  a  small  reserve  besides 
these  one  hundred  men,  who  in  all  probability  fell  back  to  him  when 
the  fighting  began  in  earnest,  for  they  were  of  no  use  any  longer  as 
a  feint,  or  it  may  be  that  it  was  to  them  as  a  nucleus,  that  Stark 
"pushed  up  the  remainder  of  my  little  army  in  the  front."  It  is 
almost  certain  that  Stark's  reserve,  both  before  and  after  it  was  thus 
pushed  up  to  the  front,  held  forces  from  all  three  of  the  States. 
Where  is  boasting  then  ?  It  is  excluded.  Colonel  Seth  Warner  of 
Vermont,  holding  a  Continental  commission,  the  only  national  officer 
on  the  ground,  was  personally  with  Stark  in  this  first  action,  and 
rendered,  as  Stark  says,  "  extraordinary  service  to  me."  The  nature 
of  this  extraordinary  service,  or  at  least  the  most  essential  parts  of 
it,  we  shall  shortly  see. 

When  Baum  and  his  troops  were  crowded  off  the  hill  and  were 
taken  prisoners,  and  Pfister  and  his  Tories  were  driven  out  of  their 
breastwork  into  a  similar  welcome,  Stark  and  all  hands  supposed 
that  the  battle  was  over.  The  men  largely  broke  ranks  and  dis- 
persed to  gather  their  plunder,  "as  I  promised  in  my  order  that  the 
soldiers  should  have  all  the  plunder  taken  in  the  enemy's  camp  "  ;  which 
included,  of  course,  several  casks  of  inspiring  liquids,  without  which 
German  officers  and  troops  would  not  have  gone  off  on  such  a  cam- 
paign as  this  was ;  there  were  shown  at  the  centennial  of  the  battle 
some  staves  of  one  of  these  supposed  casks;  Stark  himself  would 
not  have  come  so  far  without  a  full  supply  of  what  was  then  re- 
garded in  New  Hampshire  as  "the  needful";  and  tradition  has 


122  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

always  been  firm  in  asserting,  that  the  victorious  officers  and  troops 
were  more  or  less  demoralized  in  these  ways  very  shortly  after  the 
hostile  camps  had  surrendered.  The  prisoners,  however,  were  now 
collected  together  and  sent  off  under  a  strong  guard  to  the  meeting- 
house in  Bennington.  The  late  Governor  Hiland  Hall,  the  historian 
of  Vermont,  writes  of  these  critical  moments,  "  and  Stark,  unsuspi- 
cious of  danger,  suffered  his  men  to  scatter  in  search  of  refreshments 
and  plunder."  Just  then  word  came  to  headquarters  that  Baum's 
second  line,  under  Colonel  Breimann,  was  rapidly  approaching,  and 
only  two  miles  off.  Parson  Allen,  an  eye-witness,  says,  "  Even  Stark 
was  confused  at  the  news  of  Breimann's  approach  with  six  hundred 
and  fifty  fresh  troops  after  he  supposed  the  battle  was  all  over." 
There  is  evidence,  that  Stark  thought  it  best  to  pull  his  men  back  in 
the  presence  of  this  new  danger  from  the  scene  of  the  recent  action, 
and  reorganize  them  in  a  better  battle  order;  but  Warner  was  his 
good  angel  and  the  wiser  military  leader,  and  rendered  now  that 
" extraordinary  service"  of  which  Stark  speaks  in  his  letter  to 
Gates ;  the  substance  of  his  counsel  and  action  was,  Let's  hold  the 
ground  here  and  now.  On  came  Breimann  with  two  brass  field-pieces, 
quite  similar  to  those  of  Baum,  just  captured,  and  opened  a  sharp 
fire  from  these  and  from  small  arms,  so  that  after  a  little  the  rela- 
tively few  Americans  that  had  been  rallied  with  difficulty  to  meet 
this  new  attack  began  slowly  to  fall  back.  Just  at  this  time,  when 
the  Germans  had  begun  to  exult  in  the  prospect  of  an  easy  victory, 
the  remnant  of  Warner's  Continental  regiment,  consisting  of  scarcely 
more  than  one  hundred  men,  but  fresh  and  strong,  and  seeing  their 
chance  to  gain  a  good  share  yet  in  the  glories  of  the  day,  marched 
down  the  Walloomsac  and  through  the  more  or  less  disorganized 
masses  of  the  militia  to  the  front,  and  helped  to  bring  the  Germans 
to  a  stand.  Stark  writes:  "I  pushed  forward  as  many  of  the  men 
as  I  could  to  their  assistance.  The  battle  continued  obstinate  on 
both  sides  till  sunset ;  the  enemy  was  obliged  to  retreat ;  we  pursued 
them  till  dark,  but  had  daylight  lasted  one  hour  longer  we  should 
have  taken  the  whole  body  of  them." 

This  was  the  Second  Fight,  commonly  so  called,  lasting  nearly 
two  hours,  a  running  fight  extending  over  about  four  miles  along  the 
Walloomsac  road  and  ending  at  the  grist-mill  on  the  Little  White 
Creek,  whence  Baum  had  sent  back  his  despatch  to  Burgoyne,  writ- 
ten on  the  head  of  a  flour-barrel.  It  is  only  just  to  say  that  Berk- 
shire comes  in  for  a  full  share  of  the  honors  of  the  Second  Fight 
also.  Parson  Allen's  hasty  and  imperfect,  but  yet  most  interesting, 
sketch  of  that  fight,  written  for  his  neighbors  and  parishioners  in 


WILLIAMSTOWN    AND   BENNINGTON.  123 

Pittsfield,  has  immortalized  the  names  of  two  Berkshire  men,  and 
indeed  the  whole  regiment,  in  connection  with  that  onset  that  turned 
back  the  Hessian  tide  into  defeat  and  rout.  He  says  :  "  And  being 
collected  and  directed  by  Col.  Eossiter,  and  reenforced  by  Major 
Stratton,  renewed  the  fight  with  redoubled  fury."  It  is  plain  that 
the  younger  men  came  into  prominence  at  the  close  of  the  day. 
Warner  was  sixteen  years  younger  than  Stark,  and  Eossiter  was 
eleven  years  younger  than  Simonds.  Eossiter  was  but  lieutenant- 
colonel,  a  well-to-do  farmer  of  Eichmond,  and  Stratton  was  but  major, 
the  first  settler  of  the  small  hamlet  of  South  Williamstown,  but 
these  two  with  their  brave  followers  bore  off  the  last  honors  for 
Berkshire.  Historical  truth  is  always  consistent  with  itself.  Nearly 
sixty  years  after  the  battle  one  of  the  New  Hampshire  participants 
in  this  final  push  for  victory,  a  veteran  of  between  eighty  and  ninety 
years,  then  dwelling  on  the  upper  Connecticut,  in  telling  over  his 
recollections  of  it  to  an  ear  that  listened,  ascribed  a  chief  efficiency 
in  it  to  "  a  major  riding  on  a  black  horse"  Here  it  comes  out  again. 
That  major,  beyond  a  reasonable  question,  was  Isaac  Stratton ;  and 
local  tradition,  though  its  whispers  are  now  faint  and  few,  has  busied 
itself  in  one  way  or  another  with  a  horse  that  Major  Stratton  rode 
in  the  battle  of  Bennington. 

The  children  of  Isaac  Stratton  and  Mary  Fox,  his  wife,  all  born 
in  South  Williamstown  where  the  parents  lie  buried,  were  as  fol- 
lows :  — 

PHEBE,  born  April  9,  1762. 

MOSES,  born  June  18,  1764 ;  died  Oct.  7,  1767. 

MARY,  born  April  6,  1769. 

HULDAH,  born  March  14,  1772. 

RACHEL,  born  Sept.  1,  1775. 

Phebe,  the  eldest  child  of  Isaac  Stratton,  married  at  eighteen 
years  James  Sloan,  possibly  a  son,  probably  a  brother,  of  General 
Samuel  Sloan,  and  the  pair  had  born  to  them  at  South  Williams- 
town  :  — 

CLARA,  Oct.  8,  1780. 

OLIVE,  Feb.  3,  1784. 

ISAAC  STRATTON,  Dec.  6,  1785. 

A  remarkably  noteworthy  posterity  sprung  from  these  two  mar- 
riages ;  and  the  writer's  friend,  George  M.  Elwood  of  Eochester,  New 
York,  himself  by  no  means  least  noteworthy  among  them,  has  gath- 
ered memorials  of  many  of  them,  covering  the  century  now  ending. 

In  finally  dismissing  from  these  pages  the  picturesque  Parson 
Allen  of  Pittsfield,  the  reader  may  be  indulged  with  the  following 


124  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

verses  by  Wallace  Bruce,  read  by  him  at  the  centennial  celebration 
of  the  battle  in  1877. 

The  "  Catamount  Tavern  "  is  lively  to-night ; 

The  "  boys  "  of  Vermont  and  New  Hampshire  are  here, 
Drawn  up  in  line  in  the  gloaming  light 

To  greet  Parson  Allen  with  shout  and  with  cheer. 

Over  mountain  and  valley  from  Pittsfield  Green, 
Through  the  driving  rain  of  that  August  day, 

The  "flock"  marched  on  with  martial  mien, 
And  the  Parson  rode  in  his  "  one-horse  shay." 

"Three  cheers  for  old  Berkshire  !  "  the  Gen'ral  said, 
As  the  boys  of  New  England  drew  up  face  to  face, 

"  Baum  bids  us  a  dinner  to-morrow  to  spread, 
And  the  Parson  is  here  to  say  us  the  grace." 

"  The  lads  who  are  with  me  have  come  here  to  fight, 
And  we  know  of  no  grace,"  was  the  Parson's  reply, 

"  Save  the  name  of  Jehovah,  our  Country  and  right, 
Which  your  own  Ethan  Allen  pronounced  at  Fort  Ti.n 

"  To-morrow,"  said  Stark,  "  there'll  be  fighting  to  do, 
If  you  think  you  can  wait  till  the  morning's  light, 

And,  Parson,  I'll  conquer  the  British  with  you, 
Or  my  Molly  will  be  a  widow  to-night." 

What  the  Parson  dreamed  in  that  Bennington  camp, 
Neither  Yankee  nor  Prophet  would  dare  to  guess ; 

A  vision,  perhaps,  of  the  David  stamp, 

With  a  mixture  of  Cromwell  and  good  Queen  Bess. 

But  we  know  the  result  of  that  glorious  day, 
And  the  victory  won  ere  the  night  came  down, 

How  Warner  charged  in  the  bitter  fray, 

With  Simonds  and  Hobart  and  old  John  Brown. 

And  how  in  a  lull  of  the  three  hours'  fight 

The  Parson  harangued  the  Tory  line, 
As  he  stood  on  a  stump  with  his  musket  bright, 

And  sprinkled  his  text  with  the  powder  fine. 

"  The  sword  of  the  Lord  is  our  battle-cry  !  — 

A  refuge  sure  in  the  hour  of  need,  — 
And  Freedom  and  Faith  can  never  die, 

Is  article  first  of  the  Puritan  creed  !  " 

"Perhaps  the  occasion  was  rather  rash," 

He  said  to  his  comrades  after  the  rout, 
"  For  behind  a  bush  I  saw  a  flash, 

But  '  I  fired  that  way  and  put  it  out.'  " 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    BENNINGTON.  125 

And  many  the  sayings,  eccentric  and  queer, 

That  were  handed  about  the  country  side, 
Quoted  in  Berkshire  for  many  a  year, 

Of  the  Pittsfield  march  and  the  Parson's  ride. 

Honor  to  Stark  and  his  resolute  men  — 
To  the  mountain  boys  all  honor  and  praise,  — 

And  with  shout  and  cheer  we  welcome  again 
The  Parson  who  came  in  his  one-horse  chaise. 

Colonel  Breimann's  dismounted  dragoons  left  the  grist-mill  behind 
them,  headed  toward  the  Hudson,  in  greater  haste  than  Colonel 
Gregg  had  left  it,  headed  the  other  way,  in  the  forenoon  of  the 
14th.  They  could  not  even  get  away  with  their  two  brass  field- 
pieces.  The  traces  attaching  the  horses  to  the  guns  were  cut  by 
rapid  sabre-strokes,  the  horses  were  mounted,  and  the  two  cannon 
left  in  the  road.  Stark  writes :  "  We  recovered  [in  the  two  actions] 
four  pieces  of  brass  cannon,  seven  hundred  stand  of  arms,  and  brass- 
barrelled  drums,  several  Hessian  swords,  about  seven  hundred  pris- 
oners, two  hundred  and  seven  dead  on  the  spot,  the  number  of 
wounded  is  yet  unknown.  That  part  of  the  enemy  that  made  their 
escape  marched  all  night  and  we  returned  to  our  camp."  The  flour 
and  grain  captured  by  Baum  in  the  then  new  but  late  very  old  grist- 
mill of  course  fell  back  into  American  hands  on  Breimann's  sudden 
retreat.  But  they  did  not  think  it  safe  to  leave  those  provisions 
there  in  the  mill.  Two  heavy  detachments,  and  the  second  one 
quite  unexpectedly,  had  already  come  over  the  good  road  through 
Cambridge  from  Burgoyne's  camp  on  the  Hudson  River,  hardly  more 
than  twenty  miles  away ;  what  was  there  to  hinder  another  and  a 
larger  corps  out  of  the  same  army  from  thundering  over  the  same 
road  to  retrieve  the  losses  of  Baum  and  Breimann  ?  There  is  proof 
in  plenty  that  this  query  was  in  the  minds  of  the  Yankees,  and  con- 
tinued there  for  a  number  of  days.  In  the  first  place,  the  grain  and 
flour  in  the  mill  must  be  removed  to  Pittsfield.  We  learn  this  solely 
from  the  heading  on  the  muster-roll  of  the  company  from  South 
Williamstown.  This  heading  reads  as  follows:  "A  pay  roll  of 
Capt.  Sam.  Clark's  Co.  in  Col.  B.  Simonds  Keg.  Militia  County  Berk- 
shire, who  were  in  the  battle  of  Walloomsack  near  Bennington  on 
16th  August,  who  marched  by  order  of  Col.  Simonds  including  time 
to  return  home  after  they  were  dismissed  from  guarding  provisions 
to  Pittsfield  being  20  miles  from  home.  Aug.  14-21  8  days."  These 
provisions  guarded  to  Pittsfield  by  the  South  Williamstown  men  can 
have  been  no  other  than  those  in  the  grist-mill.  There  were  indeed 
certain  public  "  Stores  "  in  Bennington,  or  at  least  Burgoyne  sup- 


126 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 


posed  there  were,  and  his  original  orders  to  Baum  imply  their 
existence  and  importance ;  but  Bennington  is  on  a  high  and  easily 
defended  hill,  is  fully  ten  miles  farther  into  the  country  than  the 
grist-mill  was,  and  there  would  have  been  rationally  no  thought  of 
removing  "  stores  "  from  such  a  stronghold  to  Pittsfield.  The  "  Pay- 
roll "  referred  to  will  now  be  given  in  full,  as  carefully  copied  from 
the  original  one  in  the  archives  at  Boston :  — 


Sam.  Clark  Capt. 

David  Johnson       1st  Lt. 
Timothy  Johnson  2d  Lt. 
Will  Spencer          Serg. 
Joshua  Smedley     Serg. 
Nathan  Wood         Serg. 
Jonathan  Hull 
Jonathan  Sherwood 
James  McMaster 
Ezekiel  Porter 
Stephen  Sherwood 
Samuel  Dunning 
Jason  Wood 
Zadock  Clark 
Ez.  Hawes 
Dudley  Hamilton 
John  Murphy 
Jesse  Saxton 
John  Eaymond 
William  Young 
Andrew  Young 
Charles  Sabin 
Josiah  Williams 
John  McMaster 
Thomas  Howe 
Aaron  Deming 
Timothy  Sherwood 
John  Torrey 
Samuel  Mills 
Thomas  Morrison 
Daniel  Foot 
Jonth  Hall  (or  Hull) 
Daniel  Brewster 


Elias  Wright 
Justice  Wright 
Elijah  Lamb 
Daniel  Brewster 
John  Stratton 
Abner  Eaton 
Jacob  Galusha 
Joseph  Thayer 
Mark  Crofoot 
Ard  Roberts 
Lemuel  Lewis 
Matthew  Dunning 
David  Dunning 
Seth  Holmes 
Sam1  Holmes 
Capt.  Samuel  Sloan 
Lt.  Elijah  Thomas 
Lt.  David  Johnson 
Lt.  Daniel  Burbank 
Joseph  Crofoot 
Isaac  Meacham 
Charles  Hamilton 
Elijah  Rich 
Eli  Cowles 

Bartholomew  Woodcock 
Jonathan  Giles 
Hezekiah  Brown 
Ichabod  Tuttle 
Aaron  Wood 
Silas  Hamilton 
Isaac  Holmes 
Isaac  Sexton 


Here  are  sixty-five  names.  Nothing  is  known  to  throw  suspicion 
on  the  correctness  of  this  roll.  Nevertheless,  certain  regrets  will 
start  that  it  was  not  made  up  and  sworn  to  in  the  ways  then  usual. 
The  list  seems  to  have  been  made  out  from  memory  nearly  four 
months  after  the  service  was  rendered,  as  appears  from  the  following 


WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    BENNINGTON.  127 

note  at  the  end,  which  is  unusual  in  that  class  of  papers  at  that 
time  :  "  Williamstown,  6  Dec.  1777.  This  may  certify  that  the  men 
named  in  this  pay-roll  continued  in  service  till  discharged  by  the 
general,  per  Isaac  Stratton,  Major."  These  men  were  all  neighbors 
of  Stratton  at  South  Williamstown.  He  had  long  been  accustomed, 
as  one  of  the  chief  men  there,  to  draw  their  deeds  and  make  out 
other  papers  for  them,  and  they  naturally  desired  him  to  certify  their 
identity  and  fidelity,  especially  as  they  had  been  under  his  eye  in 
the  last  rush  of  the  second  fight  on  the  Walloomsac.  The  roll, 
however,  was  not  sworn  to  till  nearly  three  months  later;  for  it 
bears  a  second  addendum  dated  March  23,  1778,  "Sworn  to  by 
Capt.  Clark  before  Charles  Goodrich,  J.  P.,  Pittsfield." 

This  old  muster-roll  with  its  two  postscripts  yields  several  inter- 
esting items  of  information.  (1)  They  left  South  Williamstown 
Thursday  the  14th,  and  got  back  home  again  from  Pittsfield,  after 
guarding  the  provisions  thither,  on  the  next  Friday,  the  21st, — 
eight  days.  Good,  and  even  great,  service  rendered  in  a  short  time. 
(2)  Major  Stratton  says  that  they  "continued  in  service  till  dis- 
charged by  the  general."  This  can  mean  no  other  than  General  John 
Stark,  unless  General  Benj.  Lincoln  had  gotten  down  to  Bennington 
from  the  rear  of  Burgoyne  as  early  as  Wednesday,  the  19th.  This 
is  more  likely  than  the  other  supposition ;  for  Stark,  as  a  general  of 
New  Hampshire  militia  only,  would  hardly  have  felt  competent  to 
dismiss  to  their  homes  Massachusetts  militia.  On  the  other  hand, 
Lincoln  was  a  Massachusetts  major-general  at  the  opening  of  the 
war,  and  was  appointed  by  Congress  a  Continental  major-general  in 
February,  1777.  In  September  he  joined  General  Gates  in  front  of 
Burgoyne  as  second  in  command.  (3)  We  may  note  in  this  muster- 
roll,  and  in  many  later  ones,  that  militia  officers  of  considerable  rank 
had  no  objection  to  serving  as  privates  in  companies  commanded 
by  their  juniors.  Captain  Sloan,  Lieutenant  Johnson,  Lieutenant 
Thomas,  Lieutenant  Burbank,  are  down  in  the  list  as  privates. 
Lieutenant  Johnson  and  Charles  Sabin  of  this  roll  were  among  the 
"famine-proof  veterans"  that  went  up  the  Kennebec  with  Arnold  a 
year  and  a  half  before.  (4)  This  roll  does  not  contain  the  name  of 
a  single  man  who  is  now  known  to  have  lived  north  of  a  military 
line  dividing  the  town  for  militia  purposes  into  two  nearly  equal 
parts.  There  had  been,  accordingly,  two  militia  companies  in  the 
town  for  a  good  while.  Of  course  the  north  part,  as  the  first  settled 
and  as  containing  more  arable  land,  was  more  densely  populated  in 
1777.  If  the  south  part  sent  sixty-five  men  to  Bennington  battle  in 
Captain  Clark's  militia  company,  the  north  part,  where  the  colonel 


128  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

lived  and  where  the  only  meeting-house  stood,  and  which  lay  right 
along  the  old  military  road  down  the  Hoosac,  would  naturally  have 
sent  certainly  a  hundred  in  Captain  Smedley's  larger  company.  Prob- 
ably there  were  one-quarter  more  than  that  number.  The  tradition 
is  firm  and  explicit,  that  there  were  not  men  enough  left  at  home 
that  day  "  to  put  out  a  fire."  There  were  no  known  Tories  here  then, 
nor  at  any  other  time.  Elisha  Baker,  from  whom  our  "  Baker 
Bridge"  on  the  edge  of  Blackinton  is  named,  was  surely  in  the 
fight,  together  with  four  of  his  own  sons.  (5)  This  list  is  called  in 
its  heading  a  "  pay-roll."  It  was  made  out  and  certified  and  sworn 
to  for  the  sake  of  drawing  pay  for  the  men  from  the  Commonwealth 
of  Massachusetts.  Similar  pay-rolls  were  made  out  and  sent  to  Bos- 
ton in  behalf  of  all  of  the  other  Berkshire  companies  engaged,  ex- 
cepting only  the  company  from  Williamstown  North  Part.  Why 
did  not  they  send  down  such  a  roll  for  the  same  purpose  ?  To  the 
writer's  knowledge,  the  answer  to  this  question  is  not  anywhere  on 
contemporary  or  other  record.  Yet  he  ventures  to  think  the  true 
answer  is  not  far  to  seek.  Williamstown  and  Bennington  were 
almost  one  during  the  last  third  of  the  eighteenth  century,  in  their 
hopes  and  in  their  hazards  and  in  their  social  life.  There  were  many 
intermarriages  and  other  relationships.  Ten  years  before  the  battle, 
from  Bennington  men  are  known  to  have  come  to  Williamstown  to 
a  house-raising.  The  two  towns  seemed,  then,  to  each  other  to  be 
very  near  together.  Going  to  Bennington  to  fight  in  1777  seemed 
to  the  Williamstown  people  to  be  fighting  for  their  own  firesides  a 
little  farther  off.  They  knew  that  Burgoyne's  toplofty  orders  to 
Baum,  if  successful  at  Bennington,  were  to  push  on  east  as  far  as 
the  Connecticut  River,  either  going  or  returning  through  Williams- 
town.  It  did  not  seem  the  right  thing  to  those  neighbors  and  friends 
to  send  in  a  claim  for  pay  for  doing  just  what  the  two  Bennington 
militia  companies  had  done  without  a  thought  or  chance,  either  then 
or  afterward,  of  any  pecuniary  reward.  There  was  then  no  State  gov- 
ernment in  Vermont,  such  as  existed  in  Massachusetts.  These  men 
from  North  Williamstown  went  because  they  wanted  to  go.  They 
went  in  the  direct  interest  of  their  farms  and  families.  Probably 
one-half  of  them  were  pure  volunteers,  not  being  at  that  time  en- 
rolled in  the  militia  company  as  too  young  or  too  old.  Other  proofs 
of  this  oneness  of  feeling  and  interest  will  meet  us  as  we  go  on. 

The  men  of  South  Williamstown  whose  names  adorn  the  muster- 
roll  but  just  now  copied,  were  for  the  most  part  men  of  substance 
and  of  good  position.  As  to  the  majority  of  them,  the  present  writer 
knows  where  they  lived,  the  boundaries  of  their  farms,  and  the 


WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    BENNINGTON.  129 

towns  in  Connecticut  or  in  the  central  and  eastern  parts  of  the  Bay 
State  whence  they  came  hither.  The  houses  that  some  of  them 
dwelt  in  then  are  standing  substantially  intact  now  as  the  nineteenth 
century  is  going  out,  and  the  original  cellars  of  still  more  of  them 
can  be  certainly  pointed  out.  A  peculiar  interest  attaches  to  one 
name  of  the  list,  that  of  Jonathan  Giles.  He  had  been  a  sea-cap- 
tain. He  had  lived  in  Danvers  with  his  wife  Elisabeth,  where  four 
of  his  nine  children  were  born.  The  remaining  five  were  born  in 
Williamstown,  1771-84.  He  lived  in  —  perhaps  he  built  —  the  gam- 
brel-roofed  house  on  the  Sloan  road,  which  was  long  occupied  by  Dr. 
Young.  He  was  well  thought  of  by  his  neighbors,  who  often  noticed 
for  themselves  and  transmitted  to  their  children  by  a  lively  tradition 
how  restless  he  became  when  a  brisk  wind  started  up  in  a  new 
quarter,  how  he  paced  the  road  back  and  forth  at  such  times  from 
his  house  past  the  store  to  the  tavern,  — 

In  that  habitual  restlessness  of  foot 

That  haunts  the  sailor  measuring  o'er  and  o'er 

His  short  domain  upon  the  vessel's  deck 

While  she  pursues  her  course  through  the  dreary  sea. 

Captain  Giles  died  Oct.  18,  1805,  aged  67,  and  left  a  large  pos- 
terity at  the  South  Part.  One  of  his  daughters  married  Joseph 
Torrey,  son  to  that  sturdy  John  Torrey  who  jogged  along  to  the 
Bennington  battle  in  the  same  company  with  Jonathan  Giles.  The' 
late  Giles  Torrey  of  excellent  memory  as  farmer  and  citizen  was 
grandson  to  them  both.  The  name  Giles  as  a  surname  did  not  tarry 
long  in  Williamstown  after  the  death  of  the  good  Captain.  His  son 
Daniel,  born  here  in  1774,  became  a  hard  drinker,  and  migrated  with 
his  family  into  St.  Lawrence  County,  New  York.  Benjamin  F. 
Mills,  himself  a  grandson  to  Samuel  Mills,  another  prominent  name 
upon  this  same  muster-roll,  relates  this  incident  of  Daniel  Giles, 
while  the  latter  was  still  a  denizen  at  the  South  Part.  The  question 
of  temperance,  or  rather  of  total  abstinence,  thoroughly  agitated  every 
part  of  New  England  in  the  decade  of  1820-30.  In  Williamstown 
the  cider-brandy  stills  had  wrought  a  work  of  desolation  in  many 
families,  and  Professor  Chester  Dewey  of  the  college  became  from 
the  best  of  motives  an  eloquent  lecturer  in  the  cause  of  total  absti- 
nence from  all  intoxicating  drinks.  In  that  capacity  he  lectured 
one  evening  in  the  meeting-house  at  the  South  Part.  Daniel  Giles 
and  Eeuben  Young  occupied  a  pew  together,  while  Professor  Dewey 
among  other  firm  strokes  described  the  feelings  of  a  drunkard  when 
he  was  recovering  from  the  effects  of  a  drunken  debauch.  When 


130  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

the  lecture  was  over,  Young  asked  Giles,  in  the  hearing  of  Mills, 
what  he  thought  of  it.     "  /  swear  he  has  been  there  !  " 

A  sonnet  in  memory  of  Jonathan  Giles  was  written  by  Bliss  Perry, 
the  writer's  eldest  son,  and  is  herewith  printed  from  the  original 
copy :  — 

JONATHAN  GILES. 

Our  Berkshire  hills  were  able  to  beguile 

An  old  sea-captain  to  desert  the  main 

And  settle  down  upon  a  farm  again. 

The  sheltered  peaceful  vales  could  reconcile 

His  wandering  mood  to  quiet  for  a  while, 

But  when  the  west  wind  rustled  in  his  grain, 

He  grew  distraught,  and  eyed  the  weather-vane, 

And  paced  his  yard  and  made  the  neighbors  smile. 

We  live  in  peace  the  narrow  life  of  sense, 

With  common  tasks  content,  but  lest  we  grow 

Too  wedded  to  our  fields,  the  free  winds  fall 

Upon  our  foreheads,  — blown  we  know  not  whence,  — 

Horizons  fade,  life  widens,  and  we  know 

The  narrow  world  around  us  is  not  all. 

Statements  of  possible  interest  to  posterity  might  still  be  made  in 
relation  to  a  majority  of  these  sixty -five  names  individually  ;  but  it 
is  best  to  pass  on  to  more  general  matters,  after  calling  attention  to 
some  distinctions  between  the  two  men,  both  of  whom  are  placed 
exactly  alike  on  this  list  as  "  Lt.  David  Johnson."  The  only  way 
their  contemporary  townsmen  could  distinguish  between  them  was 
to  call  the  one  already  characterized  in  these  pages  as  one  of 
the  party  going  up  the  Kennebec  with  Arnold  in  1775  "Black 
David,"  and  the  other,  whose  large  farm  lay  on  the  southern  half 
of  Stone  Hill,  "White  David."  The  name  of  the  Johnson  Pass, 
which  lifts  itself  up  over  the  Taconics  in  the  rear  of  his  home,  will 
perhaps  long  commemorate  the  former;  the  memory  of  the  latter 
may  be  pleasantly  perpetuated  by  the  fact,  that  his  marriage  with 
Phebe  Cole  from  Canaan,  Connecticut,  was  the  first  celebrated  here 
by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Welch,  the  first  pastor,  and  presumably  the  first  in 
town.  White  David  was  the  first  to  begin  to  clear  up  in  1764  what 
has  long  been  known  as  the  "  Bulkley  Farm."  Both  Johnsons  left 
a  large  posterity  both  here  and  elsewhere.  Black  David  lived  till 
1836,  when  he  was  eighty-nine  years  old.  "  In  memory  of  Mr.  Uriah 
Johnson,  who  died  August  the  1st  A.D.  1787  in  the  77th  year  of  his 
age."  This  is  the  epitaph  on  the  tombstone  at  the  South  Part,  of 


WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    BENNINGTON.  131 

Black  David's  father.  Barachiah  Johnson,  a  brother  of  David,  whose 
farm  lay  near  the  south  end  of  the  Potter  road,  and  Daniel  Johnson, 
another  brother,  who  studied  medicine  here  with  Dr.  Samuel  Porter, 
both  removed  to  Otsego  County,  New  York,  where  William  Eaton 
Johnson,  a  grandson  of  David,  saw  them  in  their  old  age.  White 
David  Johnson  became  a  very  portly  man  in  his  old  age,  and  moved 
with  many  more  from  Wllliamstown  to  Granville,  New  York.  A 
son  of  his  second  wife,  Mary  Brewster,  was  Harry  Johnson,  who  was 
a  member  of  the  Massachusetts  Legislature  from  Williamstown  in 
1839  and  in  1840,  was  a  hatter  by  trade,  but  abandoned  it,  as  did 
many  others  here,  for  example  the  Bulkleys,  when  machinery  came 
to  be  applied  to  felting.  He  was  lively,  jocose,  and  popular,  but  not 
prosperous.  He  became  a  clerk  in  the  store  of  Julius  Porter  at  South 
Williamstown,  in  that  of  B.  F.  Mather  at  the  North  Part,  and  for 
many  years  in  that  of  General  Potter  in  Pownal.  Thence  he  re- 
moved to  Albany  and  later  to  western  New  York.  His  son,  W.  H. 
Johnson,  was  in  1889  Deputy  Collector  of  Internal  Eevenue  in  Louis- 
ville, Kentucky ;  and  the  next  year,  in  passing  through  Williams- 
town  on  his  way  to  the  Encampment  of  the  Grand  Army  of  the 
Republic  at  Boston,  he  got  out  of  the  car  for  a  moment  to  look  around 
on  what  had  been  the  home  of  his  ancestors  for  several  generations. 
His  son,  Sidney  E.  Johnson,  then  a  lad  of  eighteen  years  in  the  high 
school  at  Louisville,  wrote  a  pleasant  letter  to  Deacon  James  Smed- 
ley  of  Williamstown  on  the  occasion  of  his  reading  in  the  New  York 
Tribune  an  account  of  the  latter 's  celebration  of  the  sixtieth  anniver- 
sary of  his  marriage. 

As  further  illustrating  the  proximity  in  point  of  place,  and  the 
kindly  fellowship  in  point  of  feeling,  as  between  Williamstown  and 
Bennington  on  the  great  battle-day  of  the  latter,  the  direct  testi- 
mony of  two  of  the  grandsons  of  Captain  Israel  Harris,  who  fought 
in  the  battle,  may  here  be  adduced,  to  the  effect  that  they  had  often 
heard  their  grandmother  say,  that  a  prayer-meeting  at  which  she  was 
present  was  held  by  the  women  of  Williamstown  in  the  log  school- 
house  (till  1768  the  first  meeting-house  in  the  hamlet),  on  that  Sat- 
urday afternoon  when  their  husbands  and  fathers  and  sons  were 
fighting  in  behalf  of  homes  and  families.  There  was  no  pastor  in 
the  town  from  the  death  of  Mr.  Welch  near  Quebec  in  1776,  till  the 
ordination  of  Mr.  Swift  in  1779 ;  but  the  women  assembled  for  prayer 
in  as  much  accord  as  the  men  shouldered  their  muskets.  Their 
meeting  continued  until  after  the  going  down  of  the  sun,  when  a 
swift  horseman  from  the  north,  who  must  have  started  at  the  close 
of  the  first  fight,  in  passing  the  open  door  of  the  assemblage  an- 


132  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

nounced  a  great  victory,  —  whereupon  supplication  was  turned  into 
thanksgiving.  It  appears  from  the  "Rudd  letter,"  which  will  be 
shortly  quoted  at  large,  and  from  other  evidence  independent  of  that, 
that  many  groups  of  women  and  children  from  Bennington  and  its 
neighborhood  made  their  way  to  Williamstown  during  the  two  days 
preceding  the  battle,  as  to  a  temporary  place  of  refuge.  A  consider- 
able number  are  known  to  have  lodged  in  the  old  Smedley  barn  near 
Green  River,  and  to  have  left  behind  them  on  their  hasty  return  at 
good  news  many  little  articles  of  no  great  value,  but  which  they  had 
deemed  precious  enough  to  take  along  with  them,  such  as  copies  of 
the  Assembly's  Catechism  and  other  trinkets  long  preserved  in  the  old 
house.  Levi  Smedley,  then  fifteen  years  old,  carried  to  Bennington 
on  Sunday,  to  his  father  and  company,  loaves  of  bread  baked  in  the 
old  oven  while  the  battle  was  still  raging  on  Saturday.  He  lived 
till  1849 ;  and  used  to  tell  to  ears  that  still  hear,  the  home  experi- 
ences of  those  August  days.  More  than  that :  many  of  those  on  the 
patriot  side,  wounded  in  the  battle,  reckoned  in  all  at  forty-five  in 
number,  were  brought  down  on  Sunday  to  Williamstown  to  be  treated 
by  Dr.  Samuel  Porter,  already  come  into  considerable  vogue  as  a 
surgeon.  Among  other  women  from  the  northward  known  to  be  in 
Williamstown  as  fugitives  on  the  day  after  the  battle  was  Mrs.  John 
Williams  of  White  Creek,  now  Salem,  one  of  a  party  of  women  com- 
ing hither  on  horseback  from  the  line  of  road  over  which  Baum  and 
Breimann  had  passed  to  their  defeats.  There  is  still  extant  among 
the  papers  of  Dr.  and  Colonel  John  Williams,  her  husband,  the  fol- 
lowing receipt :  — 

WILLIAMSTOWN,  August  ye  17,  1777. 

Received  of  Mrs.  Williams  the  whole  of  Doct  Williams  Amputating  instru- 
ments. 

I  say  received  by  me. 

SAML.  PORTER. 

By  the  recent  discovery  in  Bennington  of  the  original  muster-roll 
of  Captain  Elijah  Dewey's  company  engaged  in  the  battle,  it  is  made 
certain  that  Joseph  Rudd  was  lieutenant  in  that  company,  which 
makes  doubly  interesting  the  following  letter  written  by  him  to  his 
father  just  ten  days  after  the  battle. 

Bennington  August  the  26  AD  1777  Honoured  father  after  my  Duty  I  take 
this  opertunity  to  Rite  to  you  Hoping  these  lines  will  find  you  well  as  through 
the  goodness  of  god  they  leave  me  and  my  family  we  meat  a  great  Deal  of 
trouble  on  the  16  instant  my  self  and  Brother  John  was  preserved  through  a  very 
hot  baUel  we  kild  ami  LOOK  according  to  the  best  account  we  can  git  about  one 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   BENNINGTON.  133 

thousand  of  the  Enemy  our  loss  was  about  thirty  or  forty  we  marcht  Rite 
against  there  brest  work  with  our  Small  armes  where  they  fired  with  there  field 
peases  when  they  fired  upon  us  every  half  a  minut  yet  they  never  tought  a  man 
with  them  we  drove  them  out  of  there  brest  work  and  took  there  field  peases 
and  presed  and  kild  great  numbers  of  them  we  lost  four  or  five  of  my  Neighbors 
two  Sniders  and  two  hornbeck  the  bigger  part  of  Dutch  Hosack  was  in  the  bat- 
tel  against  us  they  went  to  the  Reglers  a  Day  or  two  before  the  fight  Samuel 
Anderson  a  Captain  amonst  the  Reglers  and  was  in  the  battel  against  us  while 
I  was  gon  my  wife  and  children  went  of  and  got  Down  to  williarnstown  after  I 
got  home  I  went  after  them  and  found  them  to  landlord  Simons  I  have  got  them 
home  again  my  wife  was  very  much  wrred  out  she  had  four  children  with  her 
and  Selinday  was  forst  to  Run  on  foot  we  som  Exspect  the  Enemy  will  com  upon 
us  again  and  what  I  shall  Dew  with  my  family  I  know  not  I  would  inform  you 
that  I  Received  your  letter  dated  August  18  which  you  tell  me  you  was  well 
which  I  am  glad  to  hear  of  it  I  want  to  com  and  see  you  very  much  but  when  I 
shall  I  no  not  if  the  enemy  dont  com  upon  us  again  this  fall  I  intend  to  com 
down  and  see  you  we  remember  our  love  to  all  brothers  and  sisters  Respects  to 
all  inquiring  friend  so  no  more  at  preasent  but  I  remain  your  Dutyful  son  until 
Death 

JOSEPH  RUDD 

John  Remembers  his  Duty  to  you  And  has  laid  out  All  your  Money  and 
Baught  About  40  acres  of  land  with  A  log  hous  and  has  a  dead  of  it  Joining  the 
seventeen  acres  Cleared  the  Rest  is  wild  land  I  have  Indorsed  forty  shilling  upon 
the  Note  If  you  have  the  Rest  you  May  send  it  if  you  Pleas. 

[Superscribed] 
Mr  To 

JOSEPH  RUDD 
att 

Norwich. 

Four  men  of  Bennington's  most  respected  citizens  fell  on  the  field 
of  battle.  They  were  John  Fay,  Henry  Walbridge,  Daniel  Warner 
(a  cousin  of  Colonel  Seth  Warner),  and  Nathan  Clark.  "They  were 
all  in  the  prime  of  life,  and  all  heads  of  families,  leaving  widows 
and  children  to  mourn  their  sudden  bereavement:"  thus  writes 
Governor  Hiland  Hall.  Three  men  out  of  the  two  Williamstown 
companies  were  also  killed  in  the  battle ;  but  they  were  not  so  promi- 
nent as  citizens  and  soldiers  as  were  the  four  Bennington  men,  nor 
as  were  most  of  those  killed  in  the  battle  from  Lanesboro  and  Han- 
cock. Daniel  Bacon,  son  of  Daniel  Bacon,  blacksmith,  from  Middle- 
town,  Connecticut,  and  brother-in-law  of  Samuel  Kellogg,  whose  first 
wife  was  Chloe  Bacon,  perhaps  standing  by  the  side  of  that  brother- 
in-law  and  by  the  side  of  his  own  nearest  neighbor  also,  Absalom 
Blair,  was  one  of  the  three  victims.  Austin  Hickcox  was  another, 
a  member  of  that  family  which  has  been  prominent  on  Bee  Hill  for 


134  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

more  than  a  century.  Captain  Stephen  Hickcox,  originally  from 
Durham,  Connecticut,  and  later  from  Bedford,  Massachusetts,  settled 
in  Williamstown  in  1781,  when  his  son  Stephen  was  three  years  old. 
The  Captain's  wife,  Rebekah,  died  Oct.  8,  1807,  aged  sixty-one. 
Other  sons  besides  Stephen  were  Henry  and  John.  All  three  were 
harmed  in  the  prevalence  of  the  cider-brandy  habit  during  the  first 
quarter  of  the  century,  but  all  reformed,  and  all  left  reputable  pos- 
terity. Sarah  Northam  from  Bedford,  the  wife  of  Stephen  Hickcox, 
an  admirable  woman,  died  in  1854,  aged  seventy-two.  "  If  you  will 
give  up  your  tea,  I'll  give  up  my  cider  and  cider-brandy."  "  I'll  do 
it,"  said  the  good  wife,  and  both  started  in  in  good  faith  along  the 
path  of  abstinence.  The  original  Hickcox  acres  on  Bee  Hill  are  still 
in  the  hands  of  the  family.  Little  is  known  of  Johnson,  not  even 
his  Christian  name,  the  third  man  from  Williamstown  killed  on  the 
Walloomsac;  but  his  name  has  come  down  in  firm  tradition  asso- 
ciated with  the  two  others ;  and  so  far  as  these  words  of  the  writer 
can  reach,  his  and  theirs  shall  be  perpetuated  together.  The  old  cellar 
of  Daniel  Bacon,  dug  in  all  probability  in  1768,  on  the  first  division 
fifty-acre  lot  63,  was  identified  by  the  writer  in  1893,  after  all  knowl- 
edge of  its  location  had  passed  out  of  the  minds  of  this  generation. 
A  little  spring  bubbles  up  out  of  the  ground  close  by,  which  was 
doubtless  the  original  inducement  to  locate  the  house  in  that  precise 
spot,  and  a  few  stunted  and  superannuated  cherry  trees  are  the 
only  other  tokens  present,  that  human  life  and  human  love,  ardent 
patriotism,  and  mournings  as  for  an  only  son,  once  marked  the  now 
distant  and  desolate  spot. 

"  The  Heart  of  the  Commonwealth,"  as  the  city  of  Worcester  and 
its  close  surrounding  country  is  now  proud  to  call  itself,  was  not 
unresponsive  to  the  call  of  General  Lincoln  for  militiamen  to  operate 
on  the  eastern  flank  of  Burgoyne's  army  in  August,  1777.  Captain 
Nathaniel  Carter's  company  of  Colonel  Abijah  Stearns's  regiment, 
forty-five  men,  came  as  far  as  Williamstown,  and  learning  there 
that  there  was  no  probability  of  Burgoyne's  sending  out  any  more 
detachments  to  his  left,  returned  to  Worcester,  having  been  out 
twelve  days,  and  calling  the  distance  (one  way)  111  miles.  Wil- 
liamstown heard  the  last  echoes  of  the  battle  of  Bennington  as  such 
from  the  eastward.  General  Lincoln  perceived  that  all  danger 
of  offensive  operations  from  the  British  left  was  now  over,  and 
commenced  immediately  those  vigorous  operations  upon  Burgoyne's 
rear  that  cut  off  his  retreat  toward  Canada,  penned  him  in,  and 
shortly  flung  him  as  prisoner  into  the  hands  of  Schuyler's  army  in 
front. 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   BENNINGTON. 


135 


The  following  is  the  caption  to  a  muster-roll  of  Williamstown 
militiamen  called  into  further  service  in  less  than  a  month  after 
that  upon  the  Walloomsac.  This  roll  was  sworn  to  before  Charles 
Goodrich,  J.  P.,  of  Pittsfield,  its  form  having  been  made  out  and 
the  names  written  by  Major  Isaac  Stratton. 

Capt.  Samuel  Clark's  Company,  Col.  Simond's  Regiment,  marched  to  Paw- 
let  by  order  of  Gen.  Lincoln,  24  days  in  service,  Sept.  7-30,  1777,  60  miles  from 
home. 


Samuel  Clark, 
Timothy  Johnson, 
Joseph  Tallmadge, 
Eliakim  Sheldon, 
Joshua  Perry, 
Jonathan  Sherwood 
William  Foster, 
John  Smedley 
Eli  Baker 
Elihu  Ketcham 
Gideon  Wright 
Elias  Newbre 
John  Foot 
Rufus  Cole 
Moses  Jefferds 
Jonathan  Wright 
Isaac  Holmes 
Charles  Sabin 
Rhoderick  Messenger 
David  Southwick 
Matthew  Dunning 
John  Murphy 
Elisha  Baker,  Jr. 
Simeon  Hines 
David  Deming 
Jesse  Sexton 


Capt.  Israel  Harris,  Lt. 

Lt.  Nehemiah  Woodcock,  Serg. 

Serg.  James  McMaster,  Serg.  Maj. 

Serg.  Jeremiah  Foster,  Serg. 

Corp.  John  Torrey,  Corp. 

Corp.  Elisha  Higgins,  Corp. 

Drummer  John  Stratton 

David  Stratton 
Elijah  Thomas 
Ezekiel  Porter 
David  Cutter 
Starling  Daniels 
Simeon  Allen 
Stephen  Olmstead 
Uriah  Messenger 
Almond  Harrison 
Levi  Smith 
Thomas  Standish 
Elnathan  Holmes 
William  P.  Meacham 
David  Tuttle 
John  Crofoot 
Lemuel  Lewis 
John  Hoke 
Capt.  Neh.  Smedley 
[51  men] 


These  names  hail  about  equally  from  the  two  divisions  of  the 
town.  Captain  Clark  is  the  same  who  led  the  South  Part  company 
to  Bennington  in  August,  while  Captain  Smedley,  who  then  com- 
manded the  North  Part  company,  serves  now  as  a  private.  Military 
matters  were  daily  thickening  in  the  Northern  Department.  Before 
these  Williamstown  men  reached  their  homes,  September  30,  Bur- 
goyne's  army  was  completely  surrounded  on  the  North  River.  He 
could  not  stir  right  or  left,  backward  or  forward.  Sixteen  days 
later  he  capitulated  with  his  whole  army,  Hessians  and  all.  The 


136  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

campaign  of  1777  was  over  in  the  north.  Everybody  then  saw  the 
vital  connection  between  the  two  successive  defeats  of  his  left  wing 
and  the  total  collapse  of  the  entire  army.  Bennington  and  Schuyler- 
ville  reached  each  other  their  hands.  From  one  or  both  of  these, 
over  the  same  roads  traversed  in  part  by  Baum  and  Breimann,  came 
Hessian  prisoners  en  route  for  Boston.  The  best  view  had  of  them 
in  their  march  from  any  one  house  in  Williamstown  was  that  offered 
by  Nehemiah  William s's  house  near  the  big  rock  on  the  northern 
slope  of  North  West  Hill,  as  they  filed  up  and  filed  down  what  is 
now  the  "middle  road"  from  Pownal  Center  to  the  Hoosac  bridge 
near  "Landlord  Simonds's."  We  are  not  told,  and  shall  not  know, 
whether  these  weary  pedestrians  in  their'  soiled  regimentals  of  a 
foreign  cut  received  any  refreshments  of  any  sort  as  they  passed 
by  the  door  of  the  dignified  colonel  and  landlord,  who  had  con- 
tributed so  much  to  their  downfall ;  but  that  day  must  have  been  a 
sort  of  holiday  in  Williamstown,  especially  if  it  were  known  before- 
hand that  the  Hessians  were  coming  through.  It  is  probable,  but 
not  certain,  that  they  crossed  the  bridge  over  the  Hoosac  near  the 
colonel's,  and  passed  up  the  county  road,  opened  in  1765,  through 
South  Williamstown  to  Pittsfield.  Otherwise,  they  must  have  kept 
along  the  old  Mohawk  trail  north  of  the  Hoosac  through  what  is 
now  North  Adams,  and  so  on  over  the  Hoosac  Mountain,  under 
which  now  passes  the  tunnel,  to  the  valleys  of  the  Deerfield  and  the 
Connecticut.  There  were  three  old  roads  from  the  North  River 
through  Berkshire  to  Boston,  —  the  northern  one  just  described,  the 
middle  one  through  Kinderhook  to  Pittsfield,  and  the  southern  one 
through  Sheffield  to  Westfield.  All  three  appear  to  have  been  used 
in  conducting  parts  of  Burgoyne's  surrendered  army  to  Boston.  As 
prisoners  of  war,  the  Hessians  were  not  guarded  very  carefully  on 
the  march  by  their  captors,  particularly  as  a  dead  or  strayed  Ger- 
man was  to  cost  the  British  government  in  payments  to  the  petty 
principalities  much  more  than  a  returned  one.  Accordingly,  some 
one  or  more  of  these  foreigners  fell  out  of  the  ranks  in  many  of  the 
towns  through  which  they  passed  toward  the  seaboard.  Johann 
Hintersass,  or  John  Henderson,  as  he  came  to  be  called,  and  perhaps 
others  also,  tarried  in  Williamstown  and  became  a  well-known  deni- 
zen under  that  designation,  and  his  descendants  of  the  same  name 
are  with  us  to  this  day.  He  built  a  log  cabin  for  himself  on  the  east 
side  of  what  was  then  a  wood  road  running  north  from  the  river  to 
the  roots  of  Mount  Hazen,  and  is  now  named  in  memory  of  him  the 
"  Henderson  Koad."  The  chimney  of  his  hut  was  built  of  stones  and 
sticks,  and  it  and  everything  in  it  was  rude  and  poor.  But  he  had 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    BENNINGTON.  137 

been  a  gardener  in  the  "Fatherland,"  and  those  who  remembered  his 
own  garden  as  it  was  about  1812,  have  told  the  writer  that  it  was  an 
unusually  good  garden  for  the  times,  having  flowers  as  well  as  vege- 
tables. The  garden  extended  from  the  cabin  down  to  the  North 
Hoosac  road,  and  is  to-day  a  smooth  piece  of  meadow-land  about  a 
quarter  of  an  acre  in  extent.  Here  he  lived  and  died.  He  married 
a  woman  by  the  name  of  Wright  from  Pownal,  and  had  one  son, 
George,  and  four  daughters.  George  lived  all  his  life  on  the  same 
road  but  farther  north,  where  the  present  writer  officiated  at  his 
funeral  in  1860.  John  Henderson  had,  as  was  natural,  a  bad  German 
brogue,  but  was  not  for  those  times  a  hard  drinker.  He  used  to  take 
care  of  his  garden  for  President  Fitch,  and  worked  a  good  deal  for 
the  Smedleys  and  for  others  in  the  street.  This  story  is  told  of  him 
in  connection  with  the  first  president  of  the  college.  One  day  while 
working  for  him,  John  came  stealthily  out  of  the  cellar  with  a  large 
jpiece  of  side-pork  in  his  hand,  and,  looking  around  cautiously,  lifted 
up  a  half  hogshead  that  stood  bottom  upward  near  the  house,  and 
dropped  the  pork  under  it.  The  president  chanced  to  see  him  do  it, 
and,  after  mulling  over  the  method  to  be  pursued  with  the  best  moral 
results,  he  called  John  and  told  him  to  take  away  that  hogshead  to 
the  cellar.  John  obeyed,  the  president  standing  by,  and  the  pork 
was  at  once  disclosed.  "  What  is  that  ?  "  asked  the  master.  Very 
slowly  answered  the  man,  "It  is  pork!"  "Where  did  it  come 
from?"  "From  your  pork-barrel."  "Who  put  it  there?"  "I 
did."  "How  could  you  do  such  a  thing,  John  ?  "  "I  needed  it,  my 
folks  needed  it,  but  you  have  been  so  very  good  to  me  always,  I  could 
not  bear  to  ask  you  for  it ! " 

The  incidents  connected  with  the  battle  of  Bennington  and  with 
the  surrender  of  Burgoyne,  together  with  the  feelings  and  prospects 
ministered  unto  by  those  incidents,  constitute  the  heroic  age  of 
Williamstown.  Thereby  came  in  to  the  rugged  settlers  on  their 
scattered  farms  a  new  consciousness  of  a  vital  connection  with  other 
communities,  in  place  of  the  old  sense  of  isolation.  If  the  Hoosac 
Mountain  still  barred  much  intercourse  with  the  rest  of  their  own 
commonwealth,  the  Hoosac  Eiver  certainly  opened  up  substantial 
communications  with  the  new  State  of  Vermont,  baptized  in  the 
battle  of  Bennington,  and  with  the  broad  and  fertile  regions  to  the 
east  and  northeast  of  the  Hudson.  There  came  an  accession  of 
self-consciousness,  and  a  new  sense  of  importance  in  the  world. 
There  were  some  leaders,  as  well  as  many  rank  and  file,  and  the 
latter  were  proud  of  the  former.  Colonel  Simonds  figured  hand- 
somely in  the  correspondence  of  General  Schuyler,  General  Gates, 


138  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

and  General  Lincoln ;  Major  Isaac  Stratton  was  a  well-known  name 
in  the  council-chamber  at  Boston  as  the  principal  scribe,  both  civil 
and  military,  in  northern  Berkshire ;  and  Captain  Samuel  Sloan,  who 
had  taken  the  minute-men  to  Boston  in  the  summer  of  1775,  was 
constantly  adding  to  his  military  and  civil  influence,  as  well  as 
broadening  his  acres  and  increasing  his  pecuniary  resources.  More 
than  this,  in  the  light  and  zest  of  that  glowing  time  several  young 
officers  and  citizens  were  coming  forward  into  experience  and  influ- 
ence, some  of  whom  were  destined  to  eclipse  altogether  in  political 
influence  their  honored  predecessors.  Tomson  J.  Skinner  in  par- 
ticular, who  only  came  to  Williamstown  in  1775,  a  young  man  of 
twenty-three,  a  mechanic  fresh  from  his  apprenticeship,  rose  to  be 
captain  of  the  North  Williamstown  company  before  the  war  was 
over,  and  went  out  with  them  into  actual  service  in  that  capacity. 
Afterward  he  became  a  general  in  the  Massachusetts  militia,  as 
did  also  Samuel  Sloan.  Skinner  played  also  a  truly  remarkable 
part  in  the  civil  functions  of  his  time.  There  were  many  others 
also,  Israel  Harris  and  Samuel  Kellogg  and  Absalom  Blair,  who 
under  the  varied  stimulus  of  1777  came  to  be  broader  and  more 
influential  men  than  would  otherwise  have  been  possible  for  them. 
The  events  of  that  year  were  extremely  picturesque,  as  well  as 
consequential ;  they  appealed  to  the  imagination  and  led  to  inquiry 
and  reading  and  to  political  reasoning,  and  tradition  fastened 
upon  the  events  themselves  and  the  men  who  acted  in  them  with 
a  firmness  not  at  all  characteristic  of  the  rest  of  the  years  of  the 
war. 

STATE  OF  MASSACHUSETTS  BAY 
In  the  House  of  Represent"  Feby  13th  1779 

On  the  petition  of  Joab  Stafford  &  Stephen  Davis,  representing  to  this  Court 
the  Expenditures  of  the  several  Towns  Stocks  of  Powder  Ball  and  Flints  at  the 
Battle  at  Bennington  in  the  year  1777  — as  set  forth  in  their  Petition  praying 
for  relief 

Resolved,  that  the  prayer  of  said  Petition  be  granted  and  that  the  Board  of 
War  be  and  hereby  are  directed,  to  deliver  to  the  Committee  of  New  Providence 
or  their  Order,  forty  Pounds  of  Powder,  one  Hundred  and  twenty  Pound  of 
Lead,  and  Sixty  Flints. 

And  to  the  Selectmen  of  the  Town  of  Lanesborough  or  to  their  Order  One 
Hundred  and  Sixty  Pound  of  Powder,  four  Hundred  and  Eighty  Pounds  of 
Lead,  and  two  Hundred  and  forty  Flints.  —  Likewise  to  the  Selectmen  of  East 
Hoosock  or  to  their  Order  Fifty  Pound  of  Powder,  one  Hundred  and  fifty  Pounds 
of  Lead,  and  seventy  two  Flints. 

And  to  the  Selectmen  of  the  Town  of  Williamstown  or  to  their  Order  One 
Hundred  and  Sixty  Pounds  of  Powder,  four  Hundred  and  eighty  Pounds  of 


WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    BENNINGTON. 

Lead,  and  two  Hundred  and  forty  Flints,  in  full  for  what  Powder  Balls  and 
Flints  those  Places  Expended  at  the  Battle  at  Bennington. 

Sent  up  for  Concurrence 

JOHN  PICKERING  Spkr. 
In  Council,     February  15th  1779 
Read  and  Concurred 

JOHN  AVERT  D  S*. 
Consented  to  by  the  Major  Part  of  the  Council. 

A  true  Copy 

Attest 

JOHN  AVERT  D  Secy. 

(endorsed) 

deld  to  Lanesb?  Resolve  of  Court  to 

&  New  Providence  ]  deliver  Ammunition  to 

&  Williamstown  Several  Towns  in  lieu 

&  East  Hoosack  of  what  they  expended 

in  ye  Action  at  Benington. 

Feby  13.  1779. 

Williamstown  men  still  went  out  to  fight  in  large  numbers  both 
in  the  colony  and  in  the  Continental  service,  so  long  as  there  was 
any  fighting  to  be  done  in  the  north ;  but  only  rare  and  single  inci- 
dents in  relation  to  these  have  come  down  to  posterity  clear  and 
strong.  For  example,  William  Pratt,  the  first  male  child  born  in  West 
Hoosac,  was  a  drummer  in  the  Eevolution,  and  witnessed  the  execu- 
tion of  Major  Andre,  Oct.  2,  1780.  He  lived  till  1846,  and  told  his 
own  story  to  numbers,  who  still  live  to  remember  and  to  repeat  it. 
In  a  page  or  two  we  shall  print  the  muster-roll  of  a  large  company 
of  Williamstown  militiamen,  who  were  ordered  out  ten  days  after 
that  execution,  1780,  and  were  kept  in  service  eleven  days.  For  the 
most  part,  the  last  years  of  the  war  are  relatively  a  blank  in  the 
annals  of  New  England.  Schuylerville  was  the  pivot  on  which 
the  Eevolutionary  War  turned,  very  much  as  Gettysburg  was  the 
pivot  on  which  turned  the  Civil  War  for  the  Union.  Both  fell  very 
near  the  middle  point  of  time  in  those  wars,  — 1777  and  1863.  On 
the  contrary,  when  the  agitation  began  a  century  after  the  events 
for  the  building  of  the  Bennington  Battle  Monument,  and  continued 
till  its  completion  and  celebration  in  1891,  there  were  comparatively 
few  towns  in  New  Hampshire  and  Vermont  and  in  the  county  of 
Berkshire,  that  did  not  have  their  well-authenticated  record  or  relic, 
or  at  least  their  reliable  family  tradition,  in  relation  to  those  events. 
All  this  helped  to  make  it  comparatively  easy  to  raise  the  money 
from  individuals,  and  to  secure  the  liberal  appropriations  from  the 


140  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

three  States  concerned,  to  erect  the  lofty  and  impressive  monument. 
Facts  long  kept  private  became  more  or  less  public.  Names  and 
localities  long  forgotten  in  the  minds  of  living  men  were  resuscitated 
and  given  a  new  lease  of  living  power.  Genealogical  records  were 
sought  out,  and  even  societies  formed  to  ascertain  the  facts  and  to 
hand  down  the  word.  Most  of  Stark's  men  were  from  southern 
New  Hampshire,  but  many  of  them  inarched  north  as  far  as  Leba- 
non to  cross  the  Connecticut,  and  all  of  them  traversed  the  well- 
wooded  hills  and  forded  the  beautiful  streams  of  Vermont.  The 
war  over,  lively  emigrations  began  both  north  and  west.  Both 
banks  of  the  Connecticut  to  its  upper  reaches  were  gradually  settled 
from  "  below."  Some  New  Hampshire  families  crept  over  the  Green 
Mountains.  More  from  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut  worked  their 
way  up  from  the  south  into  the  fresh  and  fertile  valleys,  that  they 
had  taken  a  glimpse  of  while  serving  under  General  Lincoln,  for 
example,  on  the  flank  or  in  the  rear  of  General  Burgoyne. 

Numerous  illustrations  of  all  this  are  at  hand,  two  or  three  of 
which  the  reader  will  pardon  even  if  he  do  not  applaud.  William 
Moore  was  a  drummer  or  other  musician  in  one  of  Stark's  New 
Hampshire  companies  in  the  battle  of  Bennington.  Later  he 
moved  into  the  "Coos  country"  on  the  upper  Connecticut.  One 
of  his  daughters  there  married  a  Mr.  White.  The  White  family 
moved  in  course  of  time  to  Beloit,  Wisconsin ;  and  Horace  White, 
their  son,  was  graduated  at  Beloit  College.  Becoming  a  journalist 
in  connection  with  the  Chicago  Tribune,  young  White  was  fortunate 
enough  to  be  sent  by  his  paper  to  report  the  joint  debates  between 
Abraham  Lincoln  and  Stephen  A.  Douglas  in  the  famous  Illinois 
Senatorial  contest,  in  which  Douglas  won.  White  showed  such  a 
judicial  impartiality  and  penetrating  ability  in  these  reports,  that 
they  added  directly  to  the  public  reputation  of  both  the  contestants, 
and  indirectly  made  a  reputation  for  himself.  For  many  years  at 
this  present  writing  Horace  White  has  been  editor  of  the  New  York 
Evening  Post,  and  is  generally  regarded  as  one  of  the  most  compe- 
tent and  comprehensive  writers  on  economical  and  especially  finan- 
cial topics  in  the  United  States.  The  fate  of  Lieutenant  Isaac  Nash, 
who  commanded  the  Lanesboro  company  in  the  battle  of  Benning- 
ton, and  was  mortally  wounded,  and  died  during  the  night  following 
in  a  barn  near  the  battle-field,  was  tenderly  recorded  in  the  old 
records  of  that  town.  The  renovated  interest  of  a  century  later  has 
gathered  that  Reuben  Nash,  his  son,  was  a  citizen  of  Benson,  Ver- 
mont, and  married  there  Abigail  Woodward.  But  the  township  of 
Benson  was  chartered  to  James  Meacham  and  Ezekiel  Blair  of  Wil- 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   BENNINGTON.  141 

liamstown,  May  5,  1780.  The  name  was  given  to  the  town  by 
Meacham  in  honor  of  a  certain  Revolutionary  officer  for  whom  he 
had  great  personal  respect,  but  who  is  not  otherwise  known  to  pos- 
terity. Doubtless  because  both  were  too  well  planted  in  Williams- 
town,  where  Meacham  had  one  of  the  very  best  farms  and  was 
besides  one  of  the  original  deacons  of  the  church,  neither  Meacham 
nor  Blair  ever  migrated  to  Benson ;  but  other  families  went  from 
here,  particularly  Jonathan  Woodward  and  Delight  Williams,  his 
wife,  both  of  whom  united  with  the  church  here  in  1780,  and  both 
removed  to  Benson  in  1785.  He  was  originally  from  Plainfield,  Con- 
necticut, and  died  in  Benson  in  1802  in  the  76th  year  of  his  age. 
It  has  often  been  said  that  Woodward  was  a  deacon  in  Williams- 
town,  but  this  is  a  mistake.  He  became  a  deacon  in  Benson,  and 
was  an  influential  citizen  of  a  town  that  became  extraordinarily 
influential,  particularly  in  religious  matters.  It  lay  on  the  shore  of 
Lake  Champlain  where  the  lake  was  narrow,  opposite  to  Putnam, 
New  York,  and  not  far  from  Champlain  and  Plattsburg,  with  all 
which  New  York  towns  commercial  intercourse  and  intermarriages 
were  frequent.  Reuben  Nash's  family  of  Benson  intermarried  with 
that  of  Joseph  Corbin  of  Plattsburg ;  and  here  again  we  strike  into 
the  roots  of  two  prominent  Williamstown  families.  Clement  Corbin, 
born  in  1616,  was  the  father  of  Lieutenant  Jabez  Corbin,  and  he  the 
father  of  John  Corbin,  who  became  the  first  settler  of  Woodstock, 
Connecticut.  John's  three  sons,  Asa  and  Amasa  and  Joseph,  were 
all  in  the  Revolutionary  service  in  the  Eleventh  Regiment  of  Con- 
necticut during  the  campaign  of  1776  in  New  York.  Not  long  after, 
Joseph  in  1778,  all  three  came  to  Williamstown,  as  several  of  their 
neighbors  in  Connecticut  had  previously  done,  and  all  settled  at  the 
South  Part  near  some  of  those  neighbors,  as  David  Johnson  and 
Samuel  Mills.  Joseph  Corbin  had  seven  children  born  here  in  the 
years  1779-93,  and  moved  to  Plattsburg,  New  York,  in  1799,  where 
some  of  his  posterity  still  reside. .  William  G.  Bosworth,  Williams 
College,  1889,  is  in  the  direct  line  of  Joseph,  son  of  John,  born  in 
Killingly  in  1751  and  moved  to  Williamstown  in  1778.  He  is  also 
in  the  direct  line  of  Isaac  Nash  of  Lanesboro,  commissioned  lieuten- 
ant May  3,  1776,  and  killed  on  the  Walloomsac;  and  too  of  Deacon 
Jonathan  Woodward,  of  Williamstown  and  Benson.  Joseph  Cor- 
bin's  son,  Josiah,  born  in  Williamstown,  1791,  died  in  Champlain  in 
1872.  His  daughter  Eliza  was  married  to  Harvey  Bosworth,  a  son 
of  another  early  settler  of  Champlain.  Under  the  heading  "  Inten- 
tions of  marriage,"  in  the  old  proprietor's  book  of  Williamstown,  is 
found  the  following  entry :  "  William  Corbin  of  Champlain  New 


142 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 


York  and  Sally  Mills,  November  25,  1801."  This  William  Corbin 
was  an  older  brother  of  Josiah.  Sally  Mills  was  the  eldest  child  of 
Samuel  Mills  (himself  in  the  battle  of  Bennington),  born  September 
24,  1782.  Thus  was  woven  still  another  tie  between  families  start- 
ing from  Woodstock  and  Killingly,  tarrying  for  a  time  in  South 
William stown,  and  then  passing  on  to  the  battle-scarred  regions  of 
Lake  Champlain,  —  battle-scarred  in  the  old  French  wars  and  in  the 
last  war  with  Great  Britain. 


A  pay-roll  of  Capt.  Israel  Harris  Co.  Col.  B.  Simonds  Regiment,  who 
marched  to  the  northern  frontier  by  order  of  Gen.  Fellows  Oct.  12-19,  11  days, 
1780.  Capt.  £12  per  month,  Lt.  £8,  Sergts.  £3,  Musicians  and  Corporals 
£2..4..0,  and  Privates  £2.  Sworn  to  before  Gideon  Wheeler  J.P. 


Israel  Harris 
Seth  Luce 
Will.  Wells 
Abel  Russel 
Will  Foster 
Truman  Harison 
Theodore  Boardman 
Elias  Newbre 
Noah  Harison 
Nathaniel  Wheeler 
Ezra  Baker 
Enos  Wells 
Elisha  Williams 
Elijah  Lamb 
Stephen  Olmstead 
Reuben  Hicock 
Benedick  Alford 
William  Dunton 
Josiah  Higgins 
Joseph  Morse 
Samuel  Tyler 
Will.  Foresids 
Thomas  Hewston 
Solomon  Morse 
Lemuel  Steward 
Job  Harrington 
Ezekiel  Blair 
David  Noble 
William  Horsford 
Nicolas  Vanear 


Capt. 

Lt. 

Sergt. 

Sergt. 

Drum. 

Fife 

Corp. 

Corp. 


Aaron  Noble 
Nathaniel  Kellogg 
Asel  Hurlburt 
Almond  Harrison 
Stephen  Stickling 
Elisha  Baker 
Timothy  Hurlburt 
Ephraim  Sanford 
Levi  Smith 
Ozias  Johnson 
Perley  How 
Josiah  Brown 
Asaph  Nichols 
Stephen  Davis 
Neh.  Smedley 
Jonathan  Meacham 
Will.  Harrington 
James  Meacham 
Nathan  Wheeler 
Joseph  Fuller 
Caleb  Calkins 
Joel  Baldwin 
Robert  Williams 
Edmond  Lamb 
Lemuel  Smith 
Joseph  Levens 
George  Lamb 
Joshua  Perry 
Lewis  Wilkeson 
Ainasa  Morse 


This  Captain  Israel  Harris,  when  he  was  eighty-five  years  old, 
and  then  for  twenty-five  years  a  citizen  of  Hartford,  Washington 


WILLIAMSTOWN    AND   BENNINGTON.  143 

County,  New  York,  in  his  application  for  a  pension,  gives  his  recol- 
lections of  the  year  before  this  in  his  own  words :  "  About  the  mid- 
dle of  May,  1779,  was  appointed  captain  of  the  second  company  of 
militia,  in  Colonel  Simonds's  regiment,  and  commenced  recruiting 
the  next  day,  by  order  of  Colonel  Simonds,  to  supply  deficiencies  in 
the  regular  army.  Was  thus  employed,  with  the  rank  of  captain, 
and  in  actual  service,  with  command  upon  the  frontiers  of  Vermont, 
in  the  latter  part  of  November,  three  months."  Such  a  trifle  as  these 
eleven  days  of  service  the  next  autumn  with  sixty  of  the  best  men  of 
North  Williamstown,  his  own  company,  seems  to  have  escaped  the 
old  man's  memory  entirely.  The  two  first  deacons  of  the  church,  of 
which  he  was  a  member,  Nathan  Wheeler  and  James  Meacham,  were 
both  with  him ;  David  Noble,  a  Yale  graduate  and  the  first  of  the 
lawyers  of  the  town  in  point  of  time ;  Nehemiah  Smedley  went  too 
as  a  private,  though  he  was  the  captain  of  this  very  company  in  the 
earlier  years  of  the  war ;  the  name  of  Ezekiel  Blair,  co-grantee  with 
Deacon  Meacham  of  the  new  town  of  Benson,  is  on  this  list ;  so  is  the 
name  of  William  Horsford,  one  of  the  first  band  of  settlers;  of  Joshua 
Perry  also,  cousin  of  the  writer's  grandfather ;  Joel  Baldwin,  father  of 
the  settlement  on  North  West  Hill ;  and  many  more  of  the  best  estab- 
lished and  most  enterprising  men  of  the  place.  The  war  was  draw- 
ing to  a  close.  The  faith  of  the  people  of  the  North  was  established 
in  the  coming  independence  of  the  States.  The  whole  length  of 
Vermont  was  now  open  through  its  southern  valleys.  Williamstown 
became  a  gate  through  which  emigration  passed  into  the  new  land 
of  promise.  The  population,  steadily  increasing  up  to  this  time, 
became  more  or  less  mobile  from  the  influence  of  relatives  and 
old  neighbors,  and  even  of  strangers  pressing  through  and  onward 
toward  a  goal  exaggerated  by  imaginations  heated  in  the  old  French 
wars  and  in  the  recent  successful  conflicts  with  the  mother  country. 
The  Continental  paper  money,  irredeemable  and  depreciated  and 
soon  worthless,  brought  along  with  it  the  usual  and  inevitable  con- 
comitants and  sequels  of  such  so-called  money.  Whenever  the 
money  of  any  country  consists  of  nothing  but  promises-to-pay,  all 
other  forms  of  promises-to-pay  are  naturally  multiplied  in  number 
and  of  course  swelled  in  their  terms.  Such  debts  contracted  in  hope 
could  not  be  paid  in  reality.  Farms  were  mortgaged,  and  by  and  by 
foreclosures  were  either  made  or  threatened.  Society  came  to  be 
more  or  less  by  the  ears.  Virtually  free  lands  were  offered  at 
the  northward.  Grantees  were  urgent  to  fill  up  their  towns  with 
good  and  experienced  settlers.  Now  that  the  contest  between  New 
Hampshire  and  New  York  was  ended,  good  land  titles  could  be 


144  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

given,  and  the  rush  from  all  sides  to  the  new  State  became  remark- 
able, and  a  transient  depletion  of  Williamstowii  considerable.  Derick 
Webb,  one  of  the  earliest  settlers  in  Williamstowii,  whose  house  stood 
on  the  west  side  of  Green  River  near  its  junction  with  the  Hoosac, 
was  probably  the  very  first  citizen  of  the  town  to  attempt  a  perma- 
nent settlement  on  the  Vermont  side  of  Lake  Champlain.  He  went 
alone  to  what  is  now  Charlotte,  the  southwest  corner  of  Chittenden 
County,  directly  on  the  lake,  and  made  a  beginning  in  March,  1776, 
but  soon  went  away,  presumably  back  to  Williamstown ;  he  renewed 
his  attempt  the  next  March,  and  stayed  but  two  months;  and  not 
until  seven  years  later,  1784,  after  the  definitive  signature  of  peace, 
did  he  make  the  third  and  successful  pitch.  This  time  Elijah 
Woolcot  was  with  him,  and  Williamstown  then  lost  sight  of  him. 
The  township  of  Williamstown  in  Vermont  is  own  child  and  god- 
child of  Williamstown  in  Massachusetts.  This  township  is  directly 
on  the  watershed  of  the  Green  Mountains.  It  lies  also  on  the  height 
of  land  between  the  Winooski  and  White  rivers.  It  is  said  in 
Thompson's  "  Vermont,"  that  "  a  brook  which  here  runs  down  a  steep 
hill  toward  the  west,  divides  naturally,  and  while  one  part  runs 
to  the  north,  forming  Stevens's  branch  of  Winooski  River,  the  other 
runs  to  the  south,  forming  the  second  branch  of  White  River."  The 
Winooski  drops  into  Lake  Champlain  at  Burlington,  fifty  miles 
away,  and  the  White  strikes  the  Connecticut  opposite  to  Lebanon, 
New  Hampshire,  at  about  the  same  distance. 

Thomas  Chittenden,  Governor  of  Vermont,  in  August,  1781, 
granted  in  form  following  the  new  township  to  persons,  a  large 
majority  of  whom  were  then  residents  here.  Besides  the  usual 
reservation  of  lots  for  ministerial  and  school  purposes,  this  grant 
of  mountain  land,  and  presumably  other  grants  of  the  early  Vermont 
Governors,  copies  from  the  old  charters  of  the  king,  the  reservation 
of  all  the  pine  trees  growing  in  the  town  "  Suitable  for  a  Navy." 

THE  GOVERNOR  COUNCIL  AND  GENERAL  ASSEMBLY  OF  THE  FREEMEN  OF  VER- 
MONT. 

To  all  People  to  whom  these  Presents  shall  come. 

GREETING. 

Know  ye  that  whereas  Capt.  Samuel  Clark  and  W?  Absalom  Baker  and 
their  assoiates  our  worthey  friends  have  by  petition  requested  a  grant  of  a  tract  of 
unappropriated  land  within  this  State  in  order  for  setling  a  new  plantation  to  be 
erected  into  a  township.  We  have  therefore  thought  fit  for  the  due  encourage- 
ment of  their  laudable  designs  and  for  other  valuable  considerations  as  there- 
unto moving.  And  do  by  these  presents  in  the  name  and  by  the  Authority  of 
the  freemen  of  Vermont  give  and  grant  the  tract  of  land  hereafter  described 


WILLIAMSTOWN    AND   BENNINGTON. 


145 


and  bounded  unto  the  said  Samuel  Clark,  Absalom  Baker  and  their  associates, 
viz:  — 


Elisha  Baker 

William  Wells 

Kuben  Horseford 

Isaac  Stratton 

Aaron  Noble 

Anthony  Farr 

Samuel  Kellogg 

Zadoch  Clark 

Joseph  Dunham 

John  Winchester  Dana 

Israel  Dana 

Judah  Williams 

Thomas  Green 

Perley  How 

Ezra  Baker 

John  Tracy 

Mathew  Lyon 

Peter  Bewdish 

David  Bixby 

Benjamin  Sherwood 

Ethan  Allen 

Oliver  Hungerfoot 

The  Heirs  of  Thos.  Wheeler,  deceased 

Moses  Jeffords 

Elijah  Thomas 

Ruben  Post 

Jonas  Galusha 

William  Dure 

John  Fasset  Jr. 

John  Smith 

Henry  Green 

Elijah  Galusha 

Joseph  Osborn 

David  Johnson  Jr. 

Thomas  Roe 

Eusebius  Bushnel 

Asa  Farrend 


Ebenezer  Kellogg 
Josiah  Gregory 
Ira  Rude 
Daniel  Burbank 
Bildad  Noble 
Elisha  Welch 
Samuel  Kellogg  Jr. 
Stephen  Davis 
Cornelus  Lynes 
Judah  Dana 
Daniel  Davis 
Joseph  Jones 
Israel  Harris 
Elisha  Baker  Jr. 
Ira  Baker 

Jonathan  Woodward 
James  Lyon 
John  Tibbel 
Martin  Chittenden 
John  Porter 
Isaac  Kellogg 
David  Johnson    t 
Christopher  Whitney 
Ruben  Hurlbut 
Asa  Burnham 
Simeon  Hine 
Noble  Everett 
Thomas  Chittenden 
Chester  Darby 
Alexander  Huling 
Mary  Lyon 
Stephan  Dunning 
Samuel  Sherman 
Nathaniel  Johnson 
David  Galusha 
Elizabeth  Chittenden 


In  consequence  of  this  grant,  and  of  the  prominent  position 
and  influence  of  many  of  the  grantees,  there  was  a  good  deal  of  a 
movement,  direct  and  indirect,  from  the  old  Williamstown  to  the 
new,  the  settlement  of  which  was  commenced  in  1784.  At  its  formal 
organization  in  1787,  it  not  only  took  the  name  of  the  borough  on 
the  Hoosac,  but  it  also  enrolled  among  its  first  citizens  a  consider- 
able number  of  the  former  citizens  of  that  borough,  the  most  promi- 


146  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

nent  of  whom  was  Lieutenant  Sampson  Howe,  whose  home  here 
occupied  the  site  of  the  old  West  Hoosac  block-house  fort.  In  his 
own  qualities  and  personal  influence.  Lieutenant  Howe  was  much 
more  than  a  common  man.  He  was  a  direct  ancestor  also  of  the  late 
General  Alfred  H.  Terry,  who  greatly  distinguished  himself  in  the 
Civil  War.  Perley  Howe,  a  brother  of  the  lieutenant,  transferred  his 
residence  also  from  the  one  Williamstown  to  the  other;  and  it  is 
interesting  to  note,  as  an  instance  of  the  mobility  of  the  men  of 
those  times  and  conditions,  the  name  of  Elijah  Woolcot,  the  com- 
rade of  Derick  Webb  in  the  settlement  of  Charlotte,  in  the  list  of 
the  citizens  of  the  northern  Williamstown  in  1788. 

These  new  interests  to  the  northward  and  the  consequent  migra- 
tions thither,  made  it,  of  course,  more  difficult  for  the  towns  in 
Berkshire  County  to  fully  answer  to  the  requisitions  made  on  them 
for  men  to  recruit  the  Continental  army.  They  offered  accordingly 
a  bounty  of  "sixty  pounds  lawful  money"  for  each  three  years' 
enlistment  into  that  army.  The  number  of  men  raised  in  Berkshire 
in  1781  was  221,  leaving  a  deficit  in  the  quota  of  13.  The  following 
receipt  for  their  bounty-money  on  the  part  of  some  of  those  three 
years'  men  received  of  Williamstown  tells  its  own  story. 

WILLIAMSTOWN,  March  15,  1781. 

Keceived  of  the  Town  of  Williamstown  the  sum  of  Sixty  pounds  lawful  money 
Each  at  the  Rate  of  Silver  at  Six  shillings  and  eight  pence  per  ounce  as  a  bounty 
for  Engaging  in  the  service  of  the  United  States  for  three  years  agreeable  to  a 
Kesolve  of  the  Genl.  Court  of  December  last.  Reed,  severally  by  us. 

Benjamin  Davis  Thomas  Gaige 

Cyrus  Hills  Joseph  Bowles 

Amos  P.  Sherman  James  Sloan 

Joel  Begam  Jonathan  Sweet 

Ira  Rood  Jonathan  Morey 

Barnabas  Staines  Pardon  Mack 

A  brief  record  of  Captain  Judah  Williams  may  fitly  close  this 
branch  of  the  current  chapter.  He  was  born  Dec.  14,  1741, 
at  Colchester,  Connecticut,  a  son  of  Nathan  and  Elizabeth  Lewis 
Williams.  His  wife  was  Mary  Skinner,  a  daughter  of  the  well- 
known  pastor  of  that  place,  and  an  older  sister  of  the  two  Skinner 
brothers,  Tomson  J.  and  Benjamin,  of  whom  we  have  already 
heard  something  and  shall  hear  much  more,  as  prominent  citizens 
of  Williamstown.  Judah  Williams  and  his  wife  came  here  about 
1770,  five  years  before  her  brothers  came.  He  located  on  House-lot 
63,  on  Green  Eiver,  at  the  easternmost  edge  of  the  village  plat,  and 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   BENNINGTON.  147 

became  a  large  owner  of  some  of  the  best  lands  in  the  valley  and  of 
the  out  lots  beyond.  He  kept  and  dealt  in  cattle;  and  when  the 
war  broke  out  in  those  parts,  he  became  a  commissary  with  the  rank 
of  captain,  and  collected  hundreds  of  cattle  at  his  own  place  and 
elsewhere  for  the  use  of  the  army.  His  accounts  of  course  were 
kept  in  the  Continental  money,  which  was  constantly  depreciating, 
and  when  his  settlement  was  made  with  the  Revolutionary  govern- 
ment, he  received  stacks  of  this  money,  which  shortly  afterward 
became  worthless.  This  ruined  his  fortune.  In  his  prosperous 
time  he  had  built  a  fine  brick  house  of  two  stories  on  the  front  line 
of  his  house-lot,  which  is  still  standing  erect  and  intact  after  a 
century  and  a  quarter.  It  must  have  been  when  built  the  best 
house  in  the  town.  His  farms  must  have  been  then  the  best  within 
the  hamlet  proper.  His  money,  though  a  plenty  in  quantity,  was 
not  such  that  he  could  pay  his  debts  with  it.  His  fine  house  and 
large  farm  were  sold  under  the  hammer  in  order  to  pay  his  debts ; 
the  whole  estate  passed  into  the  hands  of  David  Noble,  who  occu- 
pied the  house  so  long  as  he  lived ;  Captain  Williams  conspicuously 
destroyed  his  piles  of  Continental  money,  and  in  1788  removed  to 
Troy.  Eight  years  after  the  family  moved  to  Utica.  The  Captain 
was  much  broken  down  by  his  pecuniary  misfortunes.  Although 
remaining  remarkably  active  in  body,  —  always  a  great  walker, — 
his  disposition  became  melancholy,  and  he  died  in  Utica,  at  the 
house  of  his  son,  Judge  Nathan  Williams,  of  whose  family  he 
formed  a  part,  in  March,  1807,  aged  sixty-five  years. 

It  was  during  these  times  of  financial  trouble  caused  by  the 
increasing  depreciation  of  the  Continental  money,  times  of  unrest 
and  excitement  caused  by  the  incoming  of  many  new  settlers  and 
the  exit  northward  of  many  old  ones,  times  also  of  religious  declen- 
sion and  even  of  positive  immoralities  owing  to  the  total  lack  of 
pastoral  supervision  and  of  regular  preaching  since  the  sudden 
departure  of  Rev.  Whitman  Welch  for  Quebec  in  1775,  that  Rev. 
Seth  Swift  took  up  his  labors  as  a  pastor  and  preacher.  He  was 
a  native  of  Kent,  Connecticut,  and  a  graduate  of  Yale  College  in 
1774,  twelve  years  after  the  graduation  of  Mr.  Welch  at  the  same 
institution.  Mr.  Welch  was  a  native  of  Milford,  but  his  family 
moved  early  to  New  Milford,  whence  he  came  hither,  a  township 
adjoining  to  Kent,  which  is  another  illustration  of  the  much  more 
intimate  relations  in  the  early  times  between  Williamstown  and 
Connecticut  and  Yale,  than  those  with  Massachusetts  and  Harvard. 
This  was  the  result  of  the  topography  of  the  country.  The  Housa- 
tonic  Eiver,  the  water  of  whose  head  spring  almost  laps  the  southern 


148  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

line  of  Williamstown,  flows  down  through  Kent  and  New  Milford 
to  find  a  home  in  the  Sound  at  Milford^  much  as  the  people  and  the 
preachers  from  those  older  towns  slowly  passed  up  the  stream  to  find 
a  home  in  the  beautiful  region  drained  in  opposite  directions  by  the 
Hoosac  and  other  streams.  Indeed,  we  are  told  by  J.  H.  Trumbull, 
the  great  master  of  the  Indian  languages  of  New  England,  that 
these  names  —  Housac  and  Housatonic  —  originally  belonged  to  the 
territory,  and  were  later  transferred  to  the  rivers :  both  mean  much 
the  same,  the  first  the  "  beyond-place,"  and  the  second  the  "  beyond- 
mountain-place."  Mr.  Welch  was  much  mourned  in  New  Milford, 
whither  his  widow  and  two  children  returned  after  his  death.  How 
natural,  then,  that  Mr.  Swift,  born  and  bred  in  the  next  town  north, 
should  have  been  willing  to  take  up  the  fallen  mantle  of  the  young 
prophet  departed ! 

We  know  but  little  about  the  second  minister.  He  was  ordained 
in  May,  1779,  three  years  after  the  death  of  .his  predecessor,  and 
continued  in  his  ministry  till  February,  1807,  almost  twenty-eight 
years.  Rev.  Daniel  Collins  of  Lanesboro  preached  his  funeral  ser- 
mon. One  of  the  professors  in  the  college  wrote  of  him  some  years 
after  his  death:  "Mr.  Swift  was  a  little  above  the  medium  stature, 
with  a  strong  frame  and  large  features ;  not  at  all  studious  of  the 
graces  of  dress,  manners,  or  conversation,  warm  and  open  in  his 
temper,  serious  in  the  general  tone  of  his  intercourse  with  his  peo- 
ple, zealous  in  the  labors  of  the  ministry,  decided  in  his  opinions, 
and  prudent  and  energetic  in  his  measures."  The  following  entry 
on  the  extant  records  of  the  church,  which  begin  only  at  his  ordina- 
tion in  1779,  testifies  to  the  esteem  and  affection  of  the  people  for 
their  long-time  pastor.  "At  about  9  o'clock,  A.M.,  the  Rev.  Seth 
Swift,  our  much  esteemed,  dearly  beloved,  and  very  faithful  and 
laborious  pastor,  died,  in  the  midst  of  great  usefulness,  while  God 
was  pouring  out  his  Spirit  here,  and  giving  him  many  seals  of  his 
ministry."  There  were  sixty-one  members  of  the  church  when  he 
came,  and  five  more  were  added  in  1779 ;  and  these  sixty-six  may  be 
regarded  as  the  founders  of  the  Williamstown  church,  and  their 
names  should  be  perpetuated  in  that  capacity. 

ELISHA  BAKER  ELISABETH  DOWNS  DOWNING 

PHEBE  NICHOLS  BAKER  THOMAS  DUNTON 

MARTHA  YOUNG  BLAIR  MARY  DAVIS  DDNTON 

DANIEL  BURBANK  ELISABETH  EGLESTON 

MARY  MARKS  BURBANK  NATHAN  FOOT 

SAMUEL  BURCHARD  MARIANNE  FOOT 
ELISABETH  HAMILTON  BURCHARD  ISRAEL  HARRIS 


WILLIAMSTOWN  AND   BENNINGTON. 


149 


SARAH  LUCE  BYAM 
HANNAH  DAVIS 
SAMPSON  HOWE 
HANNAH  FOOT  HOWE 
DANIEL  HORSFORD 
DAVID  JOHNSON 
PHEBE  COLE  JOHNSON 
HENRY  JOHNSON 
ABIAH  JOHNSON 
PERSIS  JOHNSON 
ISAAC  OVITS 
MOSES  RICH 
THOMAS  ROE 
MARY  WELLS  ROE 
CATHERINE  DAVIS  SMITH 
DEBORAH  SPENCER 
ISAAC  STRATTON 
MARY  Fox  STRATTON 
RUTH  TYRREL  TORREY 
HANNAH  WHEELER  TORREY 
HANNAH  TORREY  HATFIELD 
ELISABETH  LEWIS  WILLIAMS 
DBA.  NATHAN  WHEELER 
SARAH  WHEELER 
NATHAN  WHEELER,  JR. 
GIDEON  WRIGHT 


SARAH  MORSE  HARRIS 
RACHEL  BALDWIN  HAWKINS 
SAMUEL  KELLOGG 
CHLOE  BACON  KELLOGG 
DBA.  JAMES  MEACHAM 
LUCY  RUGG  MEACHAM 
JONATHAN  MEACHAM 
THANKFUL  RUGG  MEACHAM 
DAVID  NOBLE 
ABIGAIL  BENNET  NOBLE 
ESTHER  WILSON  OVITS 
MARY  ROBERTS 
ANNA  DWIGHT  SABIN 
NATHANIEL  SANFORD 
DAVID  SOUTHWICK 
THANKFUL  DAVIS  SOUTHWICK 
MARY  DORMER  STRATTON 
MARTHA  MARKS  TALLMADGB 
MARVIN   GAYLORD  WELCH 
WILLIAM  WELLS 
REBECCA  STODDARD  WELLS 
MARY  WILSON 

HANNAH  BRISTER  WOODCOCK 
JOSIAH  WRIGHT 
ABIGAIL  WRIGHT 
SARAH  WRIGHT 


During  the  next  year,  1780,  twenty-three  more  persons  united 
with  the  church,  and  during  the  following  year  the  same  number ; 
then  followed  twenty-one  years  of  relative  dearth,  only  an  average  of 
five  accessions  a  year;  then  for  the  two  years  preceding  the  pastor's 
death,  fifty-four  and  fifty-two  each,  and  thirty-five  for  that  year, 
1807.  During  the  long  ministry  of  Mr.  Swift  273  were  added  to  the 
original  sixty-six ;  but  during  those  years  the  population  of  the  town 
was  very  changeful,  and  the  number  of  admissions  to  the  church  by 
letter,  and  of  dismissions  with  recommendation,  was  remarkably 
large,  so  that  in  1803  the  whole  number  was  but  eighty-four,  while 
in  1807  it  became  195.  The  first  four  ministers  of  the  Williams- 
town  church  were  all  graduates  of  Yale.  A  little  table  will  exhibit 
to  the  eye  their  names,  the  year  of  their  graduation,  and  the  year  of 
their  exit  from  service. 


Whitman  Welch 
Seth  Swift 
Walter  King 
Ralph  Wells  Gridley 


1762 
1774 

1782 
1814 


1775 
1807 
1815 
1834 


150  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

After  the  death  of  Mr.  Swift,  the  church  remained  without  a  pas- 
tor more  than  six  years,  and  the  pulpit  was  partially  supplied  by  the 
president  of  the  college,  while  the  visiting  and  other  pastoral  work 
was  mostly  performed  by  Deacon  Ebenezer  Stratton,  who  succeeded 
Deacon  Wheeler  in  1784,  and  who,  though  a  farmer,  gave  up  his  time 
very  largely  to  this  work  till  his  death  in  1814,  aged  sixty-eight. 
This  incidental  reference  to  a  president  of  the  college,  now  brings 
both  writer  and  reader  naturally,  and  perhaps  none  too  soon,  to 
another  chapter  of  our  book  and  to  a  treatment  of  fresh  topics. 


CHAPTER  II. 

WILLIAMSTOWN    FREE    SCHOOL. 

For  backward  as  I  cast  my  eyes, 
I  see  what  was,  and  is,  and  will  abide  ; 
Still  glides  the  Stream,  and  shall  forever  glide ; 
The  form  remains,  the  function  never  dies  ; 
While  we,  the  brave,  the  mighty,  and  the  wise, 
We  men,  who  in  our  morn  of  youth  defied 
The  elements,  must  vanish  ;  —  be  it  so  ! 
Enough,  if  something  from  our  hands  have  power 
To  live,  and  act,  and  serve  the  future  hour ; 
And  if,  as  toward  the  silent  tomb  we  go, 
Through  love,  through  hope,  and  faith's  transcendent  dower, 
We  feel  that  we  are  greater  than  we  know. 

—  WORDSWORTH. 

SELDOM  or  never  has  the  early  history  and  the  line  of  develop- 
ment of  a  New  England  town  turned  so  predominantly  on  the 
choices  and  actions  of  a  single  individual,  as  has  proven  to  be  the 
case  with  Williarnstown.  Ephraim  Williams  was  a  bachelor.  For 
a  considerable  portion  of  his  early  manhood  he  followed  the  seas, 
having  certainly  visited  in  his  voyages  Holland,  Spain,  and  England. 
Neither  before  nor  after  this  seafaring  portion  of  his  life  had  he  an 
agreeable  and  settled  home  of  his  own.  He  lost  his  mother  when 
just  turned  of  four  years;  and,  with  his  uterine  younger  brother 
Thomas,  found  such  a  home  and  schooling  as  his  grandfather  Jack- 
son could  furnish  in  his  native  hamlet  of  Newton,  on  the  Charles 
River.,  By  his  will  Jackson  left  two  hundred  pounds  each  to  these 
boys,  saying  in  connection  with  that  that  he  had  already  spent  con- 
siderable sums  upon  their  "  education."  So  far  as  the  older  brother 
was  concerned,  it  is  evident  from  his  letters  and  other  papers  still 
extant  that  this  education  was  neither  considerable  in  itself  nor 
satisfactory  to  the  recipient.  Mr.  Fitch,  the  first  preceptor  of  the 
free  school,  had  this  to  say  on  that  point  forty-five  years  after  the 
Colonel's  death:  "He  had  a  taste  for  books,  and  often  lamented 
his  want  of  a  liberal  education  ;  he  witnessed  with  humane  and 
painful  sensations  the  dangers  and  difficulties  and  hardships  which 

151 


152  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

the  first  settlers  had  to  encounter ;  and,  to  encourage  them,  he  inti- 
mated his  intention  of  doing  something  liberal  and  handsome  for 
them." 

During  the  last  eleven  years  of  his  life,  1744-55,  he  was  almost 
constantly  in  the  military  service  of  his  native  colony.  He  com- 
manded the  line  of  forts  in  the  northwest  quarter  of  the  colony,  at 
first  in  Fort  Shirley  and  later  in  Fort  Massachusetts.  When  the 
house-lots  in  West  Hoosac  were  opened  up  for  settlement,  he  encour- 
aged the  common  soldiers  then  in  the  latter  fort  to  buy  lots  and  to 
settle  on  them,  by  purchasing  himself  two  of  the  lots,  Nos.  8  and  10, 
and  further  assisted  fifteen  of  these  soldiers  at  one  time  to  pay  for 
their  lots  by  a  negotiation  in  their  behalf  with  the  General  Court  at 
Boston.  He  was  as  much  the  father  of  the  hamlet  as  he  became  the 
founder  of  the  free  school.  He  made  temporary  homes  at  different 
times  during  these  years  with  his  father  at  Stockbridge,  with  his 
cousin,  Israel  Williams,  at  Hatfield,  and  with  his  own  brother 
Thomas  at  Deerfield.  He  was  also  a  good  deal  in  Boston,  and 
acquired  under  the  circumstances  a  remarkable  influence  over  the 
General  Court.  The  prevalent  custom  of  the  times,  and  the  exam- 
ple of  his  father,  led  him  into  the  buying  and  selling  of  lands  in 
several  of  the  towns  of  the  colony  ;  and  thus  and  otherwise  he  came 
by  the  time  he  was  forty  years  old  to  possess  what  was  deemed  in 
those  days  "a  competence."  The  alternatives  of  marriage  and  no 
educational  bequest,  or  an  educational  bequest  and  no  marriage,  were 
certainly  before  his  mind  that  summer  and  particularly  the  next, 
when  the  Crown  Point  expedition  was  impending,  in  which  he  was 
to  command  a  Massachusetts  regiment.  The  issue  of  this  mental 
and  moral  balancing,  the  incidents  and  determinants  of  which  we 
are  almost  wholly  ignorant  of,  was  in  the  last  degree  fortunate  to 
his  memory,  to  his  contemporaries,  and  to  untold  generations  of 
succeeding  men. 

In  passing  through  Albany  on  his  way  to  the  battle  at  Lake 
George,  in  which  he  was  killed,  Sept.  8,  1755,  he  caused  his  last 
will  and  testament  to  be  drawn  up  by  a  scrivener  of  that  city, 
and  signed  it  in  the  presence  of  Noah  Belding  and  Eichard  Cart- 
wright,  in  which  the  vital  clause  ran  as  follows:  — 

Item.  It  is  my  will  and  pleasure  and  desire  that  the  remaining  part  of  lands 
not  yet  disposed  of  shall  be  sold  at  the  direction  of  my  executors,  within  five 
years  of  an  established  peace,  and  the  interest  of  the  money,  and  also  the  inter- 
est of  my  money,  arising  by  my  bonds  and  notes,  shall  be  appropriated  towards 
the  support  and  maintenance  of  a  free  school  (in  a  township  west  of  Fort  Mas- 
sachusetts, commonly  called  the  West  Township),  forever,  provided  the  said 


WILLIAMSTOWN   FREE   SCHOOL.  153 

township  fall  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Massachusetts  Bay,  and  provided 
also  that  the  Governor  and  General  Court  give  the  said  township  the  name  of 
Williamstown. 


The  will  nominated  and  appointed  "  my  trusty  and  well-beloved 
friends,"  Israel  Williams  of  Hatfield  and  John  Worthington  of 
Springfield,  to  be  the  executors ;  and  in  sending  a  copy  of  the  will 
to  the  former  the  day  on  which  it  was  drawn,  the  Colonel  showed  in 
a  letter  accompanying  it  on  which  of  its  clauses  his  own  heart  lay, 
—  "  You  will  perceive  I  have  given  something  for  the  benefit  of  those 
unborn,  and  for  the  sake  of  those  poor  creatures  I  am  mostly  concerned, 
for  fear  my  will  should  be  broke."  This  letter  had  also  two  post- 
scripts, both  of  which  are  significant ;  the  first :  —  "  In  my  will  you  ivill 
find  I  ordered  some  money  for  the  benefit  of  the  East  town.  I  don't 
know  that  it  will  be  enough  for  the  will,  but  so  far  as  it  goes  will  pay 

well,  and  then  some  good  will  come  out  of  it"  And  the  second : 

"  Let  no  one  but  yourself  and  John  Worthington  know  what  my  will 
contains" 

Those  two  "trusty  and  well-beloved  friends,"  both  of  them  promi- 
nent among  the  so-called  "  river-gods,"  as  the  most  influential  of  the 
then  political  leaders  on  the  Connecticut  were  styled  in  Boston  cir- 
cles, became  faithful  executors  and  patient  administrators  under  the 
will  of  Colonel  Williams.  For  thirty  years  from  its  date  they 
nursed  the  little  properties,  such  as  they  were,  lands  and  notes  and 
bonds ;  they  paid  oif  from  time  to  time  the  numerous  small  bequests 
in  money,  distributed  the  books  and  other  personal  items  as  the  will 
directed ;  and  they  cared  sagaciously  for  the  remainder  of  the  prop- 
erty, adding  interest  to  principal  and  reinvesting  as  occasion  re- 
quired. Early  in  1785,  four  years  previous  to  the  death  of  Williams 
and  while  the  odium  that  attached  to  both  of  them  as  Tories  in  the 
Revolution  was  still  smouldering,  they  reported  the  condition  of  their 
trust  to  the  General  Court  of  Massachusetts,  and  applied  for  the  pas- 
sage of  a  legislative  Act  to  enable  them  to  fulfil,  so  far  as  they  were 
concerned,  the  benevolent  intention  of  the  testator.  Accordingly, 
on  the  8th  of  March,  1785,  an  Act  was  passed  by  what  we  may  call 
the  State  of  Massachusetts  creating  a  body  politic,  a  non-terminable 
corporation,  under  the  name  of  "  The  Trustees  of  the  Donation  of 
Ephraim  Williams,  Esq.,  for  maintaining  a  Free  School  in  Williams- 
town."  The  Act  itself  appointed  the  original  nine  trustees,  em- 
powered them  to  receive  from  the  executors  of  the  will  the  proceeds 
of  their  trust,  which  at  that  time  amounted  to  $  9157,  and  to  go  on 
and  erect  a  building  and  to  manage  in  all  things  the  Free  School 


154  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

under  the  visitation  and  direction  of  the  Supreme  Judicial  Court  of 
the  Commonwealth. 

It  is  probably  due  to  the  reader,  —  at  least  to  the  reader  of  the 
twentieth  century,  —  that  the  original  charter  of  the  Free  School  be 
printed  in  this  place  in  full ;  as  it  will  perhaps  be  due  to  the  same 
character  to  print  on  a  later  page  the  original  charter  of  the  college 
granted  eight  years  later.  In  connection  with  the  charter  of  the 
Free  School  will  also  here  be  printed  part  of  an  "  Act  for  granting  a 
lottery  for  the  purpose  of  erecting  a  suitable  building  for  the  use  of 
the  Free  School  in  Williamstown." 

An  act  for  directing  the  use  and  appropriation  of  a  charitable  donation,  made  in 
a  certain  clause  in  the  last  will  and  testament  of  EPHRAIM  WILLIAMS,  ESQ., 
for  the  support  and  maintenance  of  a  Free  School  in  Williamstown,  in  the 
County  of  Berkshire  ;  and  for  incorporating  certain  persons  as  trustees,  in 
order  more  effectually  to  execute  the  intention  of  the  testator,  expressed  in 
the  same. 

Whereas,  Israel  Williams,  Esq.,  and  John  Worthington,  Esq.,  executors  of 
the  last  will  and  testament  of  Ephraim  Williams,  Esq.,  deceased,  have  repre- 
sented to  this  court  that  the  said  Ephraim  Williams,  on  the  twenty-second  day 
of  July,  Anno  Domino  one  thousand  seven  hundred  and  fifty-five,  made  his  last 
will  and  testament ;  in  which,  after  divers  bequests,  devises  and  dispositions,  is 
contained  the  following  clause,  viz.  : 

Item:  "It  is  my  will,  desire  and  pleasure  that  the  remaining  part  of  the 
lauds,  not  yet  disposed  of,  shall  be  sold  at  the  discretion  of  my  executors,  within 
five  years  after  an  established  peace  ;  and  the  interest  of  the  money  arid  also  the 
interest  arising  from  my  bonds  and  notes,  shall  be  appropriated  towards  the  sup- 
port and  maintenance  of  a  Free  School,  in  a  township  west  of  Fort  Massachu- 
setts, commonly  called  the  West  Township,  forever  ;  provided,  the  said  township 
shall  fall  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  province  of  Massachusetts  Bay  ;  and  pro- 
vided, also,  the  Governor  and  General  Court  give  the  said  township  the  name  of 
Williamstown  ;  and  it  is  my  further  will  and  desire,  that  if  there  should  remain 
any  monies  of  the  above  donation  for  the  school,  it  be  given  towards  the  support 
of  a  school  in  the  East  Township,  where  the  fort  now  stands  ;  but  in  case  the 
above  provisos  are  not  complied  with,  then  it  is  my  will  and  choice  that  the  in- 
terest of  the  above-mentioned  monies  be  appropriated  to  some  pious  and  chari- 
table uses,  in  manner  and  form  as  above  directed  in  the  former  part  of  this  my 
last  will  and  testament." 

And,  whereas  the  said  executors  have  further  represented,  that  it  may  be  a 
matter  of  doubt  and  uncertainty  whether  the  township  mentioned  in  the  above 
recited  clause  (which  is  now  incorporated  by  the  name  of  Williamstown),  has  so 
far  fallen  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  province  of  Massachusetts,  now  Com- 
monwealth of  Massachusetts,  in  the  sense  of  the  testator,  as  that  they  might  be 
justified  in  appropriating  the  said  donation  to  the  support  and  maintenance  of  a 
Free  School  in  the  same  town  ;  and  have  submitted  their  duty  herein  to  the  de- 
termination of  this  court  praying  that  an  act  may  be  passed  to  declare  their 
duty,  and  to  indemnify  them  in  the  execution  of  the  same. 


WILLIAMSTOWN   FREE   SCHOOL.  155 

SECTION  1 .  Be  it  enacted  by  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives,  in 
General  Court  assembled,  and  by  authority  of  the  same,  that  the  donation  made 
in  the  clause  before  recited,  ought  to  be  presently  applied  and  appropriated  to 
the  use  and  maintenance  of  a  Free  School  in  the  town  of  Williamstown,  in  the 
County  of  Berkshire,  and  that  in  case  the  said  donation  shall  afford  an  annual 
interest  more  than  sufficient  for  the  supporting  and  maintaining  such  school  in 
Williamstown,  then  the  surplusage  be  appropriated  to  the  use  and  maintenance 
of  a  Free  School  in  the  tract  of  land  called  by  the  testator  the  East  Township, 
now  incorporated  by  the  name  of  Adams,  with  other  lands  adjoining,  and  that 
the  said  executors  be,  and  hereby  are  indemnified  in  applying  and  appropriating 
the  said  donation  to  the  uses  above  expressed,  and  shall  be  liable  to  no  action  or 
suit  in  law  or  equity,  on  account  of  such  appropriations. 

And,  whereas  the  said  executors  have  further  prayed  that  for  carrying  into 
complete  execution  the  intention  of  the  testator,  a  corporation  may  be  created 
and  vested  with  such  powers  as  may  be  necessary  for  that  purpose. 

SECTION  2.  Be  it  therefore  enacted  by  the  authority  aforesaid,  that  William 
Williams  of  Dalton,  Theodore  Sedgwick,  Woodbridge  Little,  John  Bacon,  Thom- 
son Joseph  Skinner,  Esquires,  the  Reverend  Seth  Swift  and  Daniel  Collins,  Mr. 
Israel  Jones  and  Mr.  David  Noble,  and  their  successors,  to  be  elected  and  ap- 
pointed as  hereinafter  directed  and  provided,  be,  and  hereby  are  incorporated, 
and  shall  be  a  corporation  forever,  by  the  name  of  "  The  Trustees  of  the  donation 
of  Ephraim  Williams,  Esq.,  for  maintaining  a  Free  School  in  Williamstown ; " 
and  that  the  said  trustees  and  their  successors  be,  and  hereby  are  vested  with 
all  the  powers,  rights  and  immunities,  which  are  by  law  incident  to  aggregate 
eleemosynary  corporations. 

SECTION  3.  And  be  it  further  enacted,  that  the  said  corporation  shall  always 
consist  of  a  number  of  not  less  than  seven,  nor  more  than  nine  persons,  excepting 
only  that  whenever  a  vacancy  shall  happen  by  the  death,  removal,  refusal  or  res- 
ignation of  any  member  or  members,  so  that  the  number  be  reduced  to  less  than 
the  aforesaid  number  of  seven,  then  the  remaining  or  surviving  trustees  shall 
have  full  power  to  perform  all  corporate  acts  until  such  vacancy  be  supplied  ; 
and  the  said  trustees  shall  elect  and  appoint  a  clerk  of  the  corporation,  who  shall 
fairly  enter  and  record  all  votes,  acts,  orders  and  proceedings,  made,  done  or 
passed  by  the  trustees  ;  and  shall  also  elect  a  proper  person  to  be  their  treasurer, 
who  shall  receive  into  his  hands  all  monies  belonging  to  the  corporation,  and  pay 
out  the  same  pursuant  to  the  order  of  the  trustees,  and  shall  always  keep  a  fair 
account  of  all  receipts  and  payments. 

SECTION  4.  And  be  it  further  enacted,  that  the  power  of  electing  and  appoint- 
ing successors  in  case  of  the  death,  removal,  refusal  or  resignation  of  any  of  the 
trustees,  be,  and  hereby  is  vested  solely  in  the  Supreme  Judicial  Court  of  this 
Commonwealth  ;  and  whenever  any  of  the  above  mentioned  cases  shall  happen, 
the  trustees  shall,  as  soon  as  conveniently  may  be,  certify  the  same  to  the  Jus- 
tices of  the  said  court,  that  a  successor  may  be  appointed  ;  and  the  Justices  of 
the  same  court  are  hereby  empowered  to  remove  from  office  and  trust  any  mem- 
ber of  the  corporation  who  shall,  in  their  judgment,  be  unfit  to  hold  the  same, 
by  reason  of  incapacity,  misdemeanor,  negligence,  or  breach  of  trust. 

And  to  the  intent  that  the  said  donation  may  not  be  wasted,  mismanaged,  or 
perverted  from  its  original  intention. 

SECTION  5.    Be  it  further  enacted  by  the  authority  aforesaid,  that  the  said 


156  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND  WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

corporation,  and  the  donation  itself,  shall  always  be  under  the  visitation  and 
direction  of  the  Supreme  Judicial  Court,  who  are  hereby  empowered  to  visit  the 
said  corporation  to  rectify  all  abuses,  to  determine  all  matters  of  doubt  or  dis- 
pute touching  the  duty  of  the  trustees,  and  the  use,  application  or  appropriation 
of  monies  or  interests  to  the  same  donation  belonging  ;  and  to  make  all  such 
orders  and  regulations  with  respect  to  the  use,  management  and  appropriation 
of  the  same  donation  and  every  part  thereof,  as  they  shall  judge  necessary  or 
useful  in  order  to  promote  the  best  interest  of  the  school,  according  to  the  true 
meaning  and  intention  of  the  testator  and  such  laws  of  this  commonwealth  as 
may  be  in  force  respecting  the  same ;  and  the  said  court,  whenever  they  shall 
judge  necessary,  shall  cause  the  said  trustees  to  come  before  them,  either  to  ren- 
der an  account  of  expenditures  and  dispositions  of  monies,  or  to  answer  for  any 
mismanagement  or  breach  of  trust ;  and  the  trustees  shall  appear  and  lay  their 
accounts,  papers,  records  and  corporation  books  before  the  said  court  for  in- 
spection, whenever  they  shall  be  required  thereto. 

SECTION  6.  And  be  it  further  enacted,  that  the  said  trustees  and  their  suc- 
cessors forever,  shall  have  the  possession,  management  and  disposition  of  the 
whole  interest  and  estate,  real  and  personal,  which  is  contained  in  and  given, 
bequeathed,  devised  or  disposed  of  by  the  above  recited  clause  in  the  will  afore- 
said ;  and  they  are  hereby  empowered  and  directed,  as  soon  as  conveniently 
may  be,  to  erect  and  maintain  a  Free  School  within  the  said  town  of  Williams- 
town,  for  the  instruction  of  youth,  in  such  manner  as  most  effectually  to  answer 
the  pious,  generous  and  charitable  intention  of  the  testator,  and  agreeable  to 
such  orders  and  directions  as  they  may,  from  time  to  time,  receive  from  the  Su- 
preme Judicial  Court ;  and  they  are  hereby  empowered  to  appoint  and  employ 
instructors,  masters  and  officers  as  shall  be  necessary  for  that  purpose. 

And  to  the  intent  that  the  said  trustees  may  be  enabled,  in  the  most  easy  and 
expeditious  manner,  to  receive  into  their  own  possession  and  management  the 
whole  estate,  property  and  interest  contained  in  the  aforesaid  donation. 

SECTION  7.  Be  it  further  enacted  by  the  authority  aforesaid,  that  the  said 
executors  shall,  at  the  request  of  the  trustees,  make  and  execute  to  the  said  trus- 
tees a  deed  or  deeds  of  conveyance  of  all  such  lands  or  real  estate  as  belong  to 
said  donation,  arid  yet  remain  unfold  in  which  deed  or  deeds  it  shall  be  expressed 
that  the  executors  do  grant  to  the  trustees  the  right,  estate  and  interest  of  the 
testator,  and  of  themselves,  in  and  to  the  described  lands  or  tenements  to  the 
trustees  and  their  successors  forever  ;  and  the  said  executors  shall  deliver  over 
into  the  hands  of  the  trustees,  at  their  request,  all  such  personal  securities  or 
mortgages  as  the  executors  now  have  in  their  own  hands,  and  which  are  a  part 
of  the  same  donation ;  all  which  securities,  whether  bonds,  promissory  notes, 
mortgage,  deeds,  or  of  what  name  or  description  soever,  being  endorsed  with  the 
name  of  the  said  executors,  or  one  of  them,  and  delivered  as  aforesaid,  shall  be- 
come the  property  of  the  trustees  to  all  intents  and  purposes  ;  and  they  are 
hereby  empowered,  in  the  name  of  the  corporation,  to  bring  any  action  or 
actions  against  the  obligors,  promissors,  mortgagors  or  tenants,  for  recovering 
the  contents  of  the  same  securities  or  possession  of  mortgaged  estates,  which 
action  or  actions  shall  be  holden  to  be  good  and  valid  in  law  for  that  purpose, 
as  if  the  securities  or  mortgage  deeds  had  been  originally  made  to  the  trustees  by 
their  corporate  names. 

And,  whereas  the  testator  has  directed,  that  in  case  his  principal  donation 


WILLIAMSTOWN   FREE    SCHOOL.  157 

should  afford  an  interest  more  than  sufficient  for  the  support  and  maintenance  of 
the  school  in  Williamstown,  the  surplusage  should  be  improved  to  the  use  of  a 
school  in  the  East  Township,  now  called  Adams,  in  the  said  County  of  Berk- 
shire ;  and  whereas  questions  and  disputes  may  arise  touching  the  meaning  and 
extent  of  this  part  of  the  will,  and  when  there  may  be  said  to  be  a  surplusage  be- 
yond what  should  be  necessary,  according  to  the  intent  of  the  testator,  for  the 
support  of  the  school  in  Williamstown. 

SECTION  8.  Be  it  further  enacted,  that  in  case  of  such  surplusage,  the  said 
trustees  are  hereby  empowered  and  directed  to  use  and  employ  the  same  for 
erecting  and  supporting  a  Free  School  in  the  said  town  of  Adams,  in  the  same 
manner  as  has  been  in  this  act  before  provided  in  respect  of  the  school  in  Wil- 
liamstown ;  and  that  all  questions  and  disputes  that  may  arise  concerning  such 
surplusage,  and  the  duty  of  the  trustees  in  respect  of  the  several  schools,  shall 
be  determined  by  the  Supreme  Judicial  Court ;  and  the  trustees  shall  always 
conform  their  conduct  and  administration  herein,  to  such  orders  and  determina- 
tions as  shall,  from  time  to  time,  be  made  by  the  same  court. 

SECTION  9.  And  be  it  further  enacted,  that  the  Supreme  Judicial  Court  may, 
at  their  discretion,  exercise  all  the  powers  vested  in  them  by  virtue  of  this  act, 
at  any  of  their  sessions  holden  within  the  counties  of  Berkshire  or  Hampshire  ; 
and  in  all  trials  at  law,  the  court  ex-officio  shall  take  notice  of  this  act  to  all  in- 
tents and  purposes  whatsoever,  and  the  same  shall  be  given  in  evidence  under 
any  general  issue. 

[This  act  passed  March  8,  1785.] 

Part  of  an  "  act  for  granting  a  lottery  for  the  purpose  of  erecting  a  suitable 
building  for  the  use  of  the  Free  School  in  Williamstown." 

Whereas  it  appears  that  it  would  promote  the  education  of  youth  to  erect  a 
suitable  building  for  the  accommodation  of  the  Free  School  in  Williamstown, 
and  the  trustees  of  said  school  have  represented  their  inability  to  accomplish  the 
same  without  the  aid  of  the  Legislature,  and  have  requested  that  a  lottery  may 
be  granted  for  that  purpose  : 

Be  it  enacted  by  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  in  General  Court 
assembled,  and  by  the  authority  of  the  same,  that  there  be,  and  hereby  is  granted 
a  lottery,  for  raising  a  sum  not  exceeding  twelve  hundred  pounds,  the  profits  of 
which,  after  paying  the  necessary  expenses  of  managing  the  same,  shall  be  ap- 
plied for  the  purpose  of  erecting  the  aforesaid  building. 

[This  act  passed  February  11,  1789.] 

Before  entering  upon  the  successive  votes  and  action  of  this 
short-lived  corporation  as  such,  it  will  be  well  briefly  to  characterize 
the  distinct  individuals  that  composed  it,  especially  as  all  of  them, 
with  four  others,  came  to  be  the  original  trustees  of  Williams  College, 
which  was  chartered  June  22,  1793. 

1.  THEODORE  SEDGWICK,  of  Sheffield  and  Stockbridge.  He  was 
in  the  straight  line  of  descent  from  Kobert  Sedgwick,  one  of  the 
major-generals  in  the  army  of  Oliver  Cromwell.  He  was  born  at 
Hartford  in  May,  1746 ;  studied  for  a  while  at  Yale  College  with 


158  WILLIAMSTOWN  AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

the  class  of  1765 ;  pursued  his  legal  studies  with  Colonel  Mark  Hop- 
kins at  Great  Barrington,  and  was  admitted  to  the  bar  in  1766,  and 
in  1785  took  up  as  a  lawyer  his  permanent  residence  in  Stockbridge, 
where  he  lived  thereafter  till  his  death  in  January,  1813.  He  was 
a  monarchist  in  feeling  throughout  his  life ;  but  at  the  outbreak  of 
the  Revolution  he  took  the  side  of  his  country,  and  served  as  aide- 
de-camp  to  General  Thomas  in  the  unfortunate  Canada  expedition  in 
1776.  He  became  influential  in  suppressing  what  is  called  Shays's 
Rebellion  in  Massachusetts,  —  a  worthy  service  indeed,  but  one  that 
had  much  bearing  on  politics  in  Berkshire  for  many  years  thereafter. 
In  the  Convention  called  by  the  State  of  Massachusetts  for  the  pur- 
pose of  ratifying  or  rejecting  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
as  framed  at  Philadelphia  in  the  summer  of  1787,  Theodore  Sedg- 
wick  was  prominent  and  patriotic,  while  his  influence  was  not  felt 
by  and  over  that  portion  of  the  delegates  consisting  of  farmers  and 
artisans  in  anything  like  the  degree  of  that  of  Jonathan  Smith  of 
Lanesboro.  Both  favored  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution;  both 
debated  warmly  in  its  behalf ;  and  the  names  of  these  two  Berkshire 
delegates  stand  together  in  the  list  of  187  who  voted  Yea  on  the  final 
question.  But  a  list  of  168,  who  voted  Nay,  exhibits  not  only  the 
narrow  majority  in  a  time  of  crisis  for  a  national  Union,  but  also 
the  great  and  recognized  service  of  Smith  in  winning  so  many  as  he 
did  from  the  less  titled  and  more  yeomanly  part  of  the  Convention. 

The  service  by  which  Sedgwick  will  be  longest  remembered  oc- 
curred in  the  ordinary  practice  of  his  profession  in  southern  Berk- 
shire. A  neighbor  of  his,  a  very  prominent  man,  Colonel  John 
Ashley,  one  of  the  richest  men  in  the  county,  held  as  a  part  of  his 
property  a  number  of  negro  slaves,  one  of  whom,  a  woman  of  extraor- 
dinary character  and  intelligence,  has  become  more  famous  and  is 
likely  to  continue  so  than  any  other  woman  of  her  race  in  the  coun- 
try. She  ran  away  from  her  master  on  the  ground  of  alleged  ill- 
treatment,  and  declared  she  would  never  return  to  him.  Ashley 
sued  to  recover  his  property,  and  retained  David  Noble  of  Williams- 
town  as  his  lawyer  in  the  case.  All  the  steps  of  the  legal  process 
are  not  a  matter  of  record ;  but  Sedgwick  interested  himself  in  her 
case  particularly,  and  in  that  of  another  of  Ashley's  slaves  named 
Brom.  In  August,  1781,  the  issue  was  joined  in  the  Court  of  Com- 
mon Pleas  for  Berkshire  County,  in  the  form  of  "Brom  and  Bet 
versus  Ashley."  The  defendant  pleaded  that  the  plaintiffs  were  his 
negro  servants  for  life.  Sedgwick  was  associated  in  the  case  with 
Tapping  Reeve,  the  distinguished  lawyer  of  Litchfield,  and  David 
Noble  was  assisted  by  John  Canfield  of  Sharon.  The  case  was  tried 


WILLIAMSTOWN   FKEE    SCHOOL.  159 

before  a  Berkshire  jury,  and  a  verdict  was  returned  for  the  plaintiffs. 
The  defendant  appealed  to  the  Supreme  Judicial  Court  of  the  State, 
but  the  appeal  was  not  prosecuted  there,  and  the  judgment  of  the 
court  below  was  affirmed.  If  the  arguments  in  this  case  pro  and  con 
had  been  preserved,  they  would  have  made  most  interesting  reading 
to  this  day ;  but  unfortunately  they  have  not  been  preserved  even  in 
outline,  and  we  do  not  know  even  the  principles  011  which  the  case 
was  decided,  whether  the  court  in  its  charge  to  the  jury  laid  down 
certain  legal  principles  derived  from  the  Bill  of  Eights  of  the  then 
recently  adopted  Constitution  of  Massachusetts  (as  it  is  believed  that 
Sedgwick  and  Reeve  argued),  or  whether  the  jury  decided  from 
the  special  circumstances  of  the  case.  It  has  often  been  claimed, 
that  this  single  judgment  of  the  Berkshire  court,  as  affirmed  by  the 
court  above,  abolished  slavery  in  Massachusetts.  One  thing  is  certain, 
that  thereafter  a  number  of  slaves  in  various  parts  of  the  Common- 
wealth sued  out  their  freedom,  and  were  in  every  case  successful. 

The  grateful  Bet,  which  is  only  the  shortening  of  Betsey,  the  com- 
mon synonym  in  New  England  of  Elizabeth,  —  her  real  name  being 
Elizabeth  Freeman,  —  became  a  lifelong  inmate  of  Sedg wick's  house, 
and  lies  buried  with  the  family  with  appropriate  headstone  and  epi- 
taph in  the  beautiful  Stockbridge  cemetery.  The  other  servants,  out 
of  respect  to  her  character,  called  her  Madam  Bet,  which  soon 
degenerated  into  Marm  Bet,  and  then  the  children  of  the  family  — 
to  whom  she  was  nurse  —  contracted  it  to  Mum  Bet.  Just  before 
she  died  she  gave  her  necklace  of  gold  beads  to  Catherine  Sedgwick, 
the  youngest  daughter  of  the  family,  who  valued  it  highly,  and  had 
the  beads  formed  into  a  bracelet,  as  more  convenient  for  her  own 
wear.  Before  her  death  she  gave  the  bracelet  to  her  niece,  Mrs. 
Minot,  and  she  to  her  own  daughter,  at  whose  decease  Mr.  Minot 
presented  the  relic  to  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society,  January, 
1884,  which  thereupon  passed  the  following  resolution :  — 

Resolved,  That  the  thanks  of  this  Society  be  returned  to  William  Minot,  Esq., 
for  the  very  interesting  relic  which  he  has  presented  for  our  Cabinet,  and  that 
we  shall  gladly  give  it  a  place  among  our  most  precious  memorials. 

On  whatever  principle  Sedgwick  may  have  argued  this  case  before 
the  county  court  in  1781.  after  he  was  appointed  a  judge  of  the 
Supreme  Judicial  Court  in  1802,  he  gave  a  judicial  opinion  in  the 
case  of  Greenwood  vs.  Curtis,  in  which,  maintaining  the  principles 
declared  by  Lord  Mansfield  in  the  case  of  the  negro  Somerset,  Judge 
Sedgwick  broadly  argued,  that  by  the  law  of  Nature,  which  on  this 
question  remained  the  law  of  Massachusetts,  one  man  cannot  have  a 


160  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

legitimate  property  in  another,  and  that  any  contract  involving  such 
property  was  therefore  malum  in  se  and  void. 

When  the  present  Constitution  of  the  United  States  went  into 
practical  operation  in  April,  1789,  as  between  the  eleven  States  that 
had  then  ratified  it,  and  it  became  necessary  for  these  States  to 
choose  their  Representatives  in  Congress,  Theodore  Sedgwick  was  by 
much  the  most  prominent  political  character  in  the  western  end  of 
Massachusetts,  which  constituted  one  of  the  congressional  districts. 
Shays's  Rebellion  of  1787  had  left  behind  it  a  deal  of  ill  feeling  in 
Berkshire  from  Williamstown  to  Sheffield,  and  those  who  sympa- 
thized with  Shays  felt  particularly  aggrieved  at  Sedgwick,  for  he  had 
openly  scorned  their  political  demands  and  been  largely  instrumental 
in  putting  them  down  in  the  field.  The  outbreak  was  occasioned  by 
general  popular  dissatisfaction  at  the  pressure  of  taxation,  the  bur- 
densome salaries  of  state  officials,  and  the  scarcity  of  money  after 
the  universal  collapse  of  the  Continental  bills.  The  usual  effects 
had  followed  the  protracted  use  of  irredeemable  paper  money  now 
become  worthless.  Debts  had  been  incurred  in  the  terms  of  a  grossly 
depreciated  money,  and  farms  and  homes  had  been  mortgaged  by 
many  of  the  soldiers  for  the  sustenance  of  their  families  while  they 
were  away  fighting  the  battles  of  their  country.  With  peace  re- 
turned, the  old  courts  were  opened  for  the  collection  of  debts  and 
foreclosures  of  farms.  The  yeomanry  in  many  places  were  mad- 
dened. Eiotous  action  took  place  at  several  of  the  county-seats  in 
Massachusetts  in  order  to  stop  the  sessions  of  the  courts,  particularly 
at  Worcester  and  Springfield.  Of  150  who  were  captured,  14  were 
tried  and  sentenced  to  death;  but  such  was  the  state  of  public 
opinion  and  the  general  sympathy  with  Shays's  men,  that  all  the  con- 
victed were  pardoned,  and  all  the  prisoners  released,  and  no  one  was 
ever  penally  punished  for  any  participation.  Shays  himself  was  also 
pardoned,  and  retired  to  Sparta,  New  York,  where  he  died  in  1825, 
with  a  pension  from  the  United  States  for  Revolutionary  services  of 
high  character. 

The  odium  always  attaching  to  just  beaten  combinations  of  men, 
together  with  the  feeling  of  many  excellent  citizens  that  Shays's 
men  had  sought  to  enforce  their  demands  in  a  wrong  way  and  at  a 
wrong  time,  enabled  Sedgwick  to  be  chosen  to  the  national  House 
of  Representatives  to  the  first  and  second  and  third  and  fourth  Con- 
gresses by  the  popular  vote.  He  had  previously  been  appointed  by 
the  Legislature  to  serve  in  the  old  Congress  of  the  Confederation  in 
1785  and  1786,  and  had  accepted  the  position  both  times.  The  gen- 
eral trend  of  his  politics,  however,  during  the  last  decade  of  the  last 


WILLIAMSTOWN    FREE   SCHOOL.  161 

century,  made  him  more  popular  in  the  Legislature  at  Boston  than 
among  his  own  constituents  in  Berkshire.  A  vacancy  fell  to  the 
State  in  the  national  Senate  in  March,  1796,  and  Sedgwick  was 
chosen  to  fill  out  the  vacancy  of  three  years,  covering  the  last  part 
of  the  fourth  Congress  and  the  whole  of  the  fifth.  This  of  course 
made  a  gap  in  the  House  from  the  Berkshire  district,  which  was 
twice  filled  in  the  interval  by  popular  election  and  by  a  man 
extremely  different  from  Sedgwick  in  training  and  in  political 
tendencies,  and  who  will  be  pretty  soon  characterized  at  length. 
Nevertheless,  Sedgwick  was  again  chosen  by  the  people  of  Berk- 
shire a  member  of  the  House  for  the  sixth  Congress  and  was  elected 
its  speaker.  This  service  completed,  he  was  appointed  a  judge  of 
the  Supreme  Judicial  Court  of  Massachusetts  in  1802,  and  died 
highly  honored  in  that  position  in  1813.  By  temperament  \and 
political  conviction  he  was  a  Federalist,  in  contradistinction  to  those 
both  North  and  South  who  adhered  to  the  principles  of  Jefferson, 
and  who  were  called  at  first  Republicans  and  afterward  Democrats. 
While  in  Congress  he  was  intimately  associated  with  Alexander 
Hamilton,  Fisher  Ames,  John  Jay,  Rufus  King,  Edward  Rutledge, 
and  the  other  leaders  of  the  old  Federal  party.  This  was  not  a 
party  destined  to  survive  in  a  free  country,  because  its  corner-stone 
was  privilege  secured  by  law  to  the  relatively  few  at  the  expense 
of  the  relatively  many.  After  the  accession  of  Jefferson  to  .the 
presidency  in  1801,  the  old  Federal  party  disappeared,  as  every 
party  of  privilege,  however  prompt  to  put  in  an  appearance  from 
time  to  time,  must  disappear  before  equal  rights  and  opportunities. 
The  point  to  note  here  is  that  Theodore  Sedgwick,  one  of  the  lead- 
ing men  of  the  country  both  privately  and  officially,  was  willing  to 
give  of  his  time  and  strength  assiduously  to  the  interests  of  a  little 
free  school  in  Williamstown ;  and  when  the  school  became  a  college, 
so  called,  he  continued  to  give  it  the  benefit  of  his  attendance  and 
counsel  so  long  as  he  lived. 

2.  TOMPSON  JOSEPH  SKINNER  of  Williamstown.  This  man,  so 
prominent  in  state  and  nation  as  the  eighteenth  century  went  out 
into  the  next,  is  now  almost  everywhere  forgotten  as  the  nineteenth 
is  passing  into  the  twentieth  century.  But  his  is  a  name  that  will 
last  as  long  as  town  records  have  interest  and  instruction  for  mortal 
men.  No  other  citizen  of  Williamstown  during  its  first  three  half 
centuries  has  ever  had  so  remarkable  a  career  as  within  the  town ; 
and  it  has  been  said  by  some,  most  likely  to  know  the  truth,  that 
no  other  citizen  of  Massachusetts  up  to  the  present  time  has  ever 
held  the  number  and  variety  of  high  official  positions  as  this  man 


162  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

held  in  the  twenty-five  years,  1781-1807.  With  his  younger  brother, 
Benjamin  Skinner,  Tompson  J.  came  to  Williamstown  to  settle  in 
1775.  They  were  sons  of  Rev.  Thomas  Skinner,  pastor  in  West 
Chester,  one  of  the  parishes  of  Colchester,  from  1740  to  1762,  the 
year  of  his  death.  Their  mother  was  Mary  Thomson,  second  wife 
of  the  minister.  She  had  five  children,  —  three  daughters  and  these 
two  sons,  —  of  whom  Tompson  Joseph  was  born  in  May,  1752,  and 
Benjamin  in  July,  1754.  The  elder  was  only  ten  years  old  when 
the  father  died,  and  the  younger  but  eight,  and  at  the  proper  time 
they  were  both  put  apprentice  by  their  mother  to  a  carpenter  and 
builder.  When  the  younger  brother  was  just  turned  of  twenty-one, 
both  came  to  Williamstown  together,  and  settled  to  their  trade  in 
commercial  company,  —  "  T.  J.  &  B.  Skinner."  The  Eevolution  was 
then  just  opening  on  the  Hoosac,  but  there  was  a  plenty  of  work 
to  be  done,  though  amid  many  interruptions.  The  brothers  certainly 
operated  in  company,  and  appear  to  have  prospered  together.  By 
the  time  Massachusetts  had  adopted  her  new  constitution  of  1780, 
Tompson  J.  had  become  a  captain  of  the  military  company  of  North 
Williamstown,  and  gradually  rose  in  rank  to  become  a  major-general 
of  the  militia  of  the  State.  During  the  four  next  winters,  1781-84 
inclusive,  he  represented  the  town  in  the  new  popular  branch  of  the 
Legislature  at  Boston ;  in  1785,  '86,  '87,  he  represented  his  county 
in  the  Senate  of  the  State ;  in  1798,  '99,  and  1800,  he  went  back  into 
the  popular  branch,  as  well  as  served  in  the  Massachusetts  Conven- 
tion called  to  adopt  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States ;  then  for 
eight  successive  years,  1789-96,  he  served  again  in  the  Senate  of  his 
State,  when  he  was  elected  to  succeed  Theodore  Sedgwick  in  the 
national  House  of  Representatives  throughout  the  fifth  Congress; 
he  served  again  during  the  short  session  of  the  eighth  Congress  in 
the  national  House ;  he  was  chosen  presidential  elector  in  1792 ;  he 
was  later  appointed  by  Jefferson  United  States  Marshal  for  the  dis- 
trict of  Massachusetts  ;  he  was  a  judge  in  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas 
for  Berkshire  County  from  1788  to  1807,  and  presiding  judge  for  the 
greater  part  of  this  time ;  he  became  treasurer  of  the  college  when 
it  was  chartered  in  1793,  but  was  succeeded  in  that  capacity  by 
Daniel  Dewey  in  1798,  when  Skinner  was  serving  in  the  national 
Congress ;  and  during  the  two  years,  1806  and  1807,  he  was  treasurer 
of  the  Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts.  What  a  record  of  public 
service !  It  was  all  the  more  remarkable  because  his  home  was  in 
the  extreme  northwestern  corner  of  the  Commonwealth,  separated 
from  all  the  rest  by  a  very  considerable  watershed  on  the  south  and 
by  a  lofty  mountain  wall  on  the  east. 


WILLIAMSTOWN    FREE    SCHOOL.  163 

Professor  Ebenezer  Kellogg,  of  the  college,  in  writing  of  General 
Skinner  twenty  years  after  his  death,  uses  the  following  language : 
"  He  bore  a  very  active  part  in  the  political  contentions  of  the  period 
of  his  public  life,  and  was  much  distinguished  for  his  spirited  and 
happy  efforts  in  extemporaneous  and  interrupted  debate."  Party  feel- 
ing ran  very  high  at  the  opening  of  the  nineteenth  century  through- 
out the  country,  and  particularly  in  New  England ;  and  those  young 
men,  like  Tompson  Skinner  in  Massachusetts  and  Samuel  Smedley 
in  Connecticut,  who  saw  their  way  clear  and  strong  to  those  equali- 
ties of  natural  rights  and  civil  opportunities  which  were  best  formu- 
lated in  this  country  by  Thomas  Jefferson,  had  a  great  opening 
before  them,  as  have  had  their  genuine  successors  to  this  day. 
Political  privileges  to  certain  classes,  in  contradistinction  to  the 
normal  equalities  of  opportunity,  were  native  to  New  England,  were 
also  native  to  the  South  for  other  reasons,  and  these  have  always 
been  the  radical  bone  of  contention  as  between  the  great  successive 
political  parties,  howsoever  designated ;  but  those  bright  young  men 
of  every  section  and  of  every  generation,  who  have  seen  clearly  the 
beauty  and  power  of  democracy,  who  have  played  fair  and  square, 
who  have  claimed  nothing  for  themselves  or  their  "  set "  in  the  way 
of  political  privileges  over  all  others  like  circumstanced,  have  had 
the  real  and  lasting  influence  as  statesmen  and  have  governed  the 
country  for  the  most  part.  Theodore  Sedgwick  was  of  a  type  of 
men  who  have  had  great  influence  in  many  political  conjunctures  in 
this  country,  and  have  given  great  dignity  to  affairs  from  time  to 
time;  while  men  of  the  type  of  Tompson  J.  Skinner,  both  in  the 
states  and  in  the  nation,  have  been,  as  a  rule,  the  safer  guides  to 
the  people,  the  more  conformable  to  the  universal  doctrines  of 
democracy,  and  have  the  longest  kept  their  personal  hold  on  the 
hearts  of  the  governing  masses.  Neither  type  is  complete  of  itself 
for  political  ends  in  a  popular  government.  No  individual  of  either 
kind  was  ever  personally  or  politically  perfect.  These  two  men, 
Sedgwick  and  Skinner,  were  brought  together  into  close  juxtaposi- 
tion in  the  governing  boards  of  the  Free  School  and  of  the  College, 
in  the  courts  of  the  county  of  Berkshire,  in  constitutional  and  politi- 
cal conventions,  in  both  branches  of  the  state  legislatures,  and  in  the 
halls  of  the  national  Congress ;  but  they  were  politically  the  antipodes 
of  each  other.  Sedgwick  rested  back  more  than  is  safe  upon  privi- 
lege and  distrusted  the  masses  of  the  people ;  Skinner  distrusted 
himself  too  little  as  an  imperfect  individual,  conscious  of  an  abiding 
faith  in  all  the  rest,  and  his  personal  light  accordingly  grew  dim 
and  went  out  in  darkness,  as  we  shall  later  see  and  sorrow  over, 


164  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

while  Sedgwick  kept  to  the  end  his  faith  in  himself  as  one  of  the 
better  and  privileged  class,  and  his  personal  light  grew  brighter  and 
brighter. 

3.  WILLIAM  WILLIAMS  of  Dalton.  We  strike  back  in  this  man, 
who  was  elected  president  of  the  Free  School  board  at  their  first 
meeting  held  in  Pittsfield  in  April,  1785,  into  the  radical  qualities 
and  characteristics  of  the  Williams  family  looked  at  in  their  en- 
tirety. (1)  Strong  political  conservatism ;  (2)  a  pervasive  personal 
and  family  ambition;  and  (3)  a  peculiar  foresight  and  moral  control 
penetrated  and  permeated  by  religious  principle.  Colonel  Israel 
Williams  of  Hatfield,  1709-89,  was  perhaps  as  representative  a 
man  of  his  family  in  all  these  respects  as  ever  presented  himself. 
He  was  the  son  of  Rev.  William  Williams  of  Hatfield,  the  minister 
there  for  fifty-six  years,  dying  in  1741.  Israel  was  half-cousin  to 
Ephraim  the  Founder,  and  own  cousin  to  Colonel  John  Stoddard, 
whom  he  succeeded  in  1748  as  the  colonel  of  the  Hampshire  regi- 
ment. Later,  he  became  "ye  monarch  of  Hampshire,"  chief  among 
the  "  river-gods."  He  continued  irreconciled  to  the  American  Revo- 
lution till  his  dea,th,  and  was  roughly  rabbled  as  a  Tory  by  his  Whig 
neighbors  —  a  circumstance  referred  to  in  a  couple  of  lines  of  the 
contemporary  satirical  poem,  Trumbull's  "  McFingal."  Deacon  Wil- 
liam Williams  of  Dalton  was  this  Colonel  Israel's  son.  He  was  just 
turned  of  twenty-one,  and  had  just  been  graduated  at  Yale  College, 
when  the  words  of  the  Founder's  will  were  penned  at  Albany,  and 
among  those  words  were  these,  "  'in  case  my  brother  Elijah  dies  with- 
out issue,  then  his  part  to  be  given  to  my  cousins,  William  and  Israel 
Williams  [sons  of  Colonel  Israel]  to  be  equally  divided  between  them, 
and  it  is  my  will  and  desire  further  that  my  cousin  William  Williams, 
above  mentioned,  shall  have  the  perusal  of  the  books  hereby  given  to  my 
brothers,  Thomas  and  Elijah,  any  reasonable  time,  upon  his  desire." 
This  William  Williams,  commonly  referred  to  as  Deacon  William 
Williams  of  Dalton,  lived  to  become  (perhaps)  as  efficient  an  agent 
in  the  carrying  out  of  the  central  clause  of  his  kinsman's  will  as  any 
other  individual,  in  that  as  one  of  the  original  trustees  of  the  Free 
School,  and  the  first  and  only  president  of  that  incorporated  board, 
and  also  as  one  of  the  original  trustees  of  the  College  from  1793  till 
his  death  in  1808,  he  was  in  position  to  know  better  than  any  other 
one  of  the  governing  board  what  the  Founder's  wishes  had  in  reality 
been,  and  was  in  position  and  reputation  to  see  those  personal  and 
family  wishes  practically  carried  out  in  action. 

The  way  in  which  the  people  of  Hatfield  in  general,  and  the  Wil- 
liams family  in  particular,  became  interested  in  the  Berkshire  town 


WILLIAMSTOWN    FREE   SCHOOL.  165 

of  Dalton,  so  as  to  color  it  in  its  entire  history,  is  to  be  explained  as 
follows.  A  township  of  land  on  the  Ashuelot  Eiver  had  been 
granted  to  Oliver  Partridge  and  others  of  Hatfield,  under  the  im- 
pression that  it  would  fall  in  Massachusetts  when  the  boundary  line 
was  settled  between  that  colony  and  New  Hampshire ;  but  "  Hazen's 
line,"  as  determined  on  in  1741,  threw  the  tract  into  the  latter  colony  ; 
and  so  the  General  Court  of  Massachusetts  granted  the  Hatfield  par- 
ties what  was  then  called  the  "  Ashuelot  Equivalent,"  or  what  was 
named  Dalton  on  the  incorporation  of  the  tract  in  March,  1784.  The 
settlements  began  on  it  in  1755.  Dr.  Perez  Marsh,  surgeon's  mate 
to  Dr.  Thomas  Williams  of  the  Founder's  regiment  in  the  battle  of 
Lake  George,  a  son-in-law  of  Colonel  Israel  Williams,  a  graduate  of 
Yale  in  1748,  was  the  most  prominent  early  settler  in  Dalton.  He 
was  appointed  a  justice  of  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas  in  1765,  and 
virtually  retired  from  public  life  in  1774,  because  he  did  not  sym- 
pathize with  the  popular  party,  and  died  in  1784.  It  was  about  the 
time  of  Dr.  Marsh's  death  that  his  brother-in-law,  Deacon  William 
Williams,  removed  from  Hatfield  to  Dalton.  He  had  been  for  twenty 
years  clerk  of  the  Court  of  Hampshire  County,  and  was  a  deacon  in 
the  Hatfield  church  when  the  Revolutionary  War  broke  out,  in  the 
propriety  of  which  he  did  not  coincide  with  the  majority  of  the 
people.  He  was  left  out  of  office  in  consequence,  yet  such  was  the 
general  esteem  in  which  he  was  held  that  he  suffered  but  few  other 
trials  on  account  of  his  political  views.  In  removing  to  Dalton  he 
found  himself  in  harmony  politically  with  most  of  the  people,  and 
also  in  position  to  help  to  organize  a  strong  Congregational  church, 
which  was  formed  in  February,  1785.  He  was  chosen  one  of  its 
deacons.  He  used  his  influence  successfully  with  his  father  and 
with  Deacon  Obadiah  Dickinson  to  secure  from  them  a  donation  of 
285  acres  of  land  in  the  south  part  of  Dalton  for  the  support  of  the 
Congregational  ministry.  By  the  permission  of  the  Legislature,  the 
land  has  been  sold,  and  a  part  of  the  proceeds  invested  in  a  parson- 
age, convenient  to  their  meeting-house.  Deacon  Williams  gained 
the  confidence  of  all  associated  with  him  in  the  administration  and 
control  of  the  Free  School  and  of  the  College  in  a  remarkable  degree. 
He  gained  the  confidence  of  the  people  of  Berkshire  County,  as  is 
evidenced  by  the  unanimity  with  which  they  sent  him  to  the  Senate 
of  the  State  in  1797,  1799,  and  1800.  His  body  lies  interred  in  the 
beautiful  cemetery  in  Pittsfield,  with  which  town  Dalton  has  been 
from  the  first  socially,  and  in  all  other  good  ways,  intimate.  Colonel 
William  Williams,  the  patriarch  of  Pittsfield,  and  Deacon  William 
Williams,  the  father  of  Dalton,  were  kinsmen  and  friends.  In  a 


166  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

commemorative  sermon  preached  in  Dalton  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  West, 
one  of  his  colleagues  in  the  board  of  trustees,  which  was  published, 
occur  these  words  :  "  He  was  a  leader  and  guide  to  the  people  for  many 
years,  an  ornament  and  glory  to  the  town  as  a  wise  citizen  and  active 
Christian"  In  further  illustration  of  that  decidedly  Christian  char- 
acter borne  by  the  Williams  family  as  such,  it  may  be  properly 
stated  here,  that  Rev.  William  Williams  preached  a  half-century 
sermon  from  his  ordination  at  Hatfield,  as  did  also  his  son  Solomon 
at  Lebanon,  his  grandson  Eliphalet  at  Hartford,  and  his  great-grand- 
son Solomon  at  Northhampton. 

4.  WOODBRIDGE  LITTLE  of  Pittsfield.  He  was  born  in  Col- 
chester in  1741,  was  graduated  at  Yale  in  1760,  did  his  theological 
reading  and  received  his  ministerial  training  with  Rev.  Dr.  Bellamy,, 
and  at  the  latter's  instance,  as  the  result  of  correspondence  between 
him  and  the  little  handful  of  settlers  in  what  is  now  Lanesboro  early 
in  1762,  Little  appeared  there  as  a  candidate  for  settlement  in  the 
ministry.  Not  long  after  an  article  in  these  words  was  exhibited  in 
the  warrant  for  a  town-meeting,  —  "  To  see  if  the  town  will  give  Mr. 
Woodbridge  Little  a  call  to  be  our  Gospel  minister."  What  action, 
if  any,  was  taken  at  that  meeting  on  that  article,  does  not  now  ap- 
pear, but  the  same  article  was  reviewed  in  the  warrant  for  a  meeting 
called  for  February,  1763,  when,  for  some  reasons,  the  article  was- 
reconsidered  and  negatived.  As  a  probationer,  he  had  shown  much 
ability,  talents  even  brilliant,  and  a  character  fitted  to  inspire  con- 
fidence ;  but  his  own  mind  does  not  seem  to  have  been  fully  made  up. 
In  purpose  he  abandoned  the  ministry,  commenced  the  study  of  law, 
removed  to  Pittsfield,  built  in  1767  a  house  near  the  spot  where  the 
Boston  and  Albany  railroad  crosses  the  present  Beaver  Street,  started 
in  as  the  first  lawyer  of  the  town  in  1770,  and  kept  both  dwelling 
and  profession  until  his  death  in  1813. 

He  became  one  of  the  most  public-spirited  and  ultimately  honored 
of  the  early  citizens  of  Pittsfield.  He  was  very  conservative  in  his- 
political  opinions  and  action,  probably  as  much  so  as  was  Theodore 
Sedgwick,  and  became  the  recognized  leader  of  the  old  Federal  party 
in  his  town.  He  was  naturally  selected  in  1785  as  one  of  the  nine 
trustees  of  the  Free  School  in  Williamstown.  He  interested  himself 
practically  and  effectively  from  the  beginning  in  the  new  enterprise 
on  the  Hoosac,  and  continued  the  manifestation  of  such  interest  even 
in  his  last  will  and  testament.  He  interested  himself  also  in  all  the 
civil  and  educational  and  religious  welfare  of  Berkshire  County.  It 
so  happened  that,  one  morning  in  the  college  year  of  1811,  John 
Woods  of  the  junior  class  went  to  President  Fitch  and  requested  a. 


WILLIAMSTOWN   FREE   SCHOOL.  167 

dismission  from  College  on  the  sole  ground  of  pecuniary  embarrass- 
ment. "Why,"  exclaimed  the  president,  "I  have  this  very  morning 
received  a  letter  from  Mr.  Woodbridge  Little  of  Pittsfield  pledging 
the  College  a  donation  of  $  2500  for  the  purpose  of  aiding  indigent 
young  men  in  their  preparation  for  the  ministry  ! "  Young  Woods 
did  not  leave  College,  but  took  the  valedictory  the  next  year,  and  be- 
came a  useful  minister  for  a  lifetime  in  the  State  of  New  Hampshire. 
Woodbridge  Little  added  $3200  in  his  will  to  the  timely  gift  of  two 
years  before  with  the  same  intent. 

5.  DANIEL  COLLINS  of  Lanesboro.  He  was  a  native  of  Guilford 
in  1738,  and  so  was  three  years  older  than  his  college  classmate  and 
personal  friend  and  lifelong  neighbor,  Woodbridge  Little.  They 
were  reading  theology  together  with  Dr.  Bellamy  at  Bethlehem  when 
the  earnest  request  for  a  pastor  came  from  the  little  hamlet  of  Lanes- 
boro. It  was  perhaps  one  of  the  factors  of  Little's  ultimate  declina- 
tion of  the  place,  that  he  knew  that  Collins  was  ready  and  willing  to 
become  a  candidate  there.  At  any  rate,  as  early  as  October,  1763, 
Collins  was  on  the  ground  as  a  probationer,  two  months  later  was 
formally  called,  and  in  the  following  April  was  solemnly  ordained 
by  the  laying  on  of  hands.  Samuel  Hopkins  was  moderator  of  the 
local  council,  and  Stephen  West  scribe.  What  was  thus  begun  in 
unusual  solemnity  and  interest  was  carried  forward  in  the  same  place 
with  dignity  and  moral  power  for  fifty-six  years.  The  young  pastor 
came  into  a  town  but  just  organized,  and  into  a  church  still  inchoate 
with  a  large  reputation  as  a  classical  scholar  and  as  a  well-trained 
theologian.  He  was  impressive  in  his  tall  person,  quick  in  his  bodily 
and  mental  movements,  dignified  and  exacting  in  his  manners,  par- 
ticularly with  children,  Continental  from  the  first  to  the  last  in  the 
style  of  his  garb,  conservative  in  all  of  his  political  opinions,  affable 
in  counsel  and  sound  in  judgment,  a  peacemaker  near  and  far  in 
matters  both  social  and  churchly,  hospitable  in  his  household,  benevo- 
lent in  his  temper,  exemplary  in  his  piety,  he  became  and  continued 
in  all  the  relations  of  an  extended  pastorate  at  once  beloved  and  hon- 
ored. He  was  influential  as  a  trustee  in  the  Free  School,  and  then 
in  the  College  from  the  very  beginning  of  each.  He  served  on  the 
important  committees  of  both  in*  succession,  not  sparing  himself  in 
time  and  travel  and  counsel  and  patience  in  their  interest  and  up- 
building. He  is  believed  to  have  influenced  Woodbridge  Little  in 
both  parts  of  his  timely  donation  to  the  College.  He  is  known  to 
have  looked  (and  naturally)  to  the  College  as  a  nursery  for  Christian 
ministers  in  a  newly  settled  region  of  country. 

During  the  entire  life  of  the  first  pastor  Lanesboro  was  more 


168  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

populous  and  prominent  relatively  to  the  other  towns  in  Berkshire 
County  than  it  has  been  most  of  the  time  since.  The  pastor's  house 
stood  on  the  site  of  the  elegant  mansion  built  and  occupied  by 
Hon.  Henry  Shaw,  which  has  always  been  and  is  now  by  much  the 
finest  house  in  the  village.  Henry  Clay  was  entertained  in  this 
house  by  his  friend  Mr.  Shaw,  during  his  only  political  visit  to  New 
England ;  and  in  it  also  was  spent  a  part  of  the  boyhood  of  Henry 
W.  Shaw,  the  humorous  writer,  who  made  his  assumed  name  of 
"Josh.  Billings77  famous  for  comic  originality  and  a  deep  insight 
into  human  nature.  Gideon  Wheeler,  for  fifty  years  a  farmer  and 
for  long  an  innholder  in  Lanesboro  at  the  north  end  of  the  village, 
and  otherwise  also  an  uncommonly  influential  man  in  town,  was 
chosen  deacon  in  1809,  and  died  the  same  year  with  his  pastor,  1822. 
One  of  his  daughters  married  Henry  Shaw,  Lanesboro's  most  distin- 
guished citizen  in  civil  life,  and  another  of  them  married  Hon.  John 
Savage,  chief  justice  of  the  State  of  New  York.  The  grave  of 
Eev.  Daniel  Collins  is  still  visible,  and  the  lines  of  its  headstone 
legible,  in  the  original  and  beautiful  "  God's  acre  "  of  the  township 
he  did  so  much  to  honor  in  his  lifetime  and  to  cause  to  be  remem- 
bered with  pleasure  since  his  death. 

6.  ISRAEL  JONES  of  North  Adams.  Although  the  two  new 
townships  of  East  Hoosac  and  West  Hoosac,  later  Adams  and  Wil- 
liamstown,  were  laid  out  at  the  same  time  by  a  committee  of  the 
General  Court  in  1749,  their  subsequent  fortunes  in  the  way  of  set- 
tlement and  development  were  very  distinct  and  even  diverse.  West 
Hoosac,  by  much  the  better  town  agriculturally,  began  almost  at 
once  to  be  settled  up  by  soldiers  garrisoned  at  Fort  Massachusetts 
and  by  parties  from  Connecticut  and  elsewhere,  and  had  thereafter 
a  slow  but  uninterrupted  development;  while  East  Hoosac,  rela- 
tively late  in  starting  at  all,  stopped,  changed  hands,  altered  the 
character  of  the  population,  allowed  the  original  church  to  become 
extinct,  and  only  by  extremely  zigzag  paths  did  it  reach  at  length 
a  congruous  and  stable  unfolding.  In  1762  the  General  Court  sold 
this  township  by  auction,  making  no  reservations  (so  far  as  ap- 
pears) within  its  limits.  It  was  purchased  by  Nathan  Jones  for 
£3200.  He  admitted  shortly  after  Elisha  Jones  and  John  Murray 
as  joint  proprietors  with  himself.  The  father  of  Elisha  Jones, 
an  English  immigrant,  settled  in  1665  at  Weston,  Middlesex 
County,  Massachusetts.  Elisha  Jones  held  many  public  and  respon- 
sible offices  in  Weston,  and  was  eminent  in  the  church  there  for  his 
piety  and  enterprise.  His  pastor  at  Weston  was  the  Rev.  William 
Williams,  eldest  son  of  the  Rev.  William  Williams  of  Hatfield.  The 


WILLIAMSTOWN   FREE   SCHOOL.  169 

Weston  Williams  was  bom  in  Hatfield  in  1688,  was  graduated  at 
Harvard  in  1705,  and  ordained  at  Weston  in  1709.  Colonel  Israel 
Williams  was  his  youngest  brother,  born  in  Hatfield  the  very  year 
of  this  ordination  in  W'eston.  It  was  in  this  circuitous,  though  ulti- 
mately most  effective,  way  that  the  Jones  family  of  Middlesex '  be- 
came intimately  associated  in  religious  sympathies  and  in  practical 
good  works  with  the  Williams  family  of  Hampshire  and  Berkshire. 
Elisha  Jones,  who  was  a  colonel  in  the  militia  of  Middlesex  and 
the  father  of  fourteen  sons,  of  whom  the  fourth  was  Israel  Jones, 
born  in  1738,  purchased  several  lots  in  the  centre  of  Pittsfield,  about 
the  same  time  he  became  one-third  proprietor  of  the  township  of 
East  Hoosac,  or  Adams.  But  Jones's  minister,  William  Williams, 
whose  wife  was  a  sister  of  Colonel  John  Stoddard,  who  came  to  own 
in  1740  a  third  part  of  the  promising  town  of  Pittsfield,  became  in- 
terested in  the  westward  through  his  wife  and  particularly  through 
his  eldest  son,  William  Williams,  born  in  1713,  who  received  from 
his  uncle  in  1743  a  central  lot  of  one  hundred  acres,  and  became 
from  that  time  the  foremost  settler  in  Pittsfield.  This  was  Colonel 
William  Williams,  a  renowned  soldier  at  Louisburg  and  at  Ticon- 
deroga,  and  on  several  other  grounds  also  an  extraordinary  man.  It 
was  owing  to  him  that  the  venerable  elm,  which  has  so  long  adorned 
the  centre  of  the  common  in  Pittsfield,  was  preserved.  He  owned 
the  land  on  which  it  stands.  His  workmen  were  clearing  the  ground, 
and  one  of  them  was  just  raising  his  axe  to  cut  the  staddle  down  by 
a  stroke,  when  the  colonel  rode  up  and  halted  him.  His  relations 
to  the  Stoddard  family  were  remarkable.  His  mother  was  the  eldest 
daughter  of  Eev.  Solomon  Stoddard  of  Northampton ;  his  grand- 
father, Eev.  William  Williams  of  Hatfield,  married  for  his  second 
wife  his  mother's  younger  sister,  and  she  became  the  mother  of  Colo- 
nel Israel  Williams.  Another  of  his  mother's  sisters  became  the 
mother  of  Jonathan  Edwards ;  still  another  of  his  Stoddard  aunts 
became  the  mother  of  the  celebrated  Joseph  Hawley. 

But  where  does  our  Israel  Jones,  the  trustee  of  the  Free  School, 
come  in  amid  these  endless  but  interesting  genealogies  ?  We  shall 
discover  in  a  moment.  Colonel  Elisha  Jones,  according  to  a  plan  of 
Pittsfield  lots  dating  from  1759,  owned  about  one  thousand  acres  of 
land  there  in  four  or  five  patches.  He  evidently  did  not  wish  him- 
self to  leave  his  old  home  and  his  own  pastor  in  Weston.  But  he 
certainly  sent  his  son  Israel,  who  was  twenty-one  years  old  in  1759, 
and  probably  two  or  three  more  of  his  sons,  to  occupy  or  appro- 
priate some  or  all  of  these  noble  Pittsfield  lots.  We  have  no  special 
interest  in  them  or  their  owners.  More  dominating  by  this  time 


170  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

had  become  the  local  interests  of  Colonel  Jones  jn  East  Hoosac. 
Israel  Jones  removed  thither  from  Pittsfield  in  1766,  was  authorized 
by  the  three  proprietors  to  survey  a  further  number  of  lots  of  one 
hundred  acres  each  in  addition  to  the  forty-eight  of  the  same  dimen- 
sions surveyed  out  in  October,  1762,  and  to  superintend  their  sale, 
admitting  actual  settlers  to  the  number  of  sixty.  A  previous  vote 
of  the  General  Court  had  required  the  settlers,  when  their  number 
amounted  to  sixty,  to  build  a  meeting-house  and  settle  a  learned 
protestant  minister.  Mr.  Jones  took  up  his  own  residence  upon  the 
tract  of  two  hundred  acres  granted  by  the  Court  in  1750  to  Colonel 
Ephraim  Williams  in  consideration  that  he  build  and  maintain  for 
twenty  years  a  grist-mill  and  a  sawmill  near  the  junction  of  the  two 
branches  of  the  Hoosac.  The  house  site  to  this  still  memorable 
estate  has  never  been  changed  to  this  day.  It  was  and  is  on  the 
higher  ground  a  few  rods  to  the  north  of  the  meadow  site  of  Fort 
Massachusetts.  The  old  Mohawk  trail  from  the  North  River  to  the 
Deerfield  ran  between  these  two  sites  very  near  to  the  former,  just 
where  the  present  road  north  of  the  Hoosac  has  run  for  a  century 
and  a  half.  Colonel  Ephraim  Williams,  the  founder,  built  nothing 
upon  this  his  grant  in  the  way  of  a  dwelling,  though  he  built  the 
stipulated  mills  on  the  South  Branch  in  the  centre  of  the  present 
city  of  North  Adams.  The  old  fort,  however,  afforded  shelter  to 
some  who  partially  cultivated  the  farm  until  its  rude  timbers  had 
rotted  away.  The  first  to  build  a  house  on  the  present  site  overlook- 
ing the  meadow  was  Charles  Wright,  a  native  of  Northfield  and 
later  the  most  prominent  settler  in  Pownal  five  miles  lower  down 
the  river.  We  should  not  have  known  of  his  tarrying  here  by  the 
fort,  were  it  not  for  an  application  he  made  to  the  colony  of  Massa- 
chusetts for  a  license  to  open  and  maintain  a  public  tavern  at  this 
place.  From  the  epitaph  on  the  headstone  of  his  grave  in  the 
Lovat  burial  ground,  we  may  learn  that  he  was  born  Jan.  5, 
1719 ;  that  "  he  was  one  of  the  first  English  settlers  in  this  town ;  " 
and  that  he  died  Dec.  23,  1793.  The  adjoining  stone  yields  the 
fact  that  his  wife,  Ruth  Boltwood  of  Amherst,  born  in  1721,  lived 
on  in  Pownal  till  April  15,  1806,  in  her  eighty-fifth  year.  Both 
stones  are  declared  to  have  been  "  erected  by  Hon.  Solomon  Wright," 
one  of  their  sons.  Charles  Wright  was  of  the  same  lineage  as  Gov- 
ernor Silas  WTright  of  New  York.  His  original  tavern-stand  in 
Pownal,  where  he  has  posterity  still,  is  yet  designated  by  his  name. 
When  Israel  Jones  came  to  East  Hoosac  to  organize  settlements 
and  civilization,  he  took  up  his  dwelling  on  the  "  fort  farm,"  where 
Charles  Wright  had  transiently  lived;  and  he  occupied  the  house 


WILLIAMSTOWN   FKEE   SCHOOL.  171 

and  cultivated  the  farm,  both  as  his  own,  till  his  death  in  1828. 
From  the  Jones  heirs  the  entire  estate  soon  passed  into  the  hands 
of  Clement  Harrison  of  Williamstown,  by  whose  heirs  it  is  still 
owned  and  occupied  in  this  year  of  Grace  1895.  The  coming  of  the 
Jones  family  into  Berkshire  out  of  an  impulse  derived  from  the 
Williams  and  Stoddard  families,  which  were  practically  one,  proved 
to  be  of  lasting  significance  and  of  Christian  usefulness.  The 
Weston  minister,  William  Williams,  although  he  did  not  preach  his 
half-century-f rom-ordination  sermon  in  Weston,  as  his  father  William 
did  in  Hatfield,  as  his  brother  Solomon  did  in  Lebanon,  as  his  nephew 
Eliphalet  did  in  Hartford,  and  as  his  grand-nephew  Solomon  did  in 
Northampton,  yet  he  lived  there  fifty-one  years  from  his  ordination, 
and  after  his  dismission  was  a  peaceable  parishioner,  and  treated 
his  successor  with  kindness  and  respect,  contrary  to  the  too  frequent 
practice  of  clergymen  that  are  removed  from  office,  and  continue 
their  residence  in  town.  His  influence  over  the  Jones  families  in 
Weston  was  pervasive  and  persistent.  Not  only  did  Colonel  Elisha 
and  his  son  Israel  feel  this  influence  in  their  movements  and  migra- 
tion to  Berkshire,  but  long  before  this  time  Josiah  Jones  of  Weston 
brought  his  family  to  Stockbridge  in  conjunction  with  that  of  Colonel 
Ephraim  Williams,  the  father,  at  the  instance  of  the  General  Court, 
in  order  that  the  missionary  Indians  there,  under  the  direct  instruc- 
tion of  John  Sergeant  and  Timothy  Woodbridge,  might  see  the 
orderly  life  of  Christian  families  exemplified  before  their  eyes. 
The  Williams  and  Jones  families  both  settled  on  Stockbridge  Hill 
in  1737.  The  sites  of  both  these  houses  are  still  pointed  out  by 
residents  of  the  "  Hill,"  particularly  by  Henry  M.  Field,  a  native 
of  Stockbridge  and  a  graduate  of  Williams  in  1838 ;  the  site  of  the 
Jones  house  was  that  occupied  long  into  this  century  by  his  grand- 
son, Deacon  Josiah  Jones. 

The  next  year  after  he  became  a  permanent  resident  of  East 
Hoosac,  Israel  Jones  married  Alithea,  a  daughter  of  the  Rev. 
Samuel  Todd,  and  lived  with  her  in  the  "fort  house"  just  referred 
to  for  fifty-nine  years.  Mr.  Todd  was  the  first  settled  minister  in 
East  Hoosac,  coming  there  to  reside  and  preach  at  the  same  time 
Mr.  Jones  came,  —  namely,  in  1766,  —and  as  such  received  the  lands 
to  which  he  was  entitled  under  the  terms  of  the  settlement  of  the 
town.  But  there  was  soon  trouble  with  the  minister,  owing  to 
marked  changes  in  the  population.  Settlers  from  Rhode  Island, 
many  of  them  Quakers  and  many  of  them  Baptists,  bought  up  freely 
the  farm-lots  offered  for  sale  by  the  Jones  interest  and  by  the  earlier 
corners,  and  soon  constituted  a  decided  majority.  A  vote  of  the  inhab- 


172  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

itants  was  taken  in  January,  1778,  the  year  the  town  was  incorpo- 
rated, proposing  in  form  to  the  Rev.  Mr.  Todd  to  take  his  dismission 
from  their  ministry,  and  to  relinquish  his  claim  to  the  ministerial 
lands.  The  dismission  followed  of  course,  but  not  the  relinquish- 
ment  at  all.  Mr.  Todd  received  his  first  degree  from  Yale  College 
in  1734,  at  the  early  age  of  fifteen,  and  five  years  later  was  settled 
in  the  ministry  in  one  of  the  villages  of  Woodbury.  He  removed 
from  North  Adams  to  Orford,  New  Hampshire,  the  second  town 
above  Hanover  on  the  Connecticut  River,  where  he  and  his  wife 
were  received  as  members  of  the  church  in  June,  1782.  He  preached 
occasionally  thereafter  to  that  congregation  until  his  death.  His 
character  and  talents  stand  highly  commended,  and  especially  is 
recognized  his  fervent  advocacy  of  the  Whitefield  revivals  of  1740, 
which  many  pastors  and  churches  opposed. 

Todd's  summary  removal  from  his  crude  pulpit  in  North  Adams 
resulted  later  in  the  entire  extinction  of  the  Congregational  church. 
In  1803  Israel  Jones  and  his  wife  removed  their  church  relations  to 
William  stown,  and  continued  their  regular  attendance  there  until 

1827,  when  the  present  Congregational  church  in  North  Adams  was 
instituted.     "Esquire  Jones,"  as  he  was  uniformly  called,  was  the 
most  prominent  and  influential  citizen  in  his  township  from  1766  to 

1828,  when  he  died  near  the  opening  of  his  ninety-first  year.    Indeed, 
no  other  citizen  of  that  township  has  ever  reached  and  maintained 
his  well-deserved  eminence.     He  did  the  landed  and  most  of  the 
other  legal  business  for  his  fellow-citizens  throughout  his  long  and 
thoroughly  trusted  life.     He  was  often  a  member  of   the  General 
Court   at   Boston,  and   gained   such  a  position  in  that  connection 
that  he  was  appointed  by  President  John  Adams  a  commissioner  to 
aid  in  adjusting,  if  possible,  the  northeast  boundary  line  between 
Britain  and  the  United  States  —  a  controversy,  however,  which  was 
not  finally  settled  until  the  famous  and  fortunate  Webster- Ashburton 
Treaty  of  1842.     As  a  trustee  of  the  Free  School  and  then  continu- 
ously of  the  College  until  1822,  Israel  Jones  was  interested  and 
assiduous  and  influential.     Owing  to  his  personal  training  under 
Rev.  William  Williams  of  Weston,  and  to  the  intimate  relations 
between  the  Jones  and  Williams  families  throughout,  in  an  indi- 
rect though  penetrative  way  he  represented  in  the  college  board  the 
feelings  and  tendencies  of  the  Williams  family,  as  did  Deacon  Wil- 
liam Williams  of  Dalton  in  (perhaps)  a  more  direct  manner.     In  the 
Berkshire  American,  a  county  newspaper,  there  appeared  a  notice  of 
Mr.  Jones  the  week  after  his  death,  of  which  the  following  para- 
graph is  the  most  significant :  — 


WILLIAMSTOWN   FREE   SCHOOL.  173 

The  character  of  Esquire  Jones  was  formed  by  a  vigorous  intellect,  ardent 
feelings,  and  religion.  His  mind  was  furnished  with  extensive  intelligence  from 
observation  and  reading,  and  his  memory  gave  him  a  command  of  his  knowledge 
which  seldom  accompanies  extreme  age.  His  bodily  health  and  activity,  pre- 
served by  temperance  and  wholesome  exercise,  were  like  the  health  and  activity 
of  youth.  He  was  decidedly  generous  and  kind,  though  possessed  of  a  quick  and 
ardent  temperament.  To  those  who  were  acquainted  with  his  religious  experi- 
ence, he  manifested  the  uniform  spirit  of  a  Christian.  He  cherished  a  constant 
sense  of  sin,  and  looked  for  salvation  to  the  atonement  of  Christ.  For  a  long 
time  previous  to  his  death,  his  hope  of  heaven  sustained  him  above  the  fear  of 
death,  and  rendered  his  expected  dissolution  an  agreeable  subject  of  contempla- 
tion. He  often  said  that  he  dreaded  nothing  from  death  but  the  pain  of  dying, 
and  he  was  spared  even  that. 

7.  DAVID  NOBLE  of  Williamstown.  The  attentive  reader  may 
have  noticed  in  the  foregoing  chapter  the  statement  that  David 
Noble,  a  native  of  New  Milford  in  1744,  a  graduate  of  Yale  in  1764, 
an  incomer  to  Williamstown  in  1770,  came  into  some  odium  with  his 
fellow-townsmen  and  under  some  discipline  by  the  Committee  of 
Safety  on  account  of  alleged  infidelity  to  the  Revolutionary  cause  in 
earlier  stages.  Whether  it  were  further  in  the  way  of  discipline  that 
he  was  later  put  in  charge  of  the  "  pest  house,"  near  the  Pownal  line 
by  the  same  committee,  does  not  clearly  appear ;  at  any  rate  he  was 
out  in  the  military  service  of  the  town  more  than  once  before  the 
war  was  over,  and  he  seems  to  have  acquired  in  most  respects  the 
confidence  of  his  fellow-citizens  in  his  after  life.  He  became  a  mem- 
ber of  the  church  before  1779,  as  did  also  his  wife,  Abigail  Benriet 
Noble.  He  was  a  lawyer,  and  had  legal  practice  more  or  less  in  all 
parts  of  the  county.  It  will  always  be  remembered  that  he  was  the 
opposing  counsel  to  Theodore  Sedgwick  in  the  justly  celebrated  case  of 
the  alleged  slave  woman,  Mum  Bet.  But  he  gradually  withdrew  from 
legal  practice,  and  engaged  in  mercantile  pursuits,  and  acquired  in 
this  manner  a  handsome  fortune  for  those  times.  His  first  home  in 
town  was  on  the  Hoosac  Eiver,  near  to  the  present  Noble  bridge,  so 
named  after  him.  His  first  house  stood  on  the  site  of  the  present 
large  cotton  mill  near  the  railroad  station.  Access  to  it  from  the 
main  street  was  at  first  by  a  road  running  north  along  the  bank  of 
the  Green  Eiver  to  its  junction  with  the  Hoosac.  Afterward  Noble 
bought  of  Judah  Williams,  who  had  built  it,  the  large  two-story 
brick  house  on  the  main  street  near  the  Green  Eiver,  which  is  still 
standing  in  good  repair.  As  he  then  owned  the  whole  of  the  broad 
meadow  between  the  brick  house  and  the  Hoosac  Eiver,  he  closed 
up  the  old  road  (such  as  it  was)  down  the  Green  Eiver  to  the  junc- 
tion, on  which  Derrick  Webb  and  Thomas  Dunton  of  the  original 


174  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

householders  had  dwelt,  and  opened  a  new  farm  road  from  his  first 
house  on  the  river  to  the  main  street  at  right  angles,  which  farm 
road  became  a  public  highway  in  1854,  and  has  recently  been  named 
by  the  town  as  "  Cole  Avenue." 

The  Revolutionary  times  in  New  England  were  hostile  in  many 
respects  to  the  good  morals  of  the  people,  and  particularly  to  their 
fidelity  in  marital  relations.  Nothing  is  gained,  and  something  good 
may  be  lost,  in  the  delineation  of  prominent  characters  in  the  past  by 
the  suppression  of  well-founded  evidence  that  such  persons  were  de- 
linquent in  moral  behavior.  As,  —  "  Lawyers  excel  in  the  percep- 
tion rather  than  in  the  practice  of  virtue."  A  young  man  born  in 
Williamstown  was  graduated  at  Williams  College  in  1799.  His 
name  was  William  Boardman.  Some  of  the  best  people  in  town  at 
that  time  believed  arid  said  that  he  was  the  son  of  David  Noble, 
although  always  reckoned  and  recorded  among  the  other  children  of 
Theodore  Boardman,  a  near  neighbor  of  the  Nobles.  Sixty  years 
afterward  two  or  three  among  the  best  people  of  Williamstown 
believed  and  said  the  same  thing.  On  their  direct  and  specific 
authority  the  statement  is  repeated  here.  There  is  nothing  covered 
that  shall  not  be  revealed.  This  world  is  constructed  on  the  princi- 
ple of  exposure,  and  it  is  a  part  of  the  punishment  of  wrong-doing 
that  lapse  of  time  is  often  powerless  to  wipe  out  the  record  that 
once  stood  against  the  wrong-doer.  In  1797  David  Noble  was 
appointed  a  judge  of  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas  for  the  county  of 
Berkshire  as  the  Court  was  then  constituted,  and  he  continued  to  sit 
in  it  till  his  death  in  1803.  He  was  the  first  trustee  of  the  School 
and  of  the  College  to  drop  out  of  the  earthly  ranks  at  the  inexorable 
call.  He  displayed  a  steady  interest  in  the  welfare  of  the  incipient, 
yet  growing,  institution,  —  personally  donating  the  bell  in  1793  that 
first  hung  in  the  belfry  of  the  Free  School  building,  now  the  old  but 
still  well-preserved  West  College,  and  he  gave  also  to  the  College  a 
fine  strip  of  land  on  Main  Street  as  a  site  for  the  first  president's 
house,  a  site  now  occupied  by  the  Hopkins  Memorial  Hall,  while  the 
original  house  removed  is  still  standing  a  few  rods  to  the  north  and 
has  been  tenanted  for  many  years  by  Professor  T.  H.  Safford.  A 
portrait  of  Judge  Dftvid  Noble,  presented  to  the  college  by  one  of 
his  grandsons,  Charles  Noble  of  Detroit,  is  now  hanging  among  other 
portraits  in  the  Alumni  Hall. 

An  eccentric  and  in  some  respects  memorable  settler  and  citizen 
of  Williamstown,  Jared  Leet,  a  grandson  of  old  Governor  Leet  of 
Connecticut,  had  early  squatted  and  made  a  home  for  himself  on 
the  lower  slope  of  what  is  now  called  in  his  memory  "  Leet  Hill." 


WILLIAMSTOWN   FEEE   SCHOOL.  175 

Parts  of  Leet  Hill  were  on  the  "  Gore,"  which  did  not  legally  become 
a  part  of  Williarastown  till  1838 ;  but  the  original  Leet  clearing  and 
house  seem  to  be  upon  one  of  the  60-acre  lots  of  the  town.  Four 
or  five  poor  families  further  south,  where  the  Gore  became  much 
wider,  paid  of  course  no  taxes  to  the  town,  for  they  had  no  legal 
title  to  their  lands.  The  Leet  lands  seem  to  have  been  in  dispute 
and  controversy  of  some  sort,  whether  as  to  titles  or  taxes  does 
not  now  appear,  and  David  Noble  in  some  legal  or  representative 
capacity  excited  the  bitter  enmity  of  Jared  Leet,  the  verse-maker. 
The  latter's  lines  on  the  former  are  not  quoted  in  this  place  because 
it  is  supposed  that  they  present  a  candid  or  any  way  truthful 
phase  of  the  lawyer's  character ;  but  they  doubtless  present  a  very 
truthful  phase  of  the  poetaster's  moral  makeup.  Jared  Leet  had 
degenerated  in  many  ways  from  his  grandfather,  good  old  William 
Leet,  Governor  of  Connecticut  and  the  hospitable  friend  of  the  Eng- 
lish regicides  when  they  came  to  Connecticut  in  1661.  Jared  was 
too  poor  to  have  an  annual  almanac  of  his  own,  but  he  used  to  go 
often  to  his  near  neighbors,  the  Torreys  or  Fosters,  to  find  out  from 
their  almanac  who  was  the  Governor  of  Connecticut  for  that  year. 
He  early  planted  an  orchard  on  his  southern-sloped  side-hill,  where 
now  is  standing  a  better  and  larger  one ;  but  his  own  cider  and  that 
of  his  neighbors  far  and  near  (for  he  wandered  a  good  deal  in  his 
old  age,  and  was  generally  welcomed)  befogged  rather  than  clarified 
his  intellectuals.  A  pleasant  picture  of  the  old  gentleman,  however, 
was  given  to  the  writer  many  years  ago  by  one  whose  childhood's 
recollection  of  him  thus  was  distinct,  as  standing  sometimes  for  an 
hour  at  dusk  of  a  springtime  day  near  a  frog-pond,  listening  to  the 
then  usual  sounds  from  thence,  "  which  make  me  think  of  old  Con- 
necticut, ivhen  I  was  a  boy  in  Guilford."  The  following  are  the 
lines :  — 

There  was  an  old  man  lived  in  a  brick  house, 

He  had  no  more  conscience  than  a  louse, 

Seventy  dollars  he  did  cheat 

Out  of  poor  old  Jared  Leet. 

Now  he's  dead  I  wish  him  well, 
No  other  than  the  gates  of  hell, 
There  to  roast  and  burn  and  fry 
With  devils  to  etarnity. 

8.  JOHN  BACON  of  Stockbridge.  Here  we  have  a  man  of  very 
remarkable  characteristics,  a  man  who  brought  to  the  body  of 
his  colleagues,  the  trustees  of  the  Free  School,  all  of  them  remark- 
able men,  qualities  unique  and  distinguishing  him  from  them  all. 


176  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

He  was  born  in  Canterbury,  Connecticut,  and  was  graduated  at 
Princeton  College  in  1765,  at  an  age  considerably  advanced  beyond 
that  of  the  average  graduate  of  those  times,  namely,  twenty-eight 
years.  During  the  six  years  subsequent  to  his  graduation  he  studied 
theology,  and  preached  for  some  time  to  two  vacant  churches  in 
Somerset  County,  Maryland.  In  1771  he  was  called  to  the  Old 
South  Church  in  Boston,  and  was  settled  there  in  September.  In 
the  absence  of  contemporary  evidence  two  points  may  be  assumed 
as  certain :  (1)  that  he  would  not  at  that  time  have  been  called  to 
the  Old  South  if  he  had  not  had  conspicuous  talents  and  a  very  con- 
siderable reputation;  and  (2)  that  he  would  not  have  been  there 
broken  up  after  a  four  years'  settlement  had  there  not  been  devel- 
oped uncommon  grounds  of  difference  between  him  and  his  people. 
He  went  almost  directly  to  Stockbridge  in  1775,  bought  him  a  farm, 
practically  abandoned  the  ministry,  and  entered  upon  civil  life  at 
once,  although  he  occasionally  preached  thereafter.  What  could 
have  caused  such  a  turn  in  the  life  of  such  a  man?  The  date  of 
the  turn  throws  the  only  accessible  light  on  the  nature  of  the  hinge. 
The  minds  of  the  people  of  Boston  in  1775  were  very  much  absorbed 
in  thoughts  and  movements  hostile  to  the  Crown  or  at  least  to  the 
ministers  of  Great  Britain.  But  men  trained  when  and  where  and 
how  John  Bacon  had  been,  were  extremely  likely  to  take  the  con- 
servative and  status  quo  view  of  political  matters,  as  we  historically 
know  that  many  such  men  actually  did.  Upon  this  general  suppo- 
sition it  was  as  natural  for  John  Bacon  to  leave  Boston  for  Stock- 
bridge  as  it  was  for  Deacon  William  Williams  to  leave  Hatfield  for 
Dal  ton.  Berkshire  was  a  hospitable  refuge  for  such  men  from  the 
eastward  at  that  time,  because  the  tone  of  things  here  had  already 
been  given  a  Toryish  key  by  the  Williams  family  and  others  like- 
minded  with  them.  On  this  supposition  also,  as  well  as  on  general 
grounds  of  character  and  eminence,  it  was  natural  that  he  should  be 
selected  as  one  of  the  original  trustees  of  the  William stown  Free 
School. 

The  rise  of  John  Bacon  in  civil  life  after  he  moved  to  Stockbridge 
was  steady  and  rapid.  He  first  became  a  justice  of  the  peace,  an 
office  then  of  much  higher  consideration  than  now,  and  soon  a  repre- 
sentative to  the  General  Court ;  later,  he  was  elected  a  state  senator 
in  ten  different  years  and  the  president  of  that  body  at  least  one 
year;  he  was  appointed  a  justice  of  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas  in 
1779,  but  it  does  not  appear  that  he  ever  undertook  to  perform  any 
of  the  duties  of  that  office,  for  the  reason  that  during  the  Revolu- 
tion, that  is,  from  1774  to  1781,  practically  no  courts  were  holden 


WILLIAMSTOWN   FREE   SCHOOL.  177 

in  Berkshire ;  in  1789  and  onward,  however,  he  sat  as  a  justice  in 
the  reorganized  Court,  and  in  1807  he  was  expressly  appointed  chief 
judge  of  it  and  presided  till  the  abolition  of  the  Court  in  1811,  when 
a  Circuit  Court  of  Common  Pleas  was  established,  and  his  son,  Eze- 
kiel  Bacon,  then  of  Pittsfield,  was  seated  as  chief  judge  of  the  new 
Court  till  1814.  Ezekiel  Bacon  was  previously  for  some  time  a  citi- 
zen and  lawyer  of  Williamstown,  and  a  full  characterization  of  him 
will  perhaps  be  in  order  upon  a  later  page  of  this  book.  Both  John 
Bacon  and  his  son  were  prominent  in  the  politics  of  the  county  in 
the  opening  years  of  the  new  century.  Both  were  Democrats.  Both 
became  members  of  Congress,  the  father  in  1801-03,  and  the  son 
in  1807-13.  Ezekiel  Bacon  was  very  influential  in  Washington ;  he 
was  chairman  of  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means,  and  he  was 
instrumental  in  securing  the  nomination  and  confirmation  of  Joseph 
Story,  later  our  most  distinguished  jurist,  as  a  justice  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States  in  1811,  before  the  latter  was  even  aware 
that  he  was  a  candidate.  Eev.  Dr.  Field,  in  his  "  Stockbridge,"  says 
of  John  Bacon,  "He  had  a  strong  mind,  was  fond  of  debate  and 
tenacious  of  his  opinions,  but  decided  in  prosecuting  what  he  es- 
teemed his  duty."  He,  with  all  his  colleague  trustees  of  the  Free 
School,  petitioned  the  Legislature  in  1793  for  the  College  charter, 
and  was  with  all  of  them  continued  as  trustees  of  the  College.  He 
resigned  this  position,  however,  in  1804,  the  second  in  the  file  of 
nine  to  fall  out,  David  Noble  having  died  the  previous  year.  Bacon 
died  in  1820  in  his  eighty-third  yew. 

9.  SETH  SWIFT  of  Williamstown  was  a  native  of  Kent,  and  a 
graduate  of  Yale  in  1774.  Kent,  with  its  neighboring  towns  of 
Canaan  and  Cornwall  and  Litchfield,  had  already  sent  to  Williams- 
town  many  of  its  early  settlers  and  church-members;  and  it  was 
but  natural  for  the  young  graduate  to  look  northward  up  the 
Housatonic  toward  its  sources  for  a  settlement.  He  read  his  the- 
ology in  part  with  Eev.  Dr.  West  in  Stockbridge,  and  was  ordained 
in  Williamstown  in  May,  1779.  The  church  had  become  considera- 
bly demoralized  during  the  four  years  after  Eev.  Whitman  Welch, 
its  first  pastor,  had  left  it,  never  to  return,  in  order  to  accompany 
Colonel  Benedict  Arnold  from  Boston  to  Quebec  in  the  winter  of 
1775-76.  But  sixty-one  members  welcomed  Mr.  Swift  in  1779, 
while  two  hundred  and  seventy-three  were  added  in  the  twenty- 
eight  years  of  his  faithful  ministry.  No  list  of  Mr.  Welch's  mem- 
bers has  ever  been  found ;  but  it  is  more  than  probable  that  they 
were  the  same  as  greeted  the  new  pastor  four  years  later,  and  the 
following  are  the  names  :  — 

N 


178 


WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 


Elisha  Baker 

Phebe  Nichols  Baker 

Martha  Young  Blair 

Daniel  Burbank 

Mary  Marks  Burbank 

Samuel  Burchard 

Elisabeth  Hamilton  Burchard 

Sarah  Luce  Byam 

Hannah  Davis 

Elisabeth  Downs  Downing 

Thomas  Dunton 

Mary  Davis  Dunton 

Nathan  Foot 

Mariann Foot 

Israel  Harris 
Sarah  Morse  Harris 
Hannah  Torrey  Hatfield 
Rachel  Baldwin  Hawkins 
Sampson  Howe 
Hannah  Foot  Howe 
Henry  Johnson 

Abiah Johnson 

Persis Johnson 

Samuel  Kellogg 
Chloe  Bacon  Kellogg 
Dea.  James  Meacham 
Lucy  Rugg  Meacham 
Jonathan  Meacham 
Thankful  Eugg  Meacham 
David  Noble 
Abigail  Sennet  Noble 


Isaac  Ovits 
Esther  Wilson  Ovits 
Moses  Rich 
Mary  Roberts 
Thomas  Roe 
Mary  Wells  Roe 
Anna  Dwight  Sabin 
Nathaniel  Sanford 
Catherine  Davis  Smith 
David  Southwick 
Thankful  Davis  Southwick 
Deborah  Spencer 
Isaac  Stratton 
Mary  Fox  Stratton 
Mary  Dormer  Stratton 
Ruth  Tyrrel  Torrey 
Hannah  Wheeler  Torrey 
Marvin  Gaylord  Welch 
William  Wells 
Rebecca  Stoddard  Wells 
Elisabeth  Lewis  Williams 

Mary Wilson 

Dea.  Nathan  Wheeler 

Sarah Wheeler 

Nathan  Wheeler,  Jr. 
Hannah  Brister  Woodcock 
Josiah  Wright 

Abigail Wright 

Gideon  Wright 
Sarah Wright 


Forty-two  of  these  sixty-one  persons  were  husbands  and  wives ; 
thirteen  of  them  were  wives  without  their  husbands,  two  of  whom, 
Mrs.  Welch  and  Mrs.  Sabin,  were  widows  of  victims  in  the  expedi- 
tion to  Quebec ;  three  of  them  were  husbands  without  their  wives ; 
and  the  remaining  three  were  apparently  unmarried  women.  In  the 
course  of  this  year,  1779,  five  additional  members  were  received; 
namely,  Daniel  Horsford,  Martha  Marks  Talmadge,  Elisabeth  Egles- 
ton,  David  Johnson,  and  Phebe  Cole  Johnson,  the  last  two  being 
also  the  first  couple  married  by  Mr.  Swift,  and  the  first  known  to  be 
married  in  Williamstown.  In  each  of  the  two  following  years 
twenty-three  persons  were  admitted  to  the  church,  most  of  them 
from  the  families  of  the  more  prominent  local  settlers.  After  this 
for  twenty-one  years  the  yearly  additions  to  membership  averaged 
but  five ;  then  in  1805  there  was  an  accession  of  fifty-four  persons ; 
in  1806  an  addition  of  fifty-two  persons  ;  and  in  1807,  the  pastor 


WILLIAMSTOWN    FREE   SCHOOL.  179 

dying  in  February,  the  additions  amounted  to  thirty-five  persons. 
The  following  entry  on  the  records  of  the  church  testifies  to  the 
affection  and  esteem  of  the  people  for  their  pastor :  — 

At  about  9  o'clock  A.M.  [Feb.  15,  1807]  the  Rev.  Seth  Swift,  our  much 
esteemed,  dearly  beloved  and  very  faithful  and  laborious  pastor,  died,  in  the 
midst  of  great  usefulness,  while  God  was  pouring  out  his  Spirit  here,  and  giving 
him  many  seals  of  his  ministry. 

Professor  Ebenezer  Kellogg  of  the  College,  though  not  strictly 
contemporary  with  Mr.  Swift,  wrote  of  him  as  follows  in  the  "  His- 
tory of  the  County  of  Berkshire  " :  "  He  was  warm  and  open  in  his 
temper,  evangelical  in  his  religious  views,  serious  in  the  general  tone 
of  his  intercourse  with  his  people,  zealous  in  the  labors  of  the  min- 
istry, decided  in  his  opinions,  and  prudent  and  energetic  in  his 
measures." 

As  the  Free  School  was  to  be  established  in  Williamstown,  as  its 
teachers  and  pupils  would,  as  a  matter  of  course,  attend  upon  the 
preaching  and  other  religious  services  of  the  pastor  there,  it  was 
almost  a  matter  of  course  that  Mr.  Swift  should  be  included  in  the 
charter  as  one  of  the  original  trustees  of  the  school.  He  was  in  no 
sense  an  eminent  man,  as  was  each  of  his  eight  colleagues.  He  left 
nothing  in  print  save  an  ordination  sermon,  preached  in  Rupert, 
Vermont.  But  he  was  a  good  man ;  and  what  was  more,  he  was  on 
the  ground.  All  the  rest  of  the  trustees  were,  indeed,  from  within 
the  limits  of  Berkshire  County;  but  Williamstown  was  to  be  the 
seat  of  their  operations  and  the  centre  of  supervision  and  counsel. 
Accordingly  there  were  three  trustees  from  Williamstown,  and  only 
one  from  any  other  place  in  the  county.  At  the  first  meeting  of  the 
trustees,  held  at  Pittsfield,  April  24,  1785,  William  Williams  of 
Dalton  was  chosen  the  president  of  the  body,  and  Seth  Swift  of 
Williamstown  treasurer.  On  the  organization  of  the  College  eight 
years  later,  and  at  the  first  meeting  of  the  new  and  enlarged  board 
of  trustees,  four  new  members  having  been  added  to  the  original 
nine  of  the  Free  School,  it  was  resolved  that  Messrs.  Swift  and 
Skinner  and  Noble  (all  of  Williamstown)  be  a  committee  to  counsel 
the  president. 

No  personal  likeness  of  Seth  Swift  is  believed  to  be  extant ;  but  it 
is  known  that  he  was  of  uncouth  features  and  of  powerful  frame. 
Credible  traditions  concerning  him  have  come  down  to  the  present 
time.  The  two  successive  houses  which  he  occupied  during  his  long 
pastorate  are  still  standing  near  each  other  on  the  Green  River 
Road  about  one  mile  south  of  the  village.  Tradition  has  it  that  the 


180  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

two  evergreen  trees  standing  for  three  quarters  of  a  century  in  front 
of  the  southernmost  of  these  two  houses  were  set  in  succession  by 
his  two  sons,  Ephraim  Griswold,  who  was  graduated  from  College 
in  1804,  and  Elisha  Pope,  likewise  graduated  in  1813.  The  other 
house  of  two  stories,  a  few  rods  to  the  north  and  on  the  other  side 
of  the  road,  is  said  to  have  been  built  by  the  pastor  for  the  sake  of 
more  commodious  quarters.  The  older  house,  which  has  gone  by  the 
name  of  the  "  Stevens  house  "  for  fifty  years,  is  by  much  the  more 
interesting  of  the  two.  What  now  follows,  though  not  of  much  con- 
sequence to  posterity,  does  not  depend  on  the  uncertain  cord  of  tra- 
dition, but  has  all  the  evidence  that  can  be  given  to  facts  by  eye  and 
ear  witnesses  of  the  highest  credibility.  In  the  summer  of  1852 
these  two  sons  of  the  early  pastor,  both  graduates  of  the  College, 
both  clergymen  and  one  of  them  a  doctor  of  divinity,  both  large  in 
person  and  uncomely  in  features,  and  the  elder  one  with  extremely 
prominent  eyes  and  an  uncommonly  loud  voice,  came  back  to  revisit 
the  scenes  of  their  childhood  and  of  their  college  life.  It  so  hap- 
pened that  they  were  to  spend  a  Sunday.  Eev.  Dr.  Absalom  Peters, 
then  pastor  of  the  Congregational  church,  an  old  man,  was  much 
interested  in  antiquarian  matters  relating  to  the  town,  and  was  never 
averse  to  being  relieved  from  pulpit  duties  in  the  general  interest  of 
his  "  barrel  "  of  old  sermons,  not  only  secured  the  two  visiting  clergy- 
men to  preach  for  him  that  Sunday,  —  the  elder  in  the  morning  and  the 
younger  in  the  afternoon,  —  but  also  at  the  opening  of  the  morning 
service  made  effusive  reference  to  the  interesting  fact  of  their  pres- 
ence (both  of  them  in  the  pulpit),  and  announced  with  very  consid- 
erable unction  that  the  one  would  preach  the  morning  sermon  and 
the  other  the  sermon  of  the  afternoon.  At  that  time,  and  for  many 
years  before  and  afterward,  the  college  students  worshipped  on  Sun- 
days with  the  people  of  the  town,  the  seniors  and  freshmen  occupy- 
ing the  gallery  on  the  south  side  of  the  meeting-house  and  the  jun- 
iors and  sophomores  the  corresponding  gallery  on  the  north.  All 
went  tolerably  well  until  the  elder  Swift  began  to  warm  up  with  his 
theme,  whatever  it  was,  when  his  loud  voice  became  thunderous, 
and  his  bulging  eyes  still  more  brilliant  and  protuberant.  The  titter- 
ing at  intervals  ran  round  the  entire  gallery,  and  became  more  pro- 
nounced among  the  seniors,  of  whom  the  present  writer  was  one, 
mainly  because  they  were  nearer  and  could  see  better !  All  above, 
below,  and  around  could  hear  equally  well !  As  the  "  application  " 
approached  the  peroration,  what  was  designed  to  be  ponderable  and 
solemn  became  to  the  auditors  and  beholders  irresistibly  ludicrous. 
The  close  of  each  hortatory  sentence  was  greeted  with  a  guffaw,  in 


.  WILLIAMSTOWN   FREE   SCHOOL.  181 

which,  the  most  serious  student  could  not  help  but  join.  At  last  the 
preacher  in  sheer  despair  turned  full  round  to  the  right  where  the 
seniors  sat,  and  rolling  his  blazing  orbits  in  that  direction,  rebuked 
them  for  their  irreverence  in  the  house  of  God  in  tones  that  were 
sonorous  if  not  wrathful.  It  is  scarcely  needful  to  add  that  the  Rev. 
Dr.  Swift,  the  younger  brother,  did  not  preach  that  afternoon,  and 
that  neither  of  the  two  venerable  men  worshipped  with  the  students, 
and  that  Dr.  Peters  commenced  the  afternoon  service  himself  in  a 
noticeably  more  subdued  manner  than  he  had  used  in  the  morning. 
Some  wicked  seniors  thought  in  their  hearts  that  the  pastor's  hum- 
bleness of  manner  was  due  to  the  unwelcome  reflections  (1)  that  he 
had  promised  in  the  morning  more  than  he  was  able  to  fulfil,  and 
(2)  that  he  had  one  less  sermon  in  his  barrel  in  hopeful  reserve  as  a 
consequence  of  the  fiasco  of  the  morning ! 

These  nine,  then,  were  the  original  trustees  of  the  Free  School, 
and  no  other  person  ever  served  in  that  capacity,  because  these  all 
lived  to  petition  the  General  Court  in  a  body  to  transform  the  school 
into  a  college,  which  took  place  in  1793 ;  and  all  these  became  then 
trustees  of  the  College  with  four  other  men  added,  and  with  a  pro- 
vision that  thereafter  the  trustees  might  be  seventeen  and  must  be 
at  least  eleven.  Let  us  here  and  now  tabulate  these  men,  and  take  a 
good  look  at  them.  No  other  nine  trustees  taken  together  at  any 
one  time  during  the  full  century  now  past  can  equal  these  original 
nine  in  individual  and  moral  power,  in  position  and  reputation  in 
their  day. 

Seth  Swift  Williamstown  Yale  1774 

John  Bacon  Stockbridge  Princeton  1765 

David  Noble  Williamstown  Yale  1764 

Israel  Jones  North  Adams  Not  graduated 

Daniel  Collins  Lanesboro  Yale  1760 

Tompson  Joseph  Skinner      Williamstown  Not  graduated 

William  Williams  Dalton  Yale  1755 

Woodbridge  Little  Pittsfield  Yale  1760 

Theodore  Sedgwick  Sheffield  Not  graduated 

Besides  organizing  at  their  first  meeting  in  Pittsfield,  1785,  under 
Williams  as  president  and  Swift  as  treasurer,  the  board  appointed 
what  might  have  been  called  a  financial  committee,  consisting  of 
Noble  and  Jones  and  Skinner.  The  trustees  found  that  the  funds 
now  transferred  to  their  care  from  the  executors  of  Colonel  William  s's 
will,  $9157,  were  insufficient  even  to  erect  a  suitable  building  for 
the  school,  to  say  nothing  of  other  impending  expenses.  This  com- 
mittee was  appointed  primarily  to  procure  such  assistance  in  mate- 


182  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

rials  and  funds  as  they  might  be  able  to  obtain  from  the  people  of 
Williamstown  and  elsewhere  for  the  erection  of  the  building.  Fur- 
thermore, at  this  first  meeting  the  board  passed  four  resolutions  as 
follows :  — 

That  as  the  present  fund  of  the  Corporation  will  be  insufficient  to  effect  an 
object  of  extensive  usefulness  in  instructing  the  rising  generation,  and  as  it  is 
probable  that  many  persons  may  be  disposed  generously  to  contribute  to  the 
execution  of  the  intention  of  the  donor,  it  is  therefore  ordered  that  the  Said  Com- 
mittee receive  such  contributions  as  may  be  made  for  that  purpose,  and  that 
they  prepare  and  circulate  subscriptions  therefor. 

That  it  is  the  sense  of  this  Committee  that  the  intention  of  Ephraim  Williams, 
Esq. ,  in  that  clause  of  his  last  will  and  testament  which  respects  the  maintenance 
of  a  Free  School  in  Williamstown,  and  the  trust  reposed  in  them  by  the  Legisla- 
ture, will  be  most  fully  and  properly  executed  by  employing  the  whole  donation 
in  that  town. 

That  it  is  the  sense  of  the  Corporation  that  the  Free  School  in  Williamstown 
be  open  and  free  for  the  use  and  benefit  of  the  inhabitants  of  that  town,  and  the 
free  citizens  of  the  American  States  indiscriminately,  under  such  rules  and 
orders  as  may  hereafter  be  established. 

That  it  is  the  sense  of  the  Corporation  that  it  will  best  coincide  with  the  liberal 
views  of  the  donor,  and  the  intention  of  the  Legislature,  to  admit  no  pupil  into  the 
Free  School  in  Williamstown  not  having  been  previously  taught  to  read  English 
well. 

This  was  in  April,  1785.  In  August,  at  the  second  meeting  of  the 
board,  held  in  Williamstown,  two  alternative  sites  for  the  school 
building  were  sought  out  and  selected,  and  the  size  of  the  building  to 
be  erected  prescribed  by  resolution  to  the  same  committee  raised  in 
April  for  general  financial  management,  only  the  names  were  placed 
in  a  different  order.  Skinner  was  put  chairman  of  the  building 
committee,  no  doubt  because  he  was  by  trade  a  carpenter  and  builder. 
He  was  then  but  thirty-three  years  old,  had  been  in  Williamstown 
but  ten  years,  but  he  had  put  himself  ahead  in  matters  both  military 
and  civil  with  unprecedented  facility.  He  was  a  young  man  of 
remarkable  talents,  and  he  had  an  extraordinary  career. 

It  is  not  needful  to  suppose  that  any  special  committee  selected 
the  alternative  sites  for  the  school  building.  It  is  more  natural  and 
pleasant  to  think  of  the  entire  body  of  nine  as  walking  together  along 
the  broad  Main  Street  and  canvassing  pro  and  con  the  advantages  of 
this  or  that  comely  height  on  either  side  of  the  fifteen-rods-wide  road. 
Then,  as  now,  to  one  entering  the  hamlet  from  the  east  over  the 
Green  River  bridge  and  up  the  slight  bank  to  the  level  Hoosac 
intervale,  which  is  here  three  quarters  of  a  mile  broad  to  the  north, 
and  immediately  passing  on  the  right  the  then  new,  and  now  old, 
brick  house  of  two  stories  built  by  Captain  Judah  Williams,  150 


WILLIAMSTOWN    FREE   SCHOOL.  183 

rods  over  the  level  to  the  west  brings  one  to  the  first  village  emi- 
nence across  the  Main  Street  at  right  angles  about  seventy  feet  above 
the  level.  On  the  right-hand  slope  or  summit  of  this  eminence, 
long  called  "Consumption  Hill,"  the  board  found  on  that  August 
day  in  1785  what  they  designated  as  "  the  old  lime-kiln."  That  was 
a  good  place  for  their  building;  nearly  forty  years  later  the  first 
College  chapel  was  located  there,  now  called  Griffin  Hall ;  but  the 
limestone  rocks  protruded  themselves  high  above  ground  over  much 
of  the  surface  of  the  hill;  and  it  would  be  expensive  to  clear  the 
ground  for  a  building,  as  had  actually  to  be  done  in  1828.  Directly 
to  the  south  of  this  site  across  the  Main  Street,  however,  there  was  an 
open  space  free  from  rocks  upon  the  same  general  eminence.  Here 
was  accordingly  fixed  one  of  the  two  alternative  sites,  "in  the  northwest 
corner  of  Captain  Isaac  Searle?s  lot,  opposite  the  old  lime-kiln,  as  the 
Corporation  shall  hereafter  determine" 

The  other  site  then  selected,  and  the  one  actually  preferred  and 
occupied  for  the  Free  School  later,  was  upon  the  next  eminence 
toward  the  west,  "south  of  Mr.  William  Horsford's  house."  William 
Horsford's  house  stood  on  the  site  of  General  Sloan's  house,  after- 
ward built,  now  occupied  by  the  president  of  the  College ;  and  the 
site  chosen  for  the  building  was  wholly  within  the  limits  of  the 
Main  Street,  and  has  been  crowned  for  eleven  decades  by  what  has 
been  called  for  a  century  "West  College."  The  reason  why  this 
site  was  put  wholly  on  the  public  highway  was,  that  the  second 
eminence,  unlike  the  first,  slopes  suddenly  and  steadily  down  to  the 
south  from  the  line  dividing  highway  from  house-lot.  This  was, 
perhaps,  a  disadvantage  of  the  second  eminence,  although,  as  the 
Free  School  was  to  be  for  the  town  as  such,  and  the  town  as  such 
owned  the  Main  Street,  and  not  in  any  sense  the  owners  of  the  land 
adjoining  it,  this  particular  objection  was  then  unfelt,  and  is  not 
even  now  of  any  legal  validity.  Countervailing  this  objection  (if  it 
were  one),  was  the  fact  that  the  location  chosen  and  used  was  nearer 
the  middle  of  the  Main  Street,  east  and  west,  than  any  other  good 
one  available.  Ever  after  1768  the  third  eminence,  which  is  almost 
precisely  in  this  middle,  was  occupied  by  the  first  two  meeting- 
houses of  the  town,  which  stood  successively  on  "  the  Square,"  and 
almost  in  the  middle  of  the  Main  Street,  north  and  south.  The 
earliest  dwelling-houses  in  the  hamlet  stood,  for  the  most  part, 
either  on  this  third  eminence,  or  else  in  the  valley  between  this  and 
the  fourth  and  last  one.  But  by  1785  the  population  had  worked 
decidedly  toward  the  east,  so  that  it  is  probable  nearly  as  many 
people  lived  on  the  Main  Street  east  of  the  second  eminence  where 


]84  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

the  West  College  stands,  as  west  of  it  toward  and  beyond  the 
Square.  At  any  rate,  when,  in  1797,  a  second  college  building  was 
needed,  the  trustees  without  hesitation  put  the  new  "  East  College  " 
on  the  alternative  place  of  1785  and  on  private  ground;  namely, 
"  in  the  northwest  corner  of  Captain  Isaac  Searle's  lot,  opposite  the 
old  lime-kiln." 

At  the  same  meeting  the  board  voted  that  the  free  schoolhouse 
"be  constructed  of  brick,  and  be  of  the  following  dimensions; 
namely,  fifty-six  feet  in  length,  and  forty-two  in  breadth  from  out- 
side to  outside,  and  twenty-one  feet  in  height,  with  a  bevel  roof." 
Skinner  and  Jones  and  Noble,  their  committee,  were  directed  to 
"provide  the  materials  and  erect  the  building  as  soon  as  may  be." 
But  when  did  ever  any  individual  or  corporation  organize  and  get 
into  working  shape  any  considerable  institution  of  any  kind  designed 
for  the  public  welfare,  without  delays  and  hindrances  and  positive 
obstructions  ?  The  very  next  meeting  of  our  board,  held  in  Pittsfield 
in  April,  1786,  passed  a  resolve  of  considerable  sinister  significance, 
as  follows :  — 

That  Theodore  Sedgwick  and  Simeon  Strong  and  Caleb  Strong,  Esquires 
[all  three  noted  lawyers],  be  requested  to  appear  at  the  Supreme  Judicial  Court, 
to  be  holden  at  Northampton  within  and  for  the  County  of  Hampshire,  on  the 
last  Monday  of  April  current,  to  make  answer  to  the  memorials  of  the  towns 
of  Williamstown  and  Adams,  presented  by  their  respective  agents  at  the  last 
Supreme  Judicial  Court,  holden  at  Great  Harrington  in  the  County  of  Berkshire 
on  the  first  day  of  October  last,  respecting  the  proceedings  of  this  Corporation. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  the  charter  of  the  Free  School  expressly 
placed  its  trustees  and  their  official  doings  under  the  supervision  of 
the  Supreme  Judicial  Court  of  the  Commonwealth.  Complainants 
could  only  enter  their  grievances  in  due  legal  form  before  this  court. 
Such  doubtless  were  these  "memorials"  of  the  two  towns,  which 
are  not  now  extant,  nor  is  there  any  evidence  that  the  legal  gentle- 
men appointed  "  made  answer  "  to  them  in  court.  It  is  probable 
that  the  case  was  postponed  in  April,  and  never  afterward  resumed. 
It  is  certain  that  the  records  of  the  trustees  make  no  further  refer- 
ences to  these  particular  complaints.  But  it  is  easy  enough  to  sur- 
mise the  substance  of  this  memorial  from  the  town  of  Adams, 
because  Colonel  Williams  had  mentioned  in  his  will  the  possible  use 
of  a  part  of  his  legacy  "  for  the  benefit  of  the  East  town  "  :  and  the 
trustees  at  their  first  meeting  had  voted  that  "the  whole  dona- 
tion "  should  be  employed  in  "  the  maintenance  of  a  Free  School 
in  Williamstown."  What  the  burden  of  grievance  borne  by  this 
Williamstown  memorial  of  1786  may  have  been,  it  is  not  easy  even 


WILLIAMSTOWN  FREE   SCHOOL.  185 

to  conjecture,  although  some  years  later  local  opposition  to  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  trustees  took  more  definite  form.  There  is  no  record 
of  any  meeting  of  the  corporation  throughout  the  year  1787.  There 
was  evidently  difficulty  and  delay  attending  the  erection  of  the 
school  building.  There  is  a  significant  hint  in  the  vote  passed  at 
the  next  meeting  in  May,  1788,  that  local  jealousies  among  the 
people  had  arisen  respecting  the  location  of  the  proposed  edifice. 

Voted,  that  the  subscriptions  already  had  and  obtained  for  the  purpose  of 
erecting  the  house  for  the  use  of  the  Free  School  in  Williamstown  be  vacated 
and  of  no  effect ;  and  that  at  their  next  meeting  the  Corporation  will  attend  to 
any  subscriptions  or  proposals  which  may  be  then  offered  and  made  respecting 
the  erecting  said  house,  on  one  of  the  two  eminences  mentioned  in  their  resolve 
passed  at  their  meeting  held  in  August,  1785,  or  any  other  place  in  the  town  of 
Williamstown. 

Conscious  that  they  were  being  blamed  for  delay,  for  which  they 
were  not  really  responsible,  the  trustees  voted  at  this  meeting,  in 
May,  that  Messrs.  Swift  and  Noble  be  a  committee  "to  provide  a 
convenient  house  for  the  school  for  the  time  being " ;  and  that 
Messrs.  Williams  and  Skinner  and  Collins  be  a  committee  for  pro- 
curing a  master  for  the  time  being.  Nothing  came  of  this  attempt 
to  start  the  School  before  it  could  be  permanently  housed.  This 
May  meeting  was  holden  at  the  house  of  Charles  Kellogg,  and  the 
expenses  of  the  meeting  are  set  down  at  £3  4s.  9d  How  much  was 
that  ?  It  is  to  be  remembered  that  the  old  silver  money  of  Massa- 
chusetts after  1672  was  just  twenty-five  per  cent  in  discount  of  the 
English  pound  sterling;  while,  in  1749,  Massachusetts  determined 
to  have  no  other  silver  money  circulate  in  the  colony  but  the  sterling 
silver  sent  to  her  in  coin  (£138,649)  as  her  share  of  the  ransom- 
money  for  the  conquest  of  Louisburg.  She  thus  became  the  "  silver 
colony,"  and  demonstrated  in  her  increasing  trade  and  prosperity 
how  better  it  is  in  both  domestic  and  foreign  trade  to  employ  the 
dearer  money  rather  than  any  one  of  its  cheaper  substitutes,  which 
can  never  become  a  steady  standard.  But  as  the  Revolution  drew 
on,  Massachusetts  of  necessity  fell  back  from  sterling  to  colony  bills 
again,  her  own  and  those  of  Connecticut  and  Rhode  Island,  and  of 
course  also  upon  the  "  Continental "  bills  of  credit,  so-called,  whose 
steady  depreciation  and  ultimate  extinguishment  in  value  wrought 
wide  havoc,  both  political  and  pecuniary,  throughout  New  England. 
It  is  very  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  to  tell  the  value  in  sterling  of 
the  colony  paper  in  Massachusetts  in  1788,  or  to  tell  as  to  any  one 
payment  whether  it  were  made  in  paper  or  in  the  Spanish-Mexican 
coins  which  slipped  into  large  circulation  in  New  England  and  New 


186  W1LLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

York,  and  continued  in  circulation  in  spite  of  the  national  minting, 
after  1794,  of  the  halves  and  quarters  and  dimes  and  half-dimes  of 
our  own  silver  money.  The  cost  of  the  entertainment  of  the  Free 
School  trustees,  whether  at  Williamstown  or  at  Pittsfield,  was,  at  all 
events,  extremely  small.  In  one  instance  its  payment  by  Wood- 
bridge  Little  is  recorded ;  that  is,  by  him  personally.  Its  amount 
is,  in  nearly  every  instance,  set  down  at  the  close  of  the  minutes 
of  that  meeting;  and  when  the  meeting  was  at  Williamstown,  the 
house  of  its  holding  is  a  matter  of  this  record. 

One  of  these  meetings  is  said  to  have  been  holden  at  the  house  of 
one  of  their  own  number,  Tompson  J.  Skinner.  The  site  of  this 
house,  which  he  continued  to  occupy  till  his  failure  in  1807,  was  the 
site  of  the  present  fine  house  of  Mr.  Henry  Sabin,  and  was  bought 
by  the  Skinner  brothers  about  1775  of  Colonel  Benjamin  Simonds, 
who  had  built  it  and  kept  it  as  a  tavern  (the  first  one  in  the  village) 
for  at  least  twelve  years,  when  he  moved  north  of  the  river  and 
built  the  large  tavern-stand  figured  on  a  preceding  page.  It  is  likely, 
but  not  proven,  that  the  Skinners  kept  their  house  also  as  a  tavern 
for  a  few  years,  until  the  late  "  Mansion  House  "  was  erected  diag- 
onally across  the  Square.  Charles  Kellogg  is  known  to  have  been 
the  first  landlord  of  the  Mansion  House,  although  the  date  of  the 
erection  of  the  house  is  not  known.  In  May,  1788,  the  meeting  was 
at  the  house  of  Charles  Kellogg,  as  two  years  before  it  was  at  the 
house  of  Tompson  J.  Skinner.  The  inference  is  only  moderately 
secure,  that  the  Mansion  House  was  already  erected  in  1788.  The 
date  of  its  destruction  by  fire  was  October,  1871 ;  and  in  the  long 
interval  the  building  played  a  large  rdle  in  the  ongoings  of  the  town 
and  the  College  also. 

A  very  important  meeting  of  the  trustees  was  holden  August  19, 
1788,  at  which,  among  several  other  less  consequential  acts  and 
resolves,  it  was  voted :  — 

That  the  house  for  the  use  of  the  Free  School  in  Williamstown  be  con- 
structed of  brick,  and  be  of  the  following  dimensions,  namely,  seventy-two  feet 
in  length  and  forty  feet  in  breadth,  from  inside  to  inside,  three  stories  in  height, 
with  four  stacks  of  chimneys  and  a  bevel  roof ;  that  said  house  be  erected  on 
the  eminence  east  of  the  meeting-house,  and  south  of  Mr.  William  Horsford's 
dwelling-house,  on  the  south  side  of  the  highway  ;  —  provided  the  sum  of  five 
hundred  pounds  be  paid  or  secured  to  be  paid,  to  the  said  Corporation  for  the 
use  of  the  said  School,  by  Tompson  J.  Skinner,  Esq.  and  others,  as  expressed  in 
a  certain  instrument  subscribed  by  the  said  Skinner  and  others  bearing  date 
August  16,  1788,  now  in  the  hands  of  the  clerk  of  said  Corporation,  reference 
thereto  being  had  ;  —  and  also  provided  that  the  said  subscribers  shall  level  and 
prepare  the  ground  on  the  said  eminence,  in  such  a  manner  as  the  said  Corpora- 


WILLIAMSTOWN   FREE   SCHOOL.  187 

tion  shall  judge  proper  for  the  accommodation  of  the  said  house; — provided 
also,  that  Captain  Lemuel  Stewart  shall  make  and  execute  to  the  said  Corpora- 
tion a  good  and  sufficient  deed  of  the  whole  of  a  certain  piece  of  land  [fully 
described  in  the  record  as  hollow-ground  to  the  west  of  the  eminence]  the  hol- 
low above  mentioned  being  in  the  same  place  where  was  formerly  a  well  belong- 
ing to  Jonathan  Meacham  ;  —  provided  also,  the  said  subscribers  shall  by  the 
fifteenth  day  of  November  next  procure  a  good  well,  which  shall  at  all  times 
afford  a  sufficient  quantity  of  water  for  all  necessary  uses. 

In  these  votes,  read  cautiously  between  the  lines,  come  out  into 
broad  daylight  the  chief  causes  of  the  long  delays  experienced  and 
yet  to  be  experienced  by  the  trustees  in  the  erecting  of  the  school 
building.  In  the  first  place,  the  height  now  finally  selected  as  the 
site  for  the  school  was  a  huge  swell  of  limestone  rock  covered  in  its 
highest  parts  by  sundry  projections  of  the  same  above  the  general 
surface ;  and  it  was  the  opinion  of  the  trustees,  since  the  place 
selected  was  in  the  main  highway  belonging  to  the  town,  the  towns- 
men themselves  should  be  at  the  expense  of  levelling  off  the  ground 
and  getting  it  ready  for  the  building ;  this  they  had  agreed,  and  yet 
neglected  to  do ;  and  now,  headed  by  their  most  enterprising  fellow- 
citizen,  they  had  put  themselves  under  pecuniary  bonds,  signed  and 
sealed,  to  have  this  preliminary  preparation  accomplished  without 
further  delay.  In  the  second  place,  it  had  been  foreseen,  that  there 
would  need  to  be  a  good  well  of  water  in  close  proximity  to  the 
building  for  the  uses  of  the  school.  Could  such  a  well  be  had  on  or 
near  such  a  limestone  ledge  ?  It  was  only  reasonable  to  suppose 
such  a  well  could  be  sunk  there,  because  Mr.  William  Horsford 
certainly  had  a  well  on  his  houselot  not  many  rods  to  the  north,  and 
that  well  is  still  in  existence,  although  not  in  use,  to  this  day ;  and 
the  vote  of  the  trustees  above  quoted  proves,  that  "  there  was  for- 
merly a  well  belonging  to  Jonathan  Meacham  "  in  a  "hollow"  about 
the  same  distance  to  the  west  of  the  site  as  Horsford's  was  to  the 
north.  Whether  Captain  Lemuel  Stewart  made  and  executed  to 
the  corporation  a  good  and  sufficient  deed  of  this  hollow  for  pos- 
sible well-purposes  at  or  about  that  time,  or  not,  cannot  now  be 
determined ;  but  at  all  events,  the  College  has  owned  that  particular 
strip  from  a  time  whereto  the  memory  of  living  men  runneth  not 
back  to  the  contrary;  and  in  1886,  126  years  after  Meacham 
bought  that  House-lot  No.  43  of  Seth  Hudson  for  £5,  October  2, 1760, 
the  College  gave  permission  to  the  Chi  Psi  fraternity  to  cut  and  use 
a  tennis  court,  which  happened  to  be  laid  out  on  the  western  edge 
(north  end)  of  the  original  House-lot  No.  43,  in  the  very  "hollow" 
coveted  by  the  trustees  in  1788,  and  perhaps  conveyed  to  them  at 


188  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

that  time.  Here  were  then  uncovered  the  distinct  remains  of  Jona- 
than Meacham's  house,  some  of  the  bricks  being  entire  or  nearly  so, 
and  many  more  in  fragments.  It  is  a  matter  of  trustworthy  record, 
that  in  1766,  Meacham  lived  in  a  house  near  the  "College  Spring" 
on  House-lot  No.  49,  a  lot  which  he  certainly  owned,  and  on  which  he 
probably  built  himself,  and  the  cellar  of  this  second  house  remained 
open  and  visible  as  such  till  past  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury. The  writer  has  seen  it  a  hundred  times  just  to  the  west  of  a 
big  rock  still  reclining  there.  Notwithstanding  this  phrase  of  the 
trustees  in  1788, —  "where  was  formerly  a  well  belonging  to  Jona- 
than Meacham,"  —  it  is  still  a  fair  conjecture  that  Meacham  found 
difficulties  of  some  sort  in  getting  good  water  and  a  plenty  of  it 
near  his  first  house,  and  that  the  College  Spring,  long  so-called,  fur- 
nished at  least  a  part  of  his  motive  for  his  move  from  No.  43  to 
No.  49. 

Another  vote  of  the  trustees  at  this  meeting  in  August,  1788,  was 
couched  in  the  words  following,  to  wit :  "  That  a  kitchen  25  feet 
square  be  erected  for  the  use  of  the  said  school  one  story  high,  and 
be  annexed  to  the  House  above-mentioned,  and  that  there  be  a  cellar 
under  the  kitchen."  The  need  of  any  such  unsightly  annex  to  the 
main  building  as  this  would  have  proved  to  be,  if  ever  built,  was 
neatly  obviated  through  a  change  of  plan  on  the  part  of  the  Com- 
mittee of  Erection,  as  we  shall  see  in  a  few  moments.  Still  another 
vote  at  this  same  meeting  needs  to  be  quoted,  to  the  effect,  that  the 
"  Corporation  prefer  a  petition  to  the  General  Court  for  the  grant  of 
a  Lottery  to  enable  them  to  raise  the  sum  of  £1200  to  be  applied  to 
the  purpose  of  erecting  the  Building."  Williams  and  Bacon  and 
Little  were  appointed  to  present  this  petition  with  the  signature  of 
Williams  as  president ;  Sedgwick  and  Skinner  and  Little  were  ap- 
pointed a  committee  to  prepare  the  scheme  for  the  said  lottery,  and 
procure  the  tickets  to  be  printed,  provided  the  lottery  be  granted. 
February  11, 1789,  the  following  preamble  and  essential  clause  passed 
the  Legislature  at  Boston :  — 

WHEREAS,  it  appears  that  it  would  promote  the  education  of  youth  to  erect  a, 
suitable  building  for  the  accommodation  of  the  Free  School  in  Williamstown, 
and  the  trustees  of  said  school  have  represented  their  inability  to  accomplish  the 
same  without  the  aid  of  the  legislature,  and  have  requested  that  a  lottery  may 
be  granted  for  that  purpose : 

Be  it  enacted  by  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  in  General  Court 
assembled,  and  by  the  authority  of  the  same,  that  there  be,  and  hereby  is  granted 
a  lottery,  for  raising  a  sum  not  exceeding  twelve  hundred  pounds,  the  profits  of 
which,  after  paying  the  necessary  expenses  of  managing  the  same,  shall  be  applied 
for  the  purpose  of  erecting  the  aforesaid  building. 


WILLIAMSTOWN    FREE    SCHOOL.  189 

In  the  newspaper  called  the  Massachusetts  Centinel  of  May  22, 
1790,  appear  what  we  should  call  nowadays  an  advertisement  of  and 
an  editorial  in  behalf  of  this  lottery,  as  follows :  — 

WlLLIAMSTOWN    FREE    SCHOOL    LOTTERY. 

The  7th  class  of  WILLIAMS-TOWN  FREE  SCHOOL  LOTTERY,  will  positively  com- 
mence drawing  on  MONDAY  next  (being  the  24th  inst.)  and  will  be  completed 
early  on  the  next  day  ;  a  list  of  Prizes  will  be  published  the  same  week  in  the 
CENTINEL.  — The  publick  may  depend  on  punctuality. 

The  FREE  SCHOOL  has  hitherto  experienced  the  Friendship  of  the  Citizens  of 
Boston,  and  the  neighboring  Towns  and  it  is  hoped  that  it  will  once  more  receive 
the  same  benevolent  Assistance. 

MAY  22,  1790. 

WlLLIAMSTOWN  FREE  SCHOOL  LOTTERY. 

We  are  authorized  to  assure  the  Publick,  and  we  do  assure  them  —  that  the 
7th  class  of  this  Lottery  will  not  only  commence  drawing  on  Monday  next,  but 
will  positively  be  completed  on  Tuesday  morning  —  and  a  list  of  Prizes  will  be 
published  in  the  Centinel  the  same  week. 

The  metropolis  of  Massachusetts  hath  ever  been  celebrated  for  the  attention 
it  hath  paid  to  the  education  of  its  youth.  In  the  elder  world,  a  FRANKLIN  hath 
been  a  living  testimony  of  it,  as  well  as  in  the  younger.  But  not  confined  to 
the  youth  of  the  town,  is  this  benevolent  disposition  —  it  extends  to  the  remotest 
parts  of  the  Commonwealth  ;  and  hath  been  abundantly  manifested  in  the  liberal 
encouragement  given  to  the  Williamstown  Free  School  Lottery.  The  class  to  be 
drawn  on  Monday  next,  will  perhaps  be  the  last  opportunity  our  citizens  may 
have  to  gratify  their  humane  wishes  —  which  they  will  not  let  pass  unimproved, 
especially  as  great  pecuniary  profit  may  attend  the  gratification. 

MAY  22,  1790. 

Charles  A.  Dewey,  a  native  of  Williamstown,  and  an  alumnus 
of  1811,  in  an  argument  before  the  Legislature  in  1819  against 
the  removal  of  the  College  to  Northampton,  stated  that  the  profits 
of  the  lottery  were  realized  almost  solely  by  the  sale  of  the  tickets 
in  this  and  the  adjoining  towns ;  so  that,  the  lottery  in  its  practical 
operation  proved  to  be  a  tax  upon  the  local  inhabitants ;  so  that  also, 
the  above  editorial  exhortations  to  humanity  and  the  cupidity  of  the 
people  of  Boston  fell  practically  upon  their  ears  pretty  flat.  The 
corporation  gained  from  the  lottery  scheme  $3459.68/  or  as  then 
reckoned,  £1037  18s.  2d. 

i  The  writing  of  the  present  paragraphs  happens  to  fall  in  March,  1895 ;  and  it  gives 
a  queer  sensation  to  be  historically  recording  the  fact  that  lottery-ticket  money  lies 
in  the  very  earliest  foundations  of  Williams  College,  at  the  time  when  the  newspapers 
are  full  of  graphic  accounts  of  the  passing  by  Congress  and  the  signature  by  President 
Cleveland  on  the  4th  of  March  just  passed  of  a  sweeping  anti-lottery  law,  outlawing 
throughout  the  jurisdiction  of  the  United  States,  the  sale  and  transportation,  in  and 
every  form,  of  lottery  tickets;  and  especially  to  read  that  this  triumph  of  morals 
was  largely  achieved  by  the  vigilance  and  persistence  of  a  Williams  alumnus,  Pro- 
fessor S.  H.  Woodbridge  of  the  class  of  1873. 


190  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

In  the  interval  of  time,  during  which  the  Trustees  of  the  Free 
School  were  apparently  doing  their  best  to  bring  the  same  into  liv- 
ing effect  and  operation,  but  before  a  single  stone  of  the  foundation 
of  the  building  had  been  laid,  the  greatest  political  achievements  that 
this  country  has  ever  witnessed  or  is  ever  likely  to  witness  again, 
had  taken  place  in  the  city  of  Philadelphia :  during  the  summer  of 
1787  the  Federal  Convention  had  framed  the  present  Constitution  of 
the  United  States,  and  had  sent  it  out  knocking  for  admission  at  the 
doors  of  the  several  States ;  during  a  little  more  than  a  year  follow- 
ing, eleven  of  the  thirteen  States  had  ratified  the  Constitution  and 
set  its  proposed  machinery  in  motion  as  between  themselves ;  and 
on  the  30th  of  April,  1789,  Washington  took  the  oath  of  office  as 
the  first  President  of  the  United  States.  The  institution  of  a  new 
national  government,  and  the  new  hopes  kindled  in  the  hearts  of  the 
States  by  their  own  efforts  as  .toward  that  great  end,  doubtless  more 
or  less  stimulated  the  trustees  of  the  Free  School  to  bring  their  own 
work  forward  so  far  as  possible  contemporaneously.  At  any  rate, 
May  26,  1790,  at  a  meeting  at  Williamstown,  they  took  the  following 
conclusive  action :  — 

Taking  into  consideration  the  importance  and  necessity  of  erecting  without 
delay  the  building  intended  for  the  use  of  said  school ;  and  Colonel  Skinner 
having  this  day  engaged  to  sink  the  well  already  begun,  and  partly  dug,  on  the 
western  eminence  where  the  house  was  ordered  (on  certain  conditions)  to  be 
placed,  and  to  level  the  said  western  eminence  sufficient  to  accommodate  the 
building, — do  resolve,  that  the  committee  appointed  to  superintend  and  direct 
in  the  erection  of  said  building  shall  proceed  to  set  up  said  building,  on  said 
eminence,  without  delay,  the  conditions  mentioned  in  the  former  vote  of  the 
Corporation  not  having  been  performed  notwithstanding. 

Skinner  and  Noble  and  Jones,  all  young  business  men,  and  all 
"peers  of  the  vicinage,"  were  the  building  committee.  The  trus- 
tees had  also  "  Resolved,  that  Colonel  Benjamin  Simonds  be  requested  to 
join  said  committee  in  the  discharge  of  their  appointment,  and  that  the 
President  be  desired  to  inform  ttfe  gentleman  of  this  request"  Simonds 
was  not  a  member  of  the  Board  of  Trustees,  nor  was  he  in  any  tech- 
nical sense  an  educated  man.  The  compliment  paid  to  him  in  this 
resolution,  considering  the  usual  conceit  and  exclusiveness  of  cor- 
porations, is  very  remarkable;  and  honorable  alike  to  the  board, 
its  building  committee,  and  the  "gentleman"  so  punctiliously  in- 
vited to  cooperate  with  them.  Simonds  was  sixty-four  years  old  in 
1790,  when  the  order  from  the  board  to  its  committee  became  im- 
perative to  level  the  chosen  eminence,  and  "to  set  up  said  building 
on  said  eminence  without  delay."  He  had  spent  his  entire  life  from 


WILLIAMSTOWN   FREE   SCHOOL.  191 

twenty  years  of  age  in  the  valley  of  the  upper  Hoosac :  first,  as  a 
common  sentinel  in  the  garrison  of  Fort  Massachusetts ;  then,  as  an 
original  house-lot  proprietor  and  house-builder  in  the  little  hamlet 
of  West  Hoosac,  laid  out  in  1750 ;  then  serving  repeatedly  and 
during  considerable  intervals  of  time  in  defence  of  his  own  as  one  in 
the  local  garrison  of  the  West  Hoosac  Fort;  when  a  settled  peace 
came  between  England  and  France  in  1763,  he  prosecuted  with  more 
than  the  common  zest  and  success  his  part  in  the  life  of  the  little 
town,  becoming  perhaps  the  wealthiest,  certainly  the  most  prominent 
and  influential,  of  the  early  citizens.  He  was  colonel  of  a  regiment 
of  Berkshire  militia  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  the  Revolu- 
tionary War.  He  possessed  the  military  confidence  of  and  had  a 
soldierly  correspondence  with  General  Schuyler  and  General  Lincoln 
and  General  Gates,  as  well  as  with  the  highest  officials  at  Boston 
both  military  and  civil.  As  the  Free  School  was*  conceived  of  by 
Colonel  Ephraim  Williams  and  described  in  terms  in  his  will  drawn 
and  probated  in  1755,  it  was  designed  for  the  direct  benefit  of  the 
children  of  the  soldiers,  who  had  served  under  him  in  one  or  other  of 
the  forts  of  the  old  French  line.  Simonds  had  two  children  born  to 
him  in  West  Hoosac  while  Colonel  W'illiams  was  still  in  command 
of  the  line  of  forts,  and  before  he  had  set  his  face  toward  the  fatal 
field  of  Lake  George.  It  is  perhaps  more  than  likely  that  Colonel 
Williams  had  spoken  at  one  time  or  another  to  his  well-known 
subordinate  and  fellow-proprietor  in  West  Hoosac  (their  house-lots 
were  in  plain  sight  of  each  other  on  either  side  of  Hemlock  Brook) 
of  his  intention  to  Ho  something  handsome  for  the  children  of  the 
hamlet,  inasmuch  as  he  himself  was  a  barren  stock.  At  all  events, 
now  that  Colonel  Williams  had  been  thirty-five  years  in  his  grave 
by  the  lakeside,  and  his  benefaction  was  just  coming  into  efficacy  in 
behalf  of  somebody's  children,  how  natural  it  was  for  the  trustees  to 
put  themselves  into  practical  consultation  with  the  only  man  then 
living  in  Williamstown  who  had  known  the  donor  personally  and 
perhaps  even  intimately. 

Aside  from  the  fact  that  Colonel  Simonds  seemed  to  represent 
directly  and  personally  those  whom  Colonel  Williams  had  in  mind 
to  benefit  a  whole  generation  before,  he  seemed  also  to  represent 
better  than  anybody  else  present  the  entire  inhabitants  of  the  bor- 
ough, as  the  benevolence  of  the  founder  was  beginning  to  be  dis- 
played before  their  eyes.  It  was  primarily  a  local  benefaction ;  it 
should  therefore  be  adapted  to  the  local  wants  and  habits,  as  they 
should  judge  these  to  be  who  were  most  familiar  with  the  past  and 
present  of  the  little  village  and  with  the  prejudices  and  opinions 


192  WILLIAMSTOWK    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

of  the  people.  Moreover,  it  had  been  already  determined  that  the 
school  building  should  be  constructed  of  brick,  and  there  was  at  that 
time  but  one  brick  house  within  the  entire  limits,  and  that  the  house 
on  Green  River  recently  built  by  Captain  Judah  Williams,  and  there 
was  then  almost  certainly  no  permanent  brickyard  in  the  town. 
Who  of  the  inhabitants  would  be  most  likely  to  know  where  lay  the 
bed  of  the  best  and  most  accessible  clay,  in  closest  proximity  to  a 
bed  of  proper  sand,  and  whence  the  burnt  bricks  could  be  easiest 
hauled  to  the  predetermined  site  of  the  new  building?  Simonds 
then  lived  in  his  tavern  stand  just  north  of  the  Hoosac  River,  on 
what  we  now  call  the  "  Simonds  road,"  stretching  straight  from  the 
bridge  to  the  Pownal  line,  and  in  that  part  of  the  town  have  always 
been  and  are  now  the  principal  deposits  of  building  sand ;  and  be- 
sides this,  Simonds  had  been  a  busy  buyer  and  seller  of  lots  in  all 
parts  of  the  town  for  nearly  forty  years,  and  he  was  presumed  to 
have  the  most  intimate  local  knowledge  of  both  lands  and  people. 
The  road  was  then  almost  perfectly  straight  north  from  the  meet- 
ing-house on  the  Square  up  hill  and  down  to  the  Colonel's  tavern 
just  over  the  river,  and  so  on  to  the  Pownal  —  that  is,  the  Vermont 
—  line.  At  the  foot  of  what  has  been  called  for  more  than  a  cen- 
tury the  "  Mansion  House  Hill,"  on  the  west  side  of  this  road  and 
close  up  to  it,  the  building  committee  selected  in  the  spring  of  1790 
a  bed  of  clay  suitable  to  furnish  the  material  for  the  brick  with 
which  to  build  their  Free  School.  Where  the  sand  came  from  to 
mix  with  this  clay  for  the  burning  is  not  now  certainly  known ;  but 
both  banks  of  the  river  a  little  farther  along  the  same  road,  and 
both  banks  of  Broad  Brook,  soon  struck  still  farther  on,  undoubtedly 
held  sand  in  even  greater  plenty  than  they  hold  it  now.  It  had 
passed  out  of  the  memories  of  living  men  and  out  of  records  accessi- 
ble to  them  whereabouts  the  brickyard  lay  that  furnished  the  brick 
for  the  first  two  college  edifices,  West  College  in  1790  and  (presum- 
ably) East  College  in  1797,  when  in  1890  the  owner  of  the  level 
patch  at  the  foot  of  the  hill,  Mr.  H.  T.  Procter,  ordered  it  to  be 
ploughed  up  in  connection  with  more  adjacent  land  of  the  same 
owner.  To  the  surprise  of  the  oldest  inhabitants  and  for  the  infor- 
mation of  the  most  careful  antiquarians,  the  plough  threw  out  over 
the  whole  level  innumerable  bits  of  brick  of  all  shapes  and  sizes, 
many  entire  bricks  that  looked  and  were  a  century  old,  and  other 
unmistakable  evidences  of  a  primal  brickyard  distinct  from  any 
building  ever  erected  near  it. 

The  limestone  swell  in  the  Main  Street,  on  which  the  committee 
had  been  ordered  by  the  trustees  to  put  up  their  building  of  certain 


WILLIAMSTOWN   FREE   SCHOOL.  193 

prescribed  dimensions,  was  first  levelled  down  and  rounded  off  into 
its  present  handsome  proportions,  and  Colonel  Skinner  is  known 
to  have  persistently  busied  himself  amid  constant  discouragements 
to  carry  out  his  engagement,  entered  upon  May  26,  1790,  "  to  sink 
the  well  already  begun  and  partly  dug  on  the  western  eminence"  when 
the  question  practically  confronted  the  committee,  whether  they 
should  follow  their  instructions  to  the  letter,  and  build  a  kitchen 
twenty-five  feet  square  and  one  story  high,  separate  from  the  main 
building,  or  whether  they  should  now  follow  their  own  judgment, 
as  reenforced  by  the  larger  experience  of  Colonel  Simonds,  and  so 
put  all  that  they  felt  would  be  needed  by  the  Free  School  under  one 
roof,  at  the  risk  of  making  a  larger  and  a  higher  building  than  they 
had  been  specifically  ordered  to  construct.  The  four  men,  only 
three  of  them  trustees,  wisely  took  the  liberty  of  the  second  alterna- 
tive, as  we  learn  from  a  vote  of  the  trustees  at  their  next  meeting, 
October  26,  1790,  as  follows :  — 

Whereas  the  Trustees  on  the  19th  of  Aug.  1788,  did  vote,  order,  and  direct 
that  the  house  for  the  use  of  the  Free  School  should  be  built  and  erected  of  the 
following  dimensions,  namely,  72  feet  in  length  and  40  in  breadth  and  3  stories 
high,  with  four  stacks  of  chimneys  and  bevel  roof  ;  and  Whereas  the  committee 
appointed  for  that  purpose,  by  advice  of  several  Trustees  and  from  considera- 
tions of  utility,  have  erected  the  said  building  of  the  following  dimensions, 
namely,  82  feet  in  length,  42  in  width,  4  stories  high  with  a  bevel  roof;  —  the 
Trustees  do  approve  of  the  conduct  of  the  committee  in  the  premises,  and  do 
hereby  ratify  and  confirm  the  same  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  so  that  it  shall 
have  the  same  effect  as  if  the  said  building  had  been  erected  of  the  dimensions 
prescribed  by  the  previous  order  and  vote. 

Everything  seems  to  have  gone  forward  successfully  during  that 
summer  and  autumn,  except  the  sinking  of  the  proposed  well. 
Water  was  not  struck,  notwithstanding  the  most  persistent  efforts, 
varied  both  as  to  the  place  arid  mode  of  excavation.  It  would  seem 
that  Jonathan  Meacham  had  formerly  had  a  well  a  few  rods  to  the 
west  of  the  school  site,  and  that  the  trustees  had  tried  to  gain  a  fee 
simple  of  the  little  hollow  occupied  by  his  house  and  well,  but  had 
desisted  after  a  time,  perhaps  for  the  same  reason  (whatever  that 
was)  that  had  led  Meacham  himself  to  abandon  his  first  homestead 
on  the  Main  Street,  and  it  is  certain  at  any  rate  that  William  Hors- 
ford  had  had  no  great  difficulty  in  excavating  his  well  just  across 
the  Main  Street  to  the  north ;  and  so  Skinner  kept  on  for  a  good 
while,  spending  much  money  and  more  patience  in  vain,  pitting  as 
it  were  his  own  "  grit "  against  the  grit  of  the  limestone  rock  with 
which  he  had  to  deal,  and  failed  utterly  and  at  every  point.  West 


194  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

College  never  had  a  well  of  its  own,  and  never  enjoyed  a  legal  right 
of  access  to  any  neighboring  well,  although  the  Whitmans  (suc- 
cessors to  William  Horsford)  by  courtesy  allowed  its  roomers  for 
considerable  stretches  of  time  to  use  the  old  well.  There  are  two 
copious  natural  springs  not  very  far  apart  from  each  other  on  the 
low  ground  to  the  southeast  of  the  West  College,  from  one  or  other 
of  which  the  students  supplied  themselves  for  the  most  part  till  the 
middle  of  the  nineteenth  century.  When  the  writer  as  a  freshman 
became  a  roomer  in  West  College  in  1848,  there  was  a  well-worn 
path  diagonally  across  what  was  then  called  "  Deacon  Skinner's 
meadow."  on  which  there  was  not  then  a  building  of  any  kind,  lead- 
ing to  what  has  now  long  been  called  the  "  Wai  den  Spring."  At  the 
same  time  there  was  opened  a  new  and  narrow  street  directly  down 
to  this  spring  southerly  from  Main  Street,  and  consequently  named 
"  Spring  Street."  This  is  now  and  always  will  remain  the  principal 
business  street  of  the  town,  on  which  are  the  bank  and  postoffice 
and  town  school  and  the  largest  stores.  When  the  old  East  College 
came  to  be  erected  in  1797,  there  was  no  attempt  to  sink  a  well  into 
that  limestone  ledge,  though  a  good  well  was  shortly  after  dug  on 
its  eastern  slope  and  called  for  half  a  century  "  Professor  Hopkins's 
well."  Attention  was  called  to  what  has  ever  since  been  named 
the  "  College  Spring."  A  straight  path  led  to  this,  also  directly 
south  from  East  College.  About  the  middle  of  the  century  an 
hydraulic  ram  was  set  in  this  spring,  and  the  water  thrown  up  to 
the  East  College  level.  A  couple  of  decades  later  an  aqueduct  com- 
pany brought  water  from  the  "Cold  Spring"  to  the  village  resi- 
dences and  near  to  the  college  buildings.  In  1881  the  aqueduct 
water  was  introduced  into  the  West  College  and  into  most  of  the 
other  college  edifices,  both  the  older  and  newer  ones. 

The  delay  attending  the  attempt  to  discover  home  water  for  the 
use  of  the  Free  School  proved  to  be  a  delay  in  the  opening  of  the 
school  itself  for  practical  instruction.  The  building  was  essen- 
tially completed  in  1790.  It  was  very  thoroughly  and  strongly 
done.  The  stairways  and  much  of  the  woodwork  within  were  of 
seasoned  white  oak  of  native  growth  and  of  the  very  best  quality. 
Each  window-frame  on  all  of  the  four  stories  was  made  of  four 
solid  pieces  of  oak,  —  two  uprights  and  two  horizontals,  —  and  the 
four  were  pinned  together  immensely  strong  by  white-oak  pins  of 
the  same  texture  with  the  solid  sticks.  Set  in  place  story  above 
story,  these  frames  were  then  bricked  into  the  exterior  wall  of  the 
building,  which  wall  was  and  is  very  thick.  Considering  that  the 
foundation  of  the  house  itself  rests  in  the  living  limestone  every 


WILLIAMSTOWN    FREE   SCHOOL. 


195 


inch  around  its  four  walls,  and  that  the  underpinning  below  the 
brick  is  throughout  of  cut  and  hammered  limestone  laid  in  the  best 
of  mortar,  it  is  not  likely  that  any  one  of  these  about  one  hundred 
original  window-frames  of  solid  oak  ever  stirred  appreciably  in  their 
places,  till  they  were  bodily  taken  out  in  the  thorough  reconstruc- 
tion of  1854.  Storms  without  and  storms  within,  though  they  broke 
probably  fifty  generations  of  fragile  glass  within  the  frames  during 
the  sixty-four  years,  could  not  have  stirred  a  hair's  breadth  the 


WEST   COLLEGE. 
Built,  1790 ;    Reconstructed,   1854. 

frames  themselves.  The  straight  arch  of  upright  brick  resting  on 
each  upper  horizontal  of  each  frame  is  in  perfect  place  to-day,  and 
will  be  till  the  walls  themselves  are  taken  down  by  human  hands. 
The  original  twelve  windows  on  the  south  end  of  the  building  were 
wider  than  the  corresponding  sixteen  on  the  northern  end,  partly 
because  the  kitchen  and  dining-room  were  on  the  first  floor  of  the 
south  end,  and  especially  because  the  chapel  occupied  the  second 
and  third  floors  directly  above  these,  while  the  northern  end  on  all 
the  stories  was  cut  wholly  into  dormitories.  In  long  process  of 


196  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

time,  chapel  and  kitchen  and  dining-room  and  recitation-rooms  dis- 
appeared, and  were  replaced  by  dormitories  similar  to  the  original 
ones ;  so  that  in  1847,  when  Kellogg  Hall  was  built  with  two  good 
recitation-rooms,  one  for  each  of  the  two  lower  classes,  West  College 
thereafter  held  nothing  but  dormitories,  thirty-two  in  all,  sixteen  of 
them  "  corner-rooms  "  with  three  windows  each,  and  sixteen  "  middle- 
rooms  "  with  two  windows  each. 

Originally  the  broad  hallway  passed  through  the  middle  of  the 
building  east  and  west.  The  lower  hall  was  wide  enough  for  two 
stairways  ascending  to  the  second  floor  in  opposite  directions  from 
either  outer  opening  or  doorway,  still  leaving  ample  room  for  two 
men  to  walk  abreast  from  side  to  side.  After  1828,  when  the  new 
chapel  was  completed  on  the  eastern  eminence,  the  students  and 
alumni  assembled  there  on  Commencement  morning,  and  forming 
in  procession  marched  to  the  meeting-house  on  the  "  Square,"  always 
passing  through  this  hallway  of  the  old  West  College  with  unbroken 
ranks  and  with  military  music.  In  those  good  old  days  there  were 
always  more  who  claimed  that  they  had  been  "through  college," 
than  those  whose  names  were  printed  on  the  alumni  list.  No  one, 
who  ever  saw  those  huge  and  long  stair-rails  of  beaten  oak,  which 
the  tugging  strength  of  an  hundred  men  could  not  stir  in  their 
socket  ends;  or  scanned  those  broad  oak  treads,  which  more  than 
sixty  generations  of  scurrying  feet  did  not  very  much  wear  down, 
could  ever  easily  forget  them  in  their  rugged  defiance  of  usage  fair 
and  foul.  More  than  once  did  some  disgruntled  owner  find  his  cow 
of  a  summer  morning  with  her  head  protruding  from  a  hall  window, 
perhaps  even  of  the  third  or  fourth  story  of  the  college,  and  hear 
from  afar  as  well  as  from  above  a  reiterated  bellow  that  sounded  at 
once  domestic  and  forlorn. 

From  the  second  to  the  third  stories,  and  from  the  third  to  the 
fourth,  there  was  but  one  staircase  each.  These  were  on  the  south 
side  of  the  hall.  So  much  space  was  accordingly  left  on  the  north 
side,  that  the  first  library  of  the  College  was  kept  there  on  the  third 
floor,  close  by  the  door  of  entrance  to  the  dormitory  room  No.  11,  in 
which  room  William  Cullen  Bryant  slept  and  studied  while  he  was 
a  member  of  College.  For  many  years,  and  down  to  the  time  in  1854 
when  the  interior  of  the  building  was  taken  out,  and  the  arrange- 
ment of  the  rooms  was  altered  throughout,  the  tutor's  room  was  on 
the  fourth  floor  southeast  corner.  On  the  southern  end  of  the 
building  may  still  be  seen  a  memorial  of  the  original  five-feet-wide 
windows  there,  in  the  form  of  upright  bricks  placed  horizontally  to 
fill  out  to  that  width  above  each  window  of  the  twelve  the  space  of 


WILLIAMSTOWN   FREE   SCHOOL.  197 

eighteen  inches  of  new  wall  by  which  each  window  was  shortened 
up  on  its  west  side.  Those  originally  wide  windows  on  the  southern 
end  of  the  building  were  to  admit  light  to  what  the  trustees  de- 
scribed in  a  petition  to  the  General  Court  in  1792,  as  "a  hall  for 
public  academical  purposes,"  that  is  to  say,  the  chapel,  which  was 
used  at  first  for  Commencement  exercises  also;  "a  dining-room, 
that  will  accommodate  a  hundred  persons;"  "a  common  schoolroom 
sufficient  for  sixty  scholars ; "  and  adding  a  significant  reference  to 
another  room  in  that  end  of  the  building,  as  follows,  —  "  about  six  ' 
months  have  elapsed  since  we  opened  an  English  and  grammar 
school  in  said  building,  and  since  then  have  had  from  this  and  some 
of  the  neighboring  States  upwards  of  sixty  young  gentlemen  who 
have  entered  the  grammar  school,  and  the  number  is  almost  daily 
increasing."  In  the  same  petition,  and  in  reference  mainly  to  the 
northern  end  of  the  building,  the  trustees  claim  that  they  are  pro- 
vided "with  lodging  and  study  rooms  sufficient  to  accommodate  one 
hundred  students."  It  ought  perhaps  to  have  been  said,  while  de- 
scribing the  construction  of  the  original  chapel,  which  occupied  the 
second  and  third  stories  of  the  south  end  of  the  building,  that  in 
the  upper  half  there  was  a  gallery  which  was  accessible  from  the 
third  floor,  while  the  lower  body  of  the  chapel  was  reached  from  the 
second  story.  It  had  on  the  west  side  a  stage,  and  the  desk  rose  a 
little  above  this  and  stood  against  the  west  wall,  very  much  as  the 
stage  and  desk  did  in  the  Griffin  Chapel  of  1828,  while  the  professors 
and  tutors  occupied  elevated  seats  upon  the  same  side,  looking  down 
upon  the  students  sitting  upon  long,  hard  benches  across  the  centre 
and  eastern  end  of  the  room.  The  trustees  seem  to  have  been  well 
satisfied  with  their  new  building  on  the  whole.  But  nothing  is  per- 
fect in  a  world  like  this.  The  four  stacks  of  chimneys  amply  sup- 
plied with  fireplaces  on  each  of  the  four  floors  required  from  the 
builders  more  science  and  more  patience  from  the  roomers  than 
either  set  of  men  possessed.  After  the  school  became  a  college 
in  1793,  the  trustees  raised  a  committee  "to  prevent  the  rooms  from 
smoking."  The  same  committee  was  also  charged  (what  had  already 
become  by  iteration  a  very  sore  place),  "to procure  a  well." 

Until  the  new  chapel  built  in  1828,  and  now  for  many  years 
appropriately  named  "Griffin  Hall,"  released  the  space  on  the 
second  and  third  floors  of  the  southern  end  of  West  College,  which 
was  the  original  chapel,  there  were  no  rooms  permanently  set  apart 
in  that  building  for  recitation-rooms,  but  these  were  moved  about  for 
convenience,  all  of  them,  however,  being  on  the  ground  floor ;  but  at 
that  time  this  old  chapel  space  was  converted  into  two  stated  recita- 


198  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

tion-rooms,  the  one  for  the  Sophomore  class  taking  room  on  the  third 
floor,  and  the  one  for  the  Freshman  on  the  second  floor  directly 
beneath  the  other ;  and  this  arrangement  continued  without  change 
for  twenty  years,  when  Kellogg  Hall  was  built  with  two  good  recita- 
tion-rooms on  the  first  floor,  the  Sophomores  generally  occupying  the 
east  room  and  the  Freshmen  the  west  one.  The  two  upper  floors  of 
Kellogg  Hall  were  exclusively  dormitories.  So  long  as  the  Sopho- 
mores and  Freshmen  continued  to  have  their  recitations  in  the  West 
College,  the  furniture  of  these  rooms,  that  is,  the  needful  chairs  and 
benches,  were  owned  by  the  classes  respectively,  and  regularly  sold 
out  at  the  year's  end  to  the  class  next  succeeding.  The  belfry  of 
the  West  College  has  never  been  substantially  altered  from  the  first 
day  until  now,  —  surmounting  the  bevel  roof  of  the  building  between 
its  "  four  stacks  of  chimneys  "  in  a  symmetrical,  one  may  almost  say 
ornamental,  manner.  A  vote  of  thanks  was  passed  in  August,  1793, 
by  the  trustees  to  David  Noble,  one  of  their  own  number,  for  the  gift 
of  a  suitable  bell,  which  did  musical  duty  in  this  belfry  till  long  after 
the  decease  of  the  donor.  The  bellman  (always  a  student)  roomed 
on  the  upper  floor  of  the  college,  and  was  an  important  functionary 
and  reckoned  next  to  the  tutor,  and  guarded  by  night  and  day  the 
single  stairway  from  the  interior  of  his  room  to  the  belfry  and  the 
bell-rope  in  particular,  and  was  scarcely  able  to  leave  his  room  at  all 
except  for  meals  and  prayers  and  recitations  for  fear  he  might  be 
caught  and  imprisoned  and  detained  by  force  over  some  important 
bell-hour  by  roguish  students  ever  on  the  watch  for  college  mischief. 
Consequently  he  was  apt  to  lead  for  the  most  part  a  dog's  life  of  it, 
unless  he  chanced  to  be  a  stalwart  athlete,  capable  of  handling  four 
or  five  ordinary  mischief-makers,  whose  best  and  most  conspicuous- 
target  for  fun  was  this  bell  and  its  environs. 

Now  we  must  go  back  for  a  little  time  from  our  primal  building,, 
completed  large  and  strong,  and  from  the  inevitable  frictions  and 
trials  of  organization  and  inchoate  action,  to  some  persons  and  pre- 
liminaries requisite  to  the  opening  of  the  Free  School.  Nothing  else 
can  be  so  essential  a  factor  in  any  school  at  any  time  as  the  living 
teacher  thereof.  Other  things  become  needful  to  the  successful  on- 
going of  school  education  anywhere,  but  this  is  by  eminence  the  one 
thing  needful.  It  is,  accordingly,  pleasant  and  prophetic  to  notice 
in  the  early  minutes  of  the  trustees  the  emphasis  they  put  upon  the 
judicious  selection  and  pecuniary  maintenance  and  collateral  moral 
support  of  their  chief  teacher.  The  president  of  their  body,  Deacon 
William  Williams,  of  Dalton,  the  minister  of  Williamstown,  Setk 
Swift,  and  the  minister-lawyer  of  Stockbridge,  John  Bacon,  were 


WILLIAMSTOWN   FREE   SCHOOL.  199 

selected  by  the  board  as  their  committee  to  find  and  hire  the  pre- 
ceptor ;  and  the  committee  was  instructed  in  so  many  words,  that 
their  choice  must  fall  on  "  a  man  of  good  moral  character ;  of  the 
Protestant  religion ;  well  acquainted  with  the  English  and  learned 
languages,  the  liberal  arts,  and  the  sciences;  apt  to  teach;  with 
talents  to  command  the  respect  of  his  pupils ;  of  mild  disposition  ; 
and  of  elegant  and  accomplished  manners."  To  such  a  man  the 
committee  was  authorized  to  offer  a  yearly  salary  of  £120.  It  is 
perfectly  plain  from  these  qualifications  required  of  their  preceptor, 
that  the  trustees  had  already  gotten  by  some  means  way  beyond  the 
original  ideas  of  Colonel  Ephraim  Williams,  the  donor,  and  way 
beyond  any  ideas  entertained  by  the  two  executors  of  his  will,  Israel 
Williams  and  John  Worthington,  and  certainly  beyond  the  concep- 
tions of  the  trustees  themselves  when  they  were  first  designated  in 
1785  by  the  incorporating  act  of  the  Legislature.  It  is  impossible 
to  trace  the  steps  of  this  progress  one  by  one  from  the  original  out- 
line of  a  common  school  for  the  children  of  garrison  soldiers  and 
pioneer  settlers,  to  the  broad  conception  of  a  college  to  rest  on  the 
general  plane  of  Harvard  and  Yale  as  those  were  at  that  time.  Two 
or  three  points  only  about  this  singular  transition  of  purpose  are 
clear  at  this  late  day.  The  first  one  is,  that  the  Williams  family  in 
the  western  half  of  the  State  had  become  considerably  embittered 
against  Harvard,  particularly  Colonel  Israel  Williams  of  Hatfield, 
who  under  the  influence  of  this  feeling  had  futilely  started  a  college 
in  Hatfield,  and  who  died  in  1787  while  this  transition  of  purpose 
was  taking  place ;  and  Deacon  William  Williams,  Colonel  Israel's 
son,  a  native  of  Hatfield  and  long  a  resident  there  and  fully  sharing 
in  all  the  peculiar  prejudices  of  his  father  and  the  family,  was 
then  the  president  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  of  the  Free  School.  The 
second  point  is,  that  the  General  Court  at  Boston,  in  which  the 
Williams  family  had  long  had  a  great  (and  sometimes  a  predomi- 
nant) influence,  seemed  very  favorable  to  the  School  in  the  language 
of  the  act  incorporating  it  in  1785,  and  thus  gave  promise  to  the 
trustees  of  what  actually  happened  at  their  instance  in  1793,  namely, 
a  favorable  charter  procured  without  difficulty  incorporating  and 
subsidizing  the  College ;  and  add  to  this  the  fact,  that  Tompson  J. 
Skinner  of  Williamstown,  one  of  the  trustees,  a  pushing  and  popular 
man,  was  a  member  of  the  State  senate  in  the  years  1785-87  inclu- 
sive, and  was  thus  and  otherwise  in  working  touch  with  the  public 
opinion  of  Boston.  The  third  point  is,  that,  in  gradually  shifting 
their  views  from  School  to  College,  the  nine  trustees,  five  of  whom 
were  graduates  of  Yale  and  seven  of  whom  were  natives  of  Connect- 


200  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

icut,  felt  sure  that  they  should  have  the  sympathy  and  help  of 
Yale,  in  which  they  were  not  at  all  disappointed ;  moreover,  Elisha 
Williams,  president  of  Yale  in  the  years  1726-39,  was  a  brother  of 
Colonel  Israel,  and  later  members  of  the  Williams  family  were 
graduates  of  Yale  out  of  the  general  impulse  to  pay  no  more  tribute 
to  Harvard ;  and  besides  all  this,  the  upper  valleys  of  the  Housa- 
tonic  and  the  Hoosac  are  connected  by  a  very  low  and  very  short 
watershed,  while  the  immense  local  barrier  of  the  Hoosac  Mountain 
separated  William  stown  from  the  rest  of  Massachusetts  to  the  east- 
ward, and  goes  far  to  account  for  the  always  intimate  relations  between 
Yale  and  Williams,  and  for  the  large  patronage  always  received  by 
the  latter  from  the  valley  of  the  Housatonic  in  Connecticut. 

At  the  same  time  and  in  connection  with  this  pronounced  aspira- 
tion for  a  college  of  their  own,  the  trustees  naturally  felt  constrained 
in  accordance  with  the  terms  of  the  will  to  provide  for  a  school,  in 
which  the  common  English  branches  should  be  taught.  The  fons 
et  origo  of  the  whole  movement  was  the  benevolent  determination 
arising  in  the  mind  of  Colonel  Williams,  that  there  should  be  at  his 
instance  and  through  his  agency  "a  free  school  "  opened  and  main- 
tained in  Williamstown  for  the  sons  of  his  old  soldiers.  Accor- 
dingly, two  departments  of  instruction  were  established  at  the  very 
first :  an  English  free  school  recruited  from  the  higher  classes  in  the 
town  schools  such  as  these  then  were;  and  a  grammar  school  or 
academy,  for  the  privilege  of  attendance  on  which  a  yearly  tuition 
of  thirty-five  shillings  was  charged.  The  common  schoolroom  could 
accommodate  sixty  scholars,  but  it  is  not  likely  that  one-half  of  that 
number  were  ever  in  attendance  there  at  any  one  time.  Only  two 
teachers  were  provided  at  first  for  both  schools,  a  preceptor  and  his 
assistant;  an  usher  was  afterward  added.  When  the  school  be- 
came a  college  by  an  act  of  the  Legislature  in  1793,  the  common 
department,  which  was  entirely  free,  fell  at  once  into  "  innocuous 
desuetude  "  ;  but  the  tuitioned  grammar  department  continued  for  a 
few  years  as  a  sort  of  preparatory  school,  when  it  went  out  like  the 
other.  No  list  is  extant,  even  if  one  were  ever  made  out,  which  is 
doubtful,  of  the  scholars  in  attendance  upon  these  two  transient 
departments  of  instruction ;  but  the  higher  one  of  the  two  became 
prosperous  from  the  start ;  and  the  trustees  were  able  to  say  officially 
of  themselves,  "  About  six  months  have  elapsed  since  they  opened  an 
English  and  Grammar  school  in  said  building,  and  since  that  period 
they  have  had  from  this  and  the  neighboring  States  upwards  of  sixty 
young  gentlemen  who  have  entered  the  Grammar  school  and  the  number 
is  almost  daily  increasing" 


WILLIAMSTOWN   FREE   SCHOOL.  201 

Only  two  Williamstown  boys  are  positively  known  to  have  been 
trained  in  the  local  Free  School,  and  both  of  these  became  distin- 
guished men,  though  neither  of  them  was  graduated  at  the  College. 
These  were  Daniel  Kellogg  and  Billy  J.  Clark.  The  former  was 
born  here  April  19,  1780,  and  was  a  son  of  that  Samuel  Kellogg 
who  became  a  landed  proprietor  here  in  1761,  and  later  a  very  prom- 
inent and  influential  citizen  of  the  town.1  Daniel  Kellogg  was 
certainly  for  two  years  in  attendance  upon  the  grammar  or  prepara- 
tory school  kept  up  for  some  years  in  connection  with  the  college 
proper.  Chloe  Kellogg,  ten  years  older  than  her  brother  Daniel,  had 
married  John  Campbell,  a  prosperous  merchant  in  Albany,  and 
offered  to  board  her  brother  while  he  should  study  law  in  the  office 
of  Abraham  Van  Vechten,  then  one  of  the  oldest  and  ablest  of  the 
Dutch  lawyers  of  that  city.  In  this  way,  and  probably  for  other 
reasons  also,  especially  as  many  of  the  citizens  of  Williamstown 
deprecated  the  action  of  the  General  Court  in  transforming  the 
school  into  a  college  to  the  utter  loss  of  its  original  gratuitous  fea- 
ture, young  Kellogg  was  deflected  from  the  new  college  course.  As 
soon  as  he  was  admitted  to  the  bar,  his  older  brother  Samuel,  who 
had  inherited  their  father's  broad  acres  on  the  Hoosac  and  its  tribu- 
taries, fitted  him  out  with  a  horse,  saddle,  saddle-bags,  and  a  copy  of 
Blackstone's  Commentaries,  and  the  young  lawyer  started  for  the 
West  to  seek  his  fortune.  And  he  found  it !  The  western  portions 
of  the  State  of  New  York  were  then  a  wilderness.  Daniel  Kellogg 
made  his  way  through  the  woods  on  horseback  to  Skaneateles  Lake, 
in  what  is  now  Onondaga  County.  At  the  head  of  the  lake  he  found 
a  shoemaker,  who  had  built  a  log  hut  for  his  shop ;  and  Kellogg, 
liking  the  nature  of  the  soil  and  the  lay  of  the  land,  concluded  to 
stop  there ;  and  he  accordingly  hired  one  end  of  the  log  hut,  and 
opened  a  law  office.  Settlements  were  beginning  to  be  made  in 
different  parts  of  that  region.  The  Holland  Land  Company  owned 
an  immense  tract  of  the  territory ;  and  there  was  a  prospect  of  a 
good  deal  of  litigation  in  acquiring  and  settling  the  titles  to  land, 
and  of  routine  and  important  work  to  be  done  in  the  way  of  making 
conveyances.  He  soon  found  enough  to  do.  He  settled  in  what 
became  the  beautiful  village  of  Skaneateles.  Other  families  from 
Williamstown  settled  around  him  in  that  village,  and  in  the  sur- 
rounding country,  particularly  in  Auburn  and  its  environs.  After 
the  death  of  her  husband  in  Albany,  Mrs.  Campbell  moved  to 
Skaneateles,  and  later  to  Auburn,  where  one  of  her  daughters 

i  In  Origins  in  Williamstown  this  Samuel  Kellogg  is  characterized  at  length, 
and  so  is  his  family  both  in  the  upward  and  downward  lines. 


202  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

married  a  Mr.  Beach,  whose  brand  of  flour,  manufactured  extensively 
at  Auburn  (Port  Byron)  and  Rochester,  became  celebrated  over  New 
York  and  New  England.  Mr.  Kellogg  never  removed  from  the 
region  within  which  he  first  fixed  his  stakes.  No  man  was  so  well 
acquainted  as  he  with  the  titles  to  land  in  western  New  York ;  and 
partly  in  consequence  of  that  fact,  and  partly  in  virtue  of  native 
abilities  of  a  high  order,  he  became  the  best  real  estate  lawyer  in 
that  part  of  the  State ;  he  was  in  position  to  make  investments  for 
himself  that  bore  quick  returns,  and  for  others  who  were  never 
deceived  as  to  his  sagacity  and  integrity ;  he  established  the  "  Bank 
of  Auburn,"  of  which  he  was  president  so  long  as  he  lived,  and 
which  for  years  paid  dividends  to  its  stockholders  of  thirty-five 
per  cent  annually.  Daniel  Kellogg,  besides  being  very  useful  to  the 
community  in  which  he  lived,  naturally  and  easily  became  a  very 
rich  man.  At  the  semi-centennial  of  the  College  in  1843  he  was 
present  as  an  enthusiastic  son  of  Williamstown,  and  as  one  who  had 
probably  been  under  instruction  in  the  old  West  College  at  an 
earlier  date  than  any  other  person  present.  Lucius  E.  Smith,  a 
graduate  of  that  year,  wrote  as  follows  fifty  years  later.  "  I  re- 
member as  they  [the  alumni]  were  gathering  on  Wednesday  morn- 
ing Honorable  Daniel  Kellogg  was  walking  up,  when  a  friend 
accosted  him,  '  Why,  Kellogg,  did  you  graduate  here  ?  '  '  That  I  did, 
sir,'  he  replied,  with  an  emphatic  thump  of  the  cane  and  a  kindling 
of  the  eyes  that  even  now  flashes  on  my  memory."  He  did  indeed 
"  graduate  "  in  his  sense  of  the  word  as  used  at  that  time,  before 
anybody  else  had  "graduated"  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word. 

Billy  J.  Clark,  the  only  other  Williamstown  boy  now  ascertained 
to  have  been  a  pupil  in  the  original  Free  School,  was  born  in  North- 
ampton in  January,  1778.  His  parents  soon  removed  to  Williams- 
town,  of  which  his  mother  was  a  native,  and  the  second  daughter  of 
Colonel  Benjamin  Simonds.  After  some  years  here,  during  which 
the  principal  schooling  of  the  boy  took  place,  the  Clark  family 
moved  a  few  miles  down  the  Hoosac,  and  opened  a  public  house  in 
what  is  now  called  Centre  Pownal.  In  accordance  with  the  univer- 
sal custom  of  those  times  liquors  were  sold  at  every  tavern,  and 
taverns  were  thickly  strewn  along  every  public  highway  in  New 
England.  This  boy  was  set  by  his  father  to  sell  intoxicants  to 
travellers  and  others  over  his  bar  in  Pownal.  Perhaps  owing  in 
part  to  precept  and  example  lately  received  in  the  Williamstown 
Free  School,  young  Clark  conceived  an  invincible  repugnance  to  the 
traffic  in  which  he  was  employed,  and  to  the  drinking  of  intoxicants 
generally ;  and  passing  shortly  from  the  country  tavern  to  the  study 


WILLIAMSTOWN    FREE   SCHOOL. 


203 


of  medicine  as  it  was  then  taught  by  country  doctors  in  northern 
New  York,  he  became  a  practitioner  himself,  and  settled  down  to 
forty  years  of  most  successful  practice  in  the  new  and  small  town 
of  Moreau,  but  closed  his  career  in  the  neighboring  town  of  Glens 
Falls  as  an  apothecary,  and  as  a  temperance  lecturer  and  organizer. 
Appleton's  Cyclopedia  has  this  to  say  of  Dr.  Billy  J.  Clark :  "  The 
earliest  organization  to  stem  the  tide  of  intemperance  in  this  Ee- 
public  would  seem  to  have  been  that  of  <  The  Temperate  Society  of 
Moreau  and  Northumberland,'  which  was  instigated  by  Dr.  B.  J. 
Clark,  of  Moreau,  in  March, 
in  1808,  and  constituted  by 
the  signatures  of  forty-three 
members,  mainly  substan- 
tial farmers  of  the  two  towns 
named.  Their  constitution 
stipulated,  that  '  no  member 
shall  drink  rum,  gin,  whis- 
key, wine,  or  any  distilled 
spirits,  or  composition  of 
the  same,  or  any  of  them, 
except  by  the  advice  of  a 
physician,  or  in  case  of  actual 
disease  (also  excepting  wine 
at  public  dinners),  under 
penalty  of  twenty-five  cents. 
Provided  that  this  article 
shall  not  infringe  on  any 
religious  ordinance.'  And 
further,  that  'no  member 
shall  be  intoxicated  under 
penalty  of  fifty  cents.7  And  again:  <no  member  shall  offer  any 
of  said  liquors  to  any  other  member,  or  urge  any  other  person  to 
drink  thereof  under  penalty  of  twenty-five  cents  for  each  offence.' " 
Through  Dr.  Clark's  energy  and  perseverance,  a  special  act  of  the 
New  York  Legislature  was  obtained  incorporating  "The  Saratoga 
Medical  Society,"  the  first  organization  of  the  kind  in  the  State. 
He  was  also  a  member  of  the  New  York  Electoral  College  in  1848. 
He  was  seventeen  years  old  when  he  began  his  medical  studies  in 
Pownal  with  Dr.  Gibbs,  and  he  continued  them  with  Dr.  Wicker, 
in  Easton,  New  York,  till  he  commenced  practice  in  Moreau  in  1799. 
He  died  in''Glens  Falls,  greatly  honored,  in  September,  1866,  in  his 
eighty-ninth  year. 


204  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND   WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

At  the  same  meeting  of  the  corporation  of  the  Free  School  in 
October,  1790,  that  raised  the  committee  to  procure  a  preceptor,  and 
wisely  instructed  them  as  toward  that  end,  adopted  also  a  seal, 
which  was  used  for  some  years  after  the  school 
became  a  college.  Its  device  was  a  teacher  sur- 
rounded by  three  pupils  with  books  in  their 
hands  and  the  legend  (which  is  still  continued 
unchanged),  "E  LIBERALITATE  E.  WILLIAMS 
ARMIGERI."  The  original  seal  is  still  extant 
in  good  order,  and  the  accompanying  impression 
is  printed  from  it.  The  new  device  for  the 

FREE   SCHOOL  SEAL.  * 

college  seal  was  a  globe,  a  telescope,  a  pile  of 
books  surmounted  by  an  inkstand,  what  is  apparently  a  study-table 
with  a  cloth  cover,  and  a  sprig  of  the  inevitable  ivy  or  laurel. 

We  come  now  to  attempt  to  delineate  the  leading  features  of  a 
personage  directly  and  deeply  concerned  in  the  establishment  of 
Williams  College,  who  will  always  remain  an  object  of  interest  to 
any  who  for  any  reason  become  thoroughly  interested  in  the  past 
of  the  town  and  the  College.  His  hands  laid  deep  and  strong  the 
foundations  here.  Not  that  they  were  extraordinarily  skilful  hands, 
nor  were  they  guided  by  any  extraordinary  gifts  of  intelligence  or 
prescience ;  but  they  were  faithful  and  patient  hands,  guided  by  a 
firm  confidence  in  an  ever-present  and  overruling  Providence,  and 
guided  also  by  an  innate  courtesy  toward  his  colleagues  of  the 
board  and  the  faculty  as  well  as  by  a  spirit  of  willingness  to  serve 
as  toward  the  community  both  of  the  town  and  of  the  College.  This 
was  the  first  preceptor  and  president,  EBENEZER  FITCH.  He  was 
born  Sept.  26,  1756,  at  Norwich,  although  it  is  stated  on  his 
tombstone  at  West  Bloomfield,  New  York,  that  his  birth  was  at 
Canterbury,  where  he  was  certainly  brought  up.  He  belonged  to  a 
prominent  family  in  Connecticut,  which  came  to  be  widely  diffused 
also  in  the  other  New  England  States,  particularly  in  Vermont,  and 
which  was  descended  from  Rev.  James  Fitch,  born  in  Essex  County, 
England,  in  1622,  coming  to  this  country  when  sixteen  years  old, 
and  spending  seven  years  in  preparation  for  the  ministry  under  the 
private  instruction  at  Hartford  of  Messrs.  Hooker  and  Stone,  its 
primitive  and  famous  ministers  of  the  Gospel.  Of  Major  James 
Fitch,  his  son,  born  in  1649,  and  active  as  a  soldier  in  the  Pequot 
War,  under  the  famous  John  Mason,  whose  daughter  was  his  father's 
second  wife,  it  has  been  said,  "He  was  the  first  donor  to  Yale  College 
who  was  not  of  the  board  of  trustees.  In  October,  1701,  he  gave 
the  College  637  acres  of  land  in  the  town  of  Killingly,  and  all  the 


WILLIAMSTOWN    FREE    SCHOOL.  205 

glass  and  nails  which  should  be  necessary  to  build  the  college 
edifice.  This  benefaction  had  a  great  influence  in  procuring  the 
charter,  and  in  encouraging  the  friends  of  the  College  in  promoting 
its  interests,  and  on  this  account  is  deserving  of  particular  considera- 
tion." One  son  of  this  generous  donor  to  Yale  in  its  earliest  infancy, 
thereby  illustrating  the  German  proverb,  —  "  He  doubly  gives  who 
quickly  gives,"  —  was  Colonel  Jabez  Fitch,  born  in  1703  and  departed 
in  1784,  who  was  a  man  of  unbounded  influence  in  his  native  town  of 
Canterbury,  held  pretty  much  all  the  offices  in  succession  both  mili- 
tary and  civil,  and  was  for  many  years  a  Judge  of  Probate.  His  son, 
Dr.  Jabez  Fitch,  was  less  eminent  than  his  direct  ancestors  in  this 
country,  although  he  became  a  physician  of  considerable  influence, 
and  instructed  after  the  style  of  the  time  medical  students  in  large 
numbers.  He  removed  from  Canterbury  to  Norwich.  Three  of  his 
sons  became  prominent  citizens  of  Vermont;  five  of  his  daughters 
married  men  of  a  college  education ;  and  the  only  other  member 
of  his  family  who  reached  a  mature  age  was  Ebenezer  Fitch,  the 
preceptor  and  president. 

These  genealogical  details  are  here  given  on  account  of  the  light 
they  may  easily  be  made  to  throw  upon  some  peculiarities  of  the 
life  of  the  man  we  are  now  particularly  interested  in.  These 
Connecticut  families  in  long  sequence  of  time  were  deeply  religious 
people.  They  were  as  a  rule  well-to-do,  and  accustomed  to  a  mode 
of  expenditure  that  could  have  been  supported  only  by  liberal 
incomes  from  some  source.  They  were  well-educated  people,  and 
unusually  familiar  with  college-bred  associates.  They  belonged  to 
the  politically  privileged  class  in  Connecticut,  and  after  the  adop- 
tion of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  naturally  ranged 
themselves  with  the  political  party  that  believed  in  and  sought  for 
special  privileges  under  the  law  for  the  relatively  few  as  against 
the  relatively  many.  In  other  words,  they  became  followers  of  the 
political  principles  of  Alexander  Hamilton,  as  these  came  to  be 
embodied  in  the  Federalist  party,  rather  than  the  principles  of 
Thomas  Jefferson  as  these  were  set  forth  by  the  adherents  of  the 
Democratic  party.  All  three  of  the  brothers  of  the  preceptor  were 
Vermont  Federalists  during  the  early  years  of  the  national  govern- 
ment, while  the  popular  majorities  in  that  State  were  more  com- 
monly registered  for  the  opposite  party.  The  preceptor  himself 
was  no  friend  to  Jefferson  or  to  his  rock-based  principles  of  the 
equality  of  all  citizens  before  the  law,  while  his  fellow-citizens 
of  Williamstown  by  large  and  constant  majorities  favored  them. 
Important  local  consequences  followed  these  radical  differences 


206  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

of  opinion  and  action,  as  we  may  see  more  fully  in  the  sequel  of 
our  researches. 

The  college  education  of  Ebenezer  Fitch  was  gained  at  Yale  in 
regular  course  from  1773  to  1777.  He  passed  two  years  immedi- 
ately thereafter  at  New  Haven  as  a  resident  graduate.  All  these 
years  were  more  or  less  disturbed  by  the  opening  and  progressing 
scenes  of  the  American  Eevolution  as  these  were  observed  and 
experienced  in  New  England.  He  notes  in  his  diary  under  date 
of  April  21,  1775:  "To-day  tidings  of  the  battle  of  Lexington, 
which  is  the  first  engagement  with  the  British  troops,  arrived  at 
New  Haven.  This  filled  the  country  with  alarm,  and  rendered  it 
impossible  for  us  to  pursue  our  studies  with  any  profit."  Young 
Fitch  went  home,  then  visited  Providence,  and  then  went  to  see  the 
colonial  camp  at  Cambridge  and  Roxbury;  but  the  military  life  did 
not  appeal  to  him  as  personally  attractive  either  then  or  later,  for 
on  being  enrolled  at  Canterbury  and  drafted  as  a  soldier  to  go  to 
the  army,  he  objected  on  the  ground  that  he  was  a  member  of 
college,  and  therefore  not  liable  to  do  military  duty;  on  the  other 
hand  it  was  contended,  that  resident  graduates  were  not  members 
of  college ;  Fitch  wrote  from  Canterbury  to  President  Stiles  for  his 
official  opinion  on  that  question,  and  received  reply  that  resident 
graduates  were  considered  members  of  college.  So  Fitch  got  off. 
Both  of  these  letters  are  preserved  among  the  records  of  Yale 
College.  A  year  or  two  after  this,  that  is,  in  the  winter  of  1780, 
while  teaching  a  select  school  in  New  Jersey  not  far  from  Morris- 
town,  he  wrote:  "Week  before  last  I  visited  the  camp,  and  had 
the  pleasure  of  seeing  some  old  and  some  dear  friends.  I  found 
the  log-house  city  on  the  declivity  of  a  high  hill  three  miles  south 
of  Morristown.  There  the  Connecticut  line  dwells  in  tabernacles 
like  Israel  of  old.  And  there  the  troops  of  the  other  States  lie, 
some  at  a  greater  and  some  at  a  less  distance,  among  the  hills,  in 
similar  habitations." 

On  the  morning  of  March  22,  1777,  about  the  middle  of  Fitch's 
senior  year,  President  Daggett  made  an  address  to  the  Yale  students, 
informing  them  that  on  account  of  the  impossibility  of  supplying 
the  college  with  provisions,  it  would  in  a  few  days  be  dismissed, 
and  also  that  he  had  fully  made  up  his  mind  to  resign  the  presi- 
dency of  the  college.  The  students  accordingly  left  New  Haven, 
and  pursued  their  studies  during  the  summer  under  their  respective 
tutors  in  places  less  exposed  to  the  sudden  incursions  of  the  British 
enemy.  The  Freshman  class  went  to  Farmington  under  their  tutor 
Lewis ;  the  Sophomore  and  Junior  classes  under  tutors  Baldwin  and 


WILLIAMSTOWN    FREE   SCHOOL.  207 

Buckminster,  respectively,  were  in  Glastonbury;  and  the  Seniors 
spent  the  summer  in  Wethersfield,  fortunate  in  the  tuition  of  tutor 
Timothy  Dwight,  then  twenty-five  years  old.  The  relations  thus 
commenced  between  Pupil  Fitch  and  Tutor  Dwight  continued  on  a 
pleasant  plane  till  the  death  of  the  latter  in  1817.  Fitch  became 
a  college  president  in  1793,  and  Dwight  in  1795,  and  the  two  came 
together  repeatedly  thereafter  in  Williamstown  certainly  as  appears 
in  the  interesting  "Travels  of  Dwight,"  and  it  is  to  be  presumed 
in  New  Haven  also,  for  in  addition  to  Fitch's  six  years  there  as  a 
"  member  of  college,"  he  was  in  all  about  eight  years  a  tutor  there, 
1780-83  and  1785-91.  As  the  college  had  dispersed  from  New 
Haven  in  the  spring  of  1777  on  Revolutionary  grounds,  there  were 
no  public  exercises  of  Commencement  there  that  year,  but  the  grad- 
uating class  consisting  of  fifty-four,  —  a  much  larger  number  than 
had  previously  been  graduated  at  Yale,  —  the  class  had  quasi  com- 
mencement exercises  at  Wethersfield,  and  then  returned  to  New 
Haven  to  receive  their  diplomas  privately.  Tutor  Dwight  preached 
two  sermons  before  them  at  Wethersfield  on  Sunday,  and  on  Tues- 
day following  the  exercises  fell,  of  which  Fitch  speaks  thus  in  his 
journal :  "  July  22.  This  has  been  quarter  day.  I  spoke  my  dialogue 
and  the  Valedictory  Oration  before  a  very  large  and  splendid  audi- 
ence. I  trust  I  did  myself  credit.  Indeed  all  the  parts  were 
performed  to  the  entire  approbation  of  the  audience."  As  a  con- 
temporary and  so  far  forth  trustworthy  evidence  that  Tutor  Fitch 
was  well  thought  of  by  his  pupils  at  Yale,  the  late  General  Charles 
F.  Sedgewick  of  Sharon,  Connecticut,  a  graduate  of  Williams  in 
1813,  informed  the  writer,  that  when  he  was  in  college  here,  there 
was  in  the  College  library  a  classical  map  or  atlas  of  some  kind, 
which  the  students  at  Yale  had  presented  to  Tutor  Fitch  as  a  token 
of  their  special  esteem.  Undoubtedly  the  president  had  deposited 
this  in  the  incredibly  small  library  for  the  use  of  the  students  here, 
and  took  it  away  with  him  as  his  personal  property  when  he  left 
in  1815.  Shortly  after  his  death,  in  1833,  his  own  library  and 
numerous  and  valuable  manuscripts  came  into  the  hands  of  his  son, 
Rev.  Charles  Fitch,  then  of  Batavia,  New  York,  whose  house  and 
all  its  contents  was  soon  after  consumed  by  fire. 

An  incident  in  the  life  of  young  Fitch,  that  occurred  in  the  interval 
of  his  two  tutorships  in  New  Haven,  illumines  a  marked  charac- 
teristic of  the  man  throughout  his  life,  and  explains  in  a  measure 
the  nature  of  his  troubles  and  failures  in  Williamstown,  and  later  in 
West  Bloomfield.  In  1783,  the  year  of  the  settled  peace  with  Great 
Britain,  he  turned  merchant  and  entered  into  a  partnership  with 


208  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

Henry  Daggett  of  New  Haven.  In  June  of  that  year  he  went  to 
London  to  buy  goods  for  the  firm,  and  returned  in  the  following 
winter  with  a  large  invoice  of  them,  which  proved  to  be,  many  of 
them,  of  a  quality  and  price  much  above  the  wants  and  habits  of  the 
citizens  of  Connecticut.  He  did  not  know  the  state  of  the  markets 
at  either  end  of  the  route.  He  ^could  not  have  been  rationally  ex- 
pected to  know.  He  ought  to  have  known  himself  better  than  to 
have  supposed  that  he  knew.  He  made  consequently  most  unfortu- 
nate purchases.  The  goods  were  not  salable  at  any  price.  He  em- 
barrassed his  firm,  and  embarrassed  himself  irretrievably.  He  went 
back  to  his  books,  and  to  his  tutorship.  Ne  sutor  ultra  crepidam. 
Fourteen  years  subsequent  to  going  to  London  awooling,  and  six 
years  after  he  came  to  Williamstown  to  be  preceptor,  he  wrote  in  a 
letter :  "  By  the  assistance  of  my  brother  Jabez,  I  last  winter  effected 
a  settlement  of  my  old  debt  with  Mr.  Daggett.  The  debt  is  now 
reduced  to  a  little  more  than  six  hundred  dollars,  which  I  can  pay 
in  a  few  years,  if  my  life  and  health  are  continued."  These  few 
facts  and  these  few  words  exhibit  a  man,  (1)  destitute  of  the  financial 
instinct,  and  without  any  adequate  sense  of  proportion  as  between 
outgo  and  income ;  (2)  oversanguine  as  respects  future  ability  to 
pay  debts  and  at  the  same  time  provide  for  current  wants ;  and  (3) 
as  beginning  early  to  rely  on  the  pecuniary  "  assistance  "  of  others. 
Till  the  very  end  of  a  long  life,  many  others  were  induced  by  hope 
or  impelled  by  pity  to  come  into  the  place  of  "  my  brother  Jabez.57 
The  late  William  Hyde,  a  graduate  of  1826,  told  the  writer  that  his 
father,  long  one  of  the  early  trustees,  was  once  invited  by  President 
Fitch  to  go  out  to  his  pen  to  see  his  two  fattening  hogs.  "  It  does 
not  cost  hardly  anything  to  keep  them,'7  said  the  head  of  the  College  ; 
"  they  live  mostly  on  what  comes  off  from  my  table."  "  There  does 
not  come  off  enough  from  my  table,"  retorted  the  trustee,  "  to  keep 
alive  one  pig !  " 

The  committee  appointed  to  select  a  preceptor  reported  favorably 
on  Ebenezer  Fitch  to  the  entire  board,  who  elected  him  to  the  post 
in  October,  1790.  It  was  not  without  considerable  hesitation  and 
continued  inquiry,  that  the  candidate  concluded  to  accept  the  ap- 
pointment. Whatever  else  may  be  said  about  this  selection,  this 
admirable  feature  about  it  obtained,  —  he  did  not  run  until  he  was 
called.  "  Therefore  came  I  without  gainsaying  as  soon  as  I  was  sent 
for."  He  had  one  brother  certainly  (Jabez),  and  probably  two  more 
(Chauncy  and  Samuel),  already  prominent  citizens  in  Vermont. 
The  first  was  United  States  Marshal  for  the  District  of  Vermont 
during  the  entire  administrations  of  Washington  and  John  Adams. 


WILLIAMSTOWN    FREE   SCHOOL.  209 

Without  doubt  this  must  have  exerted  some  attractive  influence  to 
draw  the  scholar  from  the  seaboard  to  the  northern  country.  At 
any  rate  he  signified  his  acceptance  of  the  preceptorship  early  in  the 
year  1791,  and  in  October  he  commenced  his  teaching  labors,  that 
were  not  to  be  intermitted  till  near  Commencement,  1815.  He  came 
here  as  a  bachelor ;  and  thereby  and  thereafter  hangs  an  interesting 
and  instructive  tale.  Rev.  Dr.  James  Cogswell,  who  was  graduated 
at  Yale  in  1742,  and  who  was  a  minister  in  Canterbury,  married 
Alice  Fitch,  an  aunt  of  Ebenezer.  Their  son,  Samuel  Cogswell,  was 
about  the  same  age  with  him.  They  were  own  cousins.  Both  were 
fitted  for  college  by  Dr.  Cogswell,  became  college  classmates  in  1773, 
were  graduated  together  in  1777,  and  were  always  very  intimate 
friends  and  companions.  Each,  unknown  to  the  other,  fell  in  love 
with  the  same  Connecticut  girl,  namely,  Mary  Backus,  a  daughter  of 
Major  Ebenezer  Backus  of  Windham ;  and  each,  unbeknown  to  the 
other,  made  to  her  matrimonial  offers  at  about  the  same  time.  She 
chose  Cogswell,  and  married  him.  They  lived  in  Lansingburg,  New 
York,  twenty-one  miles  as  the  crow  flies  due  west  from  Williams- 
town.  There  were  two  children  born  to  the  Cogswells,  Maria  and 
James,  when  the  father  was  accidentally  shot  dead,  on  a  gunning 
party,  by  a  friend  and  fellow-graduate  of  Yale,  about  the  time  that 
Fitch  went  to  Williamstown.  In  May,  1792,  Mrs.  Cogswell  was 
united  in  marriage  with  Preceptor  Fitch,  her  children  were  treated 
by  him  as  his  own,  and  eleven  others  were  added  in  the  new  family, 
ten  of  whom  were  sons,  and  three  of  these  were  born  at  a  birth  in 
May,  1807.  Maria  Cogswell  married  Major  Douglass  Sloan,  only 
son  of  General  Sloan  here,  and  a  graduate  of  the  College  in  1803. 
James  Fitch  Cogswell  (a  name  that  bears  a  meaning  within  it)  was 
given  a  public  education  by  his  step-father,  graduating  in  1808. 
Two  of  the  Fitch  sons  were  also  graduates  of  the  College,  Mason 
Cogswell  Fitch  in  1815,  and  Charles  Fitch  in  1818.  Mrs.  Fitch  bore 
in  her  lifetime  and  afterward  the  reputation  of  a  highly  intelligent 
and  amiable  woman.  She  died  in  the  family  of  her  only  daughter, 
Mrs.  Lucy  Fitch  Folsom,  in  Cleveland,  in  November,  1834,  about  a 
year  and  a  half  after  the  death  of  her  second  husband  in  West 
Bloomfield.  Her  only  words  of  present  record  are  these,  spoken 
shortly  after  his  death,  "  A  kinder  husband  the  world  never 
furnished,  woman  never  had.'7 

The  Free  School  was  opened  for  scholars  Oct.  20,  1791.  Very 
shortly  it  became  unexpectedly  popular,  especially  in  its  higher 
department  for  instruction  in  which  a  small  tuition  was  charged, 
and  in  which  the  branches  then  usually  taught  in  the  New  England 


210  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

colleges  were  ostensibly  professed.  Preceptor  Fitch  was  the  only 
teacher  at  first  in  these  higher  branches ;  but  then,  he  had  been  for 
several  years  senior  tutor  and  librarian  at  Yale,  and  modestly  con- 
sidered himself  and  was  properly  considered  by  others  competent  to 
give  such  instruction.  The  locality  with  its  adjoining  regions  in 
New  York  and  Vermont  was  remote  from  any  then  existing  higher 
institutions  than  the  common  school,  the  tuition  was  small,  the 
means  of  living  in  Williamstown  cheap,  the  hopefulness  (one  may 
even  say  buoyancy)  of  feeling  in  the  whole  country  at  the  middle  of 
Washington's  first  administration,  and  the  strong  reactions  from 
war  and  a  worthless  paper  money  to  peace  and  to  a  speedy  prospect 
of  gold  and  silver  money  from  an  independent  mint  of  the  people's 
own,  —  all  these  things  conspired  to  give  a  spurt  to  the  new  school 
now  housed  in  a  commodious  building  and  furnished  with  a  compe- 
tent head.  For  a  couple  of  years  or  so  something  had  been  singing 
to  some  at  least  of  the  nine  trustees,  and  something  had  been  saying 
to  Ebenezer  Fitch,  that  the  goal  of  all  these  counsels  and  strivings 
and  aspirations  was  to  be  a  college,  and  not  a  school,  as  the  words 
were  used  in  those  days.  Accordingly,  whether  previously  and 
formally  instructed  thereto  by  the  trustees  or  not,  Preceptor  Fitch 
presented  to  them  at  their  meeting  at  Williamstown,  May  22,  1792, 
for  their  approval  and  signature,  the  following  petition  to  the  Gen- 
eral Court  of  Massachusetts.  The  hand  of  Fitch  is  very  visible  in 
and  between  the  lines  of  this  petition,  and  so  is  the  hand  of  Daniel 
Dewey,  then,  and  since  1787,  and  onwards  till  his  death  in  1815,  a 
settled  and  able  lawyer  in  Williamstown,  and  extremely  serviceable 
to  the  College  at  all  times  and  in  many  ways.  Each  one  of  the  nine 
trustees  signed  this  petition,  and  so  authenticated  its  statements. 

The  Trustees  of  the  donation  of  Ephraim  Williams  Esq. ,  for  maintaining  a 
Free  School  in  Williamstown,  humbly  show,  that, .  partly  out  of  the  said  dona- 
tion, and  partly  by  private  subscriptions,  and  partly  from  the  aid  of  a  lottery, 
they  have  erected  a  large  and  convenient  building  within  the  said  town  of 
Williamstown,  with  lodging  and  study  rooms  sufficient  to  accommodate  100 
students,  besides  a  common  school-room  sufficient  for  60  scholars,  a  dining-room 
that  will  accommodate  100  persons,  a  hall  for  public  academical  purposes  [the 
Chapel],  a  room  for  a  library,  apparatus,  &c.,  the  whole  being  nearly  finished. 
About  six  months  have  elapsed  since  they  opened  an  English  and  Grammar 
school  in  said  building,  and  the  number  is  almost  daily  increasing.  Your  me- 
morialists further  show,  that  there  are  several  circumstances  attending  the  Free 
School  in  Williamstown,  that  are  peculiarly  favorable  to  a  seminary  of  a  more 
public  and  important  nature.  It  is  in  a  part  of  the  country  that  abounds  with  a 
variety  of  the  most  substantial  articles  of  provision,  and,  being  remote  from  any 
public  market,  such  articles  of  provision  may  always  be  afforded  at  a  low  price. 
This  will  naturally  tend  to  lessen  the  expenses  of  instruction,  and  to  render  the 


WILLTAMSTOWN    FREE   SCHOOL.  211 

means  of  a  liberal  education  more  easy,  and  bring  them  more  within  the  power 
of  the  middling  and  lower  classes  of  citizens.  Williamstown,  being  an  enclosed 
place,  will  not  be  exposed  to  those  temptations  and  allurements  which  are 
peculiarly  incident  to  seaport  towns  :  a  rational  hope  may  therefore  be  indulged 
that  it  will  prove  favorable  to  the  morals  and  literary  improvement  of  youth 
who  may  reside  there.  Your  memorialists  ask  leave  further  to  observe,  that 
Yale  and  Dartmouth  Colleges  are  both  of  them  nearer  to  the  County  of  Berk- 
shire than  Cambridge.  Most  of  the  youths  in  the  counties  of  Hampshire  and 
Berkshire  who  obtain  a  liberal  education  are  sent  to  one  or  the  other  of  those 
colleges,  by  means  of  which  large  sums  of  money  are  annually  sent  out  of  this 
Commonwealth  for  the  purposes  of  education.  The  southerly  part  of  Berkshire 
is  contiguous  to  Connecticut.  The  town  of  Williamstown  is  bordering  upon  the 
most  fertile  parts  of  the  States  of  New  York  and  Vermont.  If,  therefore,  a 
college  was  instituted  in  that  town,  such  is  its  local  position  that  great  numbers 
of  youth  would  probably  resort  there  from  the  adjacent  States,  for  the  purpose 
of  obtaining  a  liberal  education.  This  would  furnish  an  opportunity  to  extend 
culture  and  manners  among  the  citizens  of  our  sister  States.  It  would,  at  the 
same  time,  be  a  resource  of  wealth,  and  add  to  the  influence  and  wealth  of 
Massachusetts.  There  being  already  two  colleges  within  the  Commonwealth 
[Maine  was  then  a  part  of  Massachusetts,  but  Bowdoin  College  did  not  receive 
its  charter  till  1794]  cannot,  as  we  humbly  conceive,  be  a  reasonable  objection 
against  the  addition  of  a  third,  especially  as  the  interest  of  the  last,  from  its 
local  situation,  cannot  interfere  with  either  of  the  former.  The  interests  of  the 
whole  will  perfectly  coincide,  and  like  a  threefold  cord,  mutually  confirm  and 
strengthen  each  other. 

The  University  of  Cambridge  will  always  be  considered  as  the  parent  of  the 
other  two,  and  from  them  will  derive  an  additional  degree  of  lustre  and  renown. 
We  hope  that  it  is  a  laudable  wish  we  indulge  of  seeing  Massachusetts  the  Athens 
of  the  United  States  of  America,  to  which  young  gentlemen  from  any  part  of  the 
Union  may  resort  for  instruction  in  all  the  branches  of  useful  and  polite  litera- 
ture ;  and  we  cannot  entertain  the  least  doubt  but  that  the  object  of  our  present 
memorial  perfectly  coincides  with  the  object  of  such  a  wish.  Your  memorialists, 
therefore,  humbly  pray  your  Honors,  that  the  Free  School  in  Williamstown  may 
be  incorporated  into  a  College  by  the  name  of  WILLIAMS  HALL,  and  that  the 
nurturing,  liberal  hand  of  the  Legislature  may  be  extended  to  it  by  a  grant  of 
lands  in  the  easterly  part  of  the  Commonwealth,  or  in  such  other  way  as  to 
your  Honors  may  seem  fit. 

WILLIAM  WILLIAMS  TOMPSON  J.  SKINNER 

THEDORE  SEDGWICK  JOHN  BACON 

WOODBRIDGE    LITTLE  DANIEL    COLLINS 

SETH  SWIFT 
ISRAEL  JONES 
DAVID  NOBLE 

Just  thirteen  months  to  a  day  after  this  petition  was  signed  at 
Williamstown,  an  Act  of  Incorporation  changing  the  free  school 
into  a  college,  under  the  name  of  Williams  College,  was  passed  by 
the  Legislature  of  the  State.  This  act  made  all  the  trustees  of  the 


212  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

school  trustees  of  the  new  college,  and  added  to  their  number  Stephen 
West  and  Elijah  Williams  and  Henry  van  Schaack  and  the  president 
of  the  College  for  the  time  being.  The  Act  allowed  the  board  of 
trustees  to  consist  thereafter  of  seventeen  members,  a  limit  that  has 
never  since  been  exceeded ;  empowered  the  body  to  fill  all  vacancies 
in  their  own  ranks,  that  is  to  say,  to  become  a  self-perpetuating 
body;  authorized  them  to  confer  the  usual  academic  degrees  and 
doctorates;  and  permitted  them  to  hold  corporate  property,  the 
annual  income  of  which  should  not  exceed  the  sum  of  $20,000.  The 
next  year  after  their  incorporation  the  trustees  completed  their 
own  number  by  choosing  Philip  Schuyler,  Job  Swift,  Stephen  van 
Kensselaer  and  Ammi  Ruhamah  Bobbins  as  fellow-members.  Gen- 
eral Schuyler  was  not  popular  in  New  England  throughout  the 
Revolutionary  War,  but  he  had  a  firm  friend  and  occasional  corre- 
spondent in  Colonel  Simonds  of  WTilliamstown,  and  there  can  be  but 
little  doubt  that  his  influence  was  felt  in  this  election,  added  to  the 
obvious  interest  of  the  College  to  secure  friends  and  patrons  in 
Albany  and  its  vicinity.  The  same  general  influences  brought  about 
the  election  of  Van  Rensselaer,  the  patroon  son-in-law  to  Schuyler, 
a  man  liberal  to  all  learning,  of  remarkable  personal  merit,  and  of 
vast  influence,  local  and  political  and  military.  Swift  was  then  the 
pastor  in  Bennington,  a  near  relative  of  the  Williamstown  pastor,  a 
graduate  of  Yale  in  1765,  a  trustee  also  of  Dartmouth  and  Middlebury, 
a  man  of  whom  Dwight  writes  in  his  Travels,  "  he  was  one  of  the 
best  and  most  useful  men  whom  we  knew ;  good  men  loved  him  and 
delighted  in  his  society,  and  the  worst  men  acknowledged  his  worth : 
to  the  churches  and  ministers  of  Vermont  he  was  a  patriarch." 
Bobbins  was  the  minister  in  Norfolk,  Connecticut,  for  fifty-two 
years,  a  graduate  of  Yale  in  1760,  father  of  Thomas  Robbins,  who 
was  graduated  both  here  and  at  Yale  in  1796,  and  father  of  two 
other  sons,  who  were  graduated  here  in  1802  and  1808  respectively. 
The  connection  thus  knit  in  1794  between  Norfolk  and  the  College 
has  continued  in  a  way  pleasant  and  profitable  to  both  from  that 
day  to  this. 

Had  the  Legislature  of  Massachusetts  a  legal  and  constitutional 
right  to  change  in  1793  in  so  radical  a  way  the  charter  granted  by 
the  General  Court  in  1785  ?  This  question  has  but  little  interest  to 
anybody  now,  and  perhaps  never  would  have  had  a  general  interest, 
had  it  not  been  for  the  famous  "Dartmouth  College  case,"  argued 
before  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  in  1818  by  Daniel 
Webster  and  William  Wirt  and  others.  That  case  turned  on  the 
action  of  the  Legislature  of  New  Hampshire  in  1816,  changing  the 


WILLIAMSTOWN   FREE   SCHOOL.  213 

charter  of  the  College  as  it  had  been  granted  in  1769  by  King 
George  III.,  in  a  way  in  essential  respects  similar  to  this  of  1793. 
The  decision  of  Chief  Justice  Marshall  hinged  on  a  clause  of  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,  forbidding  the  States  to  "  pass  any 
law  impairing  the  obligation  of  contracts."  The  definition  of  the 
term  "  contract  "  was  legally  made  to  include  the  understanding  had 
between  public  donors  and  public  trustees  receiving  their  benefac- 
tions. This  decision  has  been  of  enormous  benefit  to  public  institu- 
tions of  all  kinds  ever  since,  because  rich  men  and  all  men  have  seen 
that  gifts  to  public  institutions,  whether  posthumous  or  living  gifts, 
are  under  the  shield  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 
Nevertheless,  perhaps  it  may  be  truly  said,  that  the  best  legal  ability 
of  this  country  at  present  does  not  affix  its  seal  of  validity  to  the 
plea  of  Mr.  Webster  or  the  dictum  of  Judge  Marshall.  It  is  almost 
certain  that,  if  those  had  been  applied  in  their  strictness  to  the  pro- 
ceedings here  in  1793,  the  proceedings  would  have  been  overturned 
as  thoroughly  as  those  at  Hanover  were  in  1819.  Precisely  how  far 
the  new  charter  for  Williams  College  was  legally  questioned  at  that 
time  does  not  now  appear.  That  it  was  so  questioned  more  or  less, 
is  made  certain  by  arguments  in  rebuttal  furnished  by  those  who 
favored  and  brought  about  the  change.  "  This  act  of  the  Legislature 
did  not  change  the  destination  of  the  fund  of  the  Free  School  (for 
that  would  necessarily  imply  an  illegal  exercise  of  power  on  the  part 
of  the  Legislature),  but  it  only  extended  the  power  and  increased  the 
capacity  of  the  fund,  so  that  it  was  still  promotive  of  the  views  of 
the  beneficent  testator  respecting  his  general  object,  namely,  the  dis- 
semination of  learning ;  and  the  particular  one,  the  location  at  Wil- 
liamstown.  The  Williamstown  Free  School  Fund  was  at  all  times  to 
be  considered  as  the  STOCK,  planted  and  rooted  in  Williamstown,  on 
which  public  and  private  munificence  might,  from  time  to  time,  be 
engrafted.  This  construction  of  the  will  of  Colonel  Williams  har- 
monizes with  the  views  of  the  original  trustees  of  the  fund,  and  is 
strengthened  and  confirmed  by  the  fact,  that  none  of  the  residuary 
legatees  of  Colonel  Williams  ever  claimed  those  funds  or  considered 
them  as  forfeited  by  any  supposed  illegal  interference  of  the  Legis- 
lature by  the  act  of  1793."  In  the  judgment  of  the  present  writer, 
a  layman,  it  would  not  take  an  extraordinarily  well-trained  lawyer, 
nor  even  any  man  more  than  fairly  acquainted  with  Mill's  System  of 
Logic,  to  pick  in  pieces  this  volunteered  piece  of  reasoning. 

But  the  objections  popularly  raised  to  the  new  charter  for  a  college 
were  instant  and  long-continued.  The  instinct  of  the  survivors  of 
Colonel  Williams  old  compatriots  and  of  the  common  farmers  and 


214  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

artisans  of  the  place  was  quick  and  clear,  that  their  children  were 
practically  thrown  out  from  the  benefits  of  the  fund  provided  for 
them  ostensibly  and  verbally  by  the  will  of  the  good  colonel  departed 
—  killed  in  battle  for  his  country.  Copies  of  the  will  were  sent  for 
to  Northampton,  paid  for,  and  carefully  conned  over  and  over,  by 
these  people.  Their  conviction  became  deep  settled,  that  they  and 
their  children  and  children's  children  had  been  wronged  in  this 
matter  by  the  manipulations  of  men  more  fortunate  in  life  than 
themselves,  and  belonging  to  a  class  more  privileged  under  the  law 
than  themselves.  This  popular  sense  of  having  been  wronged  in  this 
matter  soon  mingled  in  with  the  politics  of  the  times  and  place,  and 
helped  to  make  them  bitter.  It  was  not  altogether  without  influence 
also  on  the  theological  controversies  that  raged  throughout  the  Com- 
monwealth in  the  last  decade  of  the  last  century  and  in  the  first  two 
decades  of  the  present.  The  great  case  of  the  Classes  versus  the 
Masses  was  very  thoroughly  argued  out  in  Massachusetts  in  those 
thirty  years,  to  the  manifest  though  gradual  benefit  of  the  defend- 
ants. The  first  one  hundred  years  of  the  life  of  the  College  may  be 
truly  said  to  have  been  colored  more  or  less  by  these  early  contro- 
versies between  town  and  gown,  between  the  always  numerically 
small  classes  privileged  under  the  law  and  the  many  robbed  and 
wronged  by  such  privileges ;  and  it  may  be  truly  said  also,  that,  so 
far  as  local  disputes  go  from  these  causes,  the  close  of  that  century 
has  witnessed  their  decay  and  death.  The  old  matters  in  contro- 
versy have  died  out.  The  relations  between  town  arid  College  are  for 
the  most  part  conciliatory  and  wholesome.  The  causes  of  present 
differences  of  opinion  and  action  are  mostly  transient,  and  largely 
personal  on  the  one  side  or  the  other.  Good  feeling  prevails,  as  it 
ought  to.  The  interests  of  the  two  are  practically  identical.  The 
two  started  together,  as  it  were,  in  the  mind  and  prescient  action  of 
one  man ;  they  have  grown  up  together,  each  leaning  upon  the  other, 
and  while  their  relations,  of  course,  are  by  no  means  so  intimate  as 
formerly,  the  grounds  of  possible  friction  between  them  are  dimin- 
ished in  a  still  greater  ratio.  The  charter  of  1793  will  now  be  given 
in  its  entirety,  together  with  the  Act  of  1883  amendatory  thereto. 


CHAPTER  XV.    An  act  to  establish  a  college  in  the  County  of  Berkshire,  within 
this  Commonwealth,  by  the  name  of  Williams  College. 

Be  it  enacted  by  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives,  in  General  Court 
assembled,  and  by  the  authority  of  the  same,  that  there  be  erected  and  estab- 
lished in  the  town  of  Williamstown,  in  the  County  of  Berkshire,  a  college,  for 
the  purpose  of  educating  youth,  to  be  called  and  known  by  the  name  of  Williams 


WILLIAMSTOWN   FREE   SCHOOL.  215 

College,  to  be  under  the  government  and  regulation  of  a  body  politic  and  corpo- 
rate, as  hereafter  in  this  act  is  provided. 

And  be  it  further  enacted  by  the  authority  aforesaid,  that  John  Bacon,  Esq., 
Rev.  Daniel  Collins,  Israel  Jones,  Woodbridge  Little,  David  Noble,  Theodore 
Sedgwick,  Tompson  J.  Skinner,  Esquires,  Rev.  Seth  Swift,  Henry  Vanscaak, 
Esq.,  Rev.  Stephen  West,  D.D.,  William  Williams  and  Elijah  Williams,  Esquires, 
together  with  the  president  of  the  said  college  for  the  time  being,  to  be  chosen  as 
in  this  act  is  hereafter  directed,  be,  and  hereby  are  created  a  body  politic  and 
corporate,  by  the  name  of  the  "President  and  Trustees  of  Williams  College," 
and  that  they  and  their  successors,  and  such  others  as  shall  be  duly  elected  mem- 
bers of  the  said  corporation,  shall  be  and  remain  a  body  politic  and  corporate,  by 
that  name  forever. 

And  be  it  further  enacted  by  the  authority  aforesaid,  that  for  the  more  orderly 
conducting  the  business  of  the  said  corporation,  the  president  and  trustees  shall 
have  full  power  and  authority,  from  time  to  time,  as  they  shall  determine,  to 
elect  a  vice-president  and  secretary  of  the  said  corporation,  and  to  declare  the 
tenures  and  duties  of  their  respective  offices,  and  also  to  remove  any  trustee  from 
the  said  corporation,  when,  in  their  judgment,  he  shall  be  rendered  incapable, 
by  age  or  otherwise,  of  discharging  the  duties  of  his  office,  or  shall  neglect  or  re- 
fuse to  perform  the  same,  and  to  fill  up  all  vacancies  in  the  said  corporation,  by 
electing  such  persons  for  trustees  as  they  shall  judge  best.  Provided,  neverthe- 
less, that  the  number  of  the  said  trustees,  including  the  president  of  the  said  col- 
lege, for  the  time  being,  shall  never  be  greater  than  seventeen  nor  less  than 
eleven. 

And  be  it  further  enacted,  that  the  said  corporation  may  have  one  common 
seal,  which  they  may  change,  break  or  renew  at  their  pleasure  ;  and  that  all 
deeds  signed  and  delivered  by  the  treasurer,  and  sealed  with  their  seal,  by  order 
of  the  president  and  trustees,  shall,  when  made  in  their  corporate  name,  be 
considered  in  law  as  the  deed  of  the  said  corporation  ;  and  that  the  said  corpora- 
tion may  sue  and  be  sued  in  all  actions,  real,  personal  or  mixed,  and  may 
prosecute  and  defend  the  same  to  final  judgment  and  execution,  by  the  name  of 
the  president  and  trustees  of  Williams  College  ;  and  that  the  said  corporation 
shall  be  capable  of  having,  holding  and  taking  in  fee  simple,  or  any  less  estate 
by  gift,  grant,  devise  or  otherwise,  any  lands,  tenements  or  other  estate,  real  or 
personal.  Provided,  nevertheless,  that  the  annual  clear  income  of  the  same 
shall  not  exceed  the  sum  of  six  thousand  pounds. 

And  be  it  further  enacted  by  the  authority  aforesaid,  that  the  said  corpora- 
tion shall  have  full  power  and  authority  to  determine  at  what  times  and  places 
their  meetings  shall  be  holden,  and  on  the  manner  of  notifying  the  trustees  to 
convene  at  such  meetings ;  and  also,  from  time  to  time,  elect  a  president  and 
treasurer  of  said  college,  and  such  professors,  tutors,  instructors  and  other 
officers  of  the  said  college  as  they  shall  judge  most  for  the  interest  thereof,  and 
to  determine  the  duties,  salaries,  emoluments  and  tenures  of  their  several  offices 
aforesaid  :  the  said  president,  for  the  time  being,  when  elected  and  inducted 
into  his  office,  to  be,  ex-officio,  president  of  the  said  corporation.  And  the  said 
corporation  are  further  empowered  to  purchase  or  erect,  and  keep  in  repair, 
such  houses  and  other  buildings  as  they  shall  judge  necessary  for  the  said 
college  ;  and  also  to  make  and  ordain,  as  occasion  may  require,  reasonable 
rales,  orders  and  by-laws,  not  repugnant  to  the  laws  of  this  Commonwealth, 


216  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

with  reasonable  penalties,  for  the  good  government  of  the  said  college  ;  and  also 
to  determine  and  prescribe  the  mode  of  ascertaining  the  qualifications  of  the 
students,  requisite  to  their  admission ;  and  also  to  confer  such  degrees  as  are 
usually  conferred  by  universities  established  for  the  education  of  youth.  Pro- 
vided, nevertheless,  that  no  corporate  business  shall  be  transacted  at  any  meet- 
ing, unless  seven,  at  least,  of  the  trustees  are  present ;  and  provided  further, 
that  the  said  corporation  shall  confer  no  degree  other  than  those  of  Bachelor 
of  Arts  and  Master  of  Arts,  until  after  the  first  day  of  January,  which  shall  be 
in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand  eight  hundred. 

And  be  it  further  enacted  by  the  authority  aforesaid,  that  the  clear  rents, 
issues  and  profits  of  all  the  estate,  real  and  personal,  of  which  the  said  corpora- 
tion shall  be  seized  or  possessed,  shall  be  appropriated  to  the  endowment  of  the 
said  college,  in  such  manner  as  shall  most  effectually  promote  virtue  and  piety, 
and  the  knowledge  of  such  of  the  languages,  and  of  the  liberal  arts  and  sciences 
as  shall  hereafter  be  directed,  from  time  to  time,  by  the  said  corporation. 

And  be  it  further  enacted  by  the  authority  aforesaid,  that  the  Hon.  Tompson 
J.  Skinner,  Esq. ,  be,  and  he  is  hereby  authorized  and  empowered  to  fix  the  time 
and  place  for  holding  the  first  meeting  of  the  said  corporation,  of  which  he  shall 
give  notice  by  an  advertisement  in  the  Stockbridge  newspapers,  at  least  fourteen 
days  previous  thereto. 

And  be  it  further  enacted  by  the  authority  aforesaid,  that  the  treasurer  of  the 
said  college  shall,  before  he  enter  upon  the  execution  of  the  duties  of  his  office, 
give  bonds  to  the  said  corporation,  with  such  sums,  and  with  such  sureties  as 
they  shall  approve  of,  conditioned  for  the  faithful  discharge  of  the  said  office, 
and  for  rendering  a  just  and  true  account  of  his  doings  therein,  when  required. 
And  that  all  the  money,  securities  and  other  property  of  the  president  and 
trustees  of  Williams  College,  together  with  all  the  books  in  which  his  accounts 
and  proceedings  as  treasurer  were  entered  and  kept,  that  shall  be  in  his  hands  at 
the  expiration  of  his  office,  shall,  upon  demand  made  upon  him,  his  executors  or 
administrators,  be  paid  and  delivered  over  to  his  successor  in  that  office.  And 
all  monies  recovered  by  virtue  of  any  suit  at  law,  upon  said  bond,  shall  be  paid 
over  to  the  president  and  trustees  aforesaid,  and  subjected  to  the  appropriation 
above  directed  in  this  act. 

And  be  it  further  enacted  by  the  authority  aforesaid,  that  the  Legislature 
of  this  Commonwealth  may  grant  any  further  powers  to,  or  alter,  limit,  annul 
or  restrain  any  of  the  powers  by  this  act  vested  in  the  said  corporation,  as  shall 
be  judged  necessary  to  promote  the  best  interests  of  the  said  college  ;  and,  more 
especially,  may  appoint  and  establish  overseers  or  visitors,  of  the  said  college, 
with  all  necessary  powers  and  authorities  for  the  better  aid,  preservation  and 
government  thereof. 

And  be  it  further  enacted  by  the  authority  aforesaid,  that  all  the  property, 
real  and  personal,  belonging  to  the  trustees  of  Williamstown  Free  School, 
be,  and  the  same  hereby  is  vested  in  the  corporation,  which  by  this  act  is 
created. 

And  be  it  further  enacted  by  the  authority  aforesaid,  that  there  be,  and 
hereby  is  granted  to  the  trustees  of  Williams  College,  for  the  use,  benefit  and 
purpose  of  supporting  said  college,  twelve  hundred  pounds,  to  be  paid  out  of  the 
treasury  of  this  Commonwealth ;  three  hundred  pounds  of  the  same  to  be  paid 
the  first  day  of  September,  one  thousand  seven  hundred  ninety-three,  and  three 


WILLIAMSTOWN   FREE    SCHOOL. 


217 


hundred  pounds  annually,  on  the  first  day  of  September,  for  the  three  succeed- 
ing years. 

[This  act  passed  June  22,  1793.] 

ACT  OF  1883.    An  act  to  authorize  the  president  and  trustees  of  Williams 
College  to  hold  additional  real  and  personal  estate. 

[Be  it  enacted,  etc.,  as  follows :] 

SECTION  1.  The  proviso  in  section  4  of  the  act  establishing  Williams  College, 
passed  on  the  twenty-second  day  of  June  in  the  year  seventeen  hundred  and 
ninety-three,  is  hereby  amended  so  as  to  read:  "Provided,  nevertheless,  that 
the  clear  annual  income  of  the  same  shall  not  exceed  two  hundred  thousand 
dollars." 

SECTION  2.   This  act  shall  take  effect  upon  its  passage. 

[Approved  March  9,  1883.] 

By  this  charter,  the  Legislature,  by  its  own  authority,  added  three 
ordinary  trustees  to  the  old  board  of  the  Free  School ;  namely,  Elijah 
Williams,  and  Stephen  West,  and  Henry 
Van  Schaack;  and  one  ex-officio  member, 
namely,  the  president  of  the  College  for 
the  time  being. 

Elijah  Williams  was  a  half-brother  'to 
the  Founder,  being  the  youngest  of  the 
second  brood  of  children,  as  the  Founder 
was  the  eldest  of  the  first.  He  was  born 
Nov.  15,  1732,  the  same  year  with  Wash- 
ington, spent  all  but  the  first  five  years 
of  his  life  in  Stockbridge,  and  died  there 
June  9,  1815.  He  ultimately  came  into 
possession  of  much  of  the  father's  real 
estate  in  Stockbridge,  most  of  which  had 
passed  through  the  ownership  of  the 
Founder.  He  was  not  quite  twenty-three 
years  old  when  the  Founder  was  killed  at 
Lake  George;  and  his  only  own  brother,  Josiah,  two  years  older, 
was  desperately  wounded  in  the  same  action.  Twenty  years  later, 
at  the  opening  of  the  Eevolution,  Elijah  Williams  sold  the  old 
Williams  farm  in  Stockbridge,  and  made  a  large  purchase  of  land  in 
what  became  under  his  enterprise  West  Stockbridge  village,  where 
he  built  for  himself  a  fine  house,  still  standing,  and  married,  rather 
late  in  life,  Sophia  Partridge  of  Dalton,  by  whom  he  had  one  son, 
who  deceased  without  issue.  He  acquired  a  large  property,  was 
colonel  in  the  militia,  the  first  sheriff  of  the  county  of  Berkshire,  an 


COLONEL   ELIJAH    WILLIAMS. 
Deceased  June,   1815,  aged  83. 


218  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

office  which  he  resigned  in  1774,  probably  on  account  of  the  well- 
known  toryism  of  the  entire  Williams  family.  He  continued,  how- 
ever, to  hold  in  a  high  degree  the  respect  of  his  Berkshire  neighbors, 
as  did  also,  under  similar  circumstances,  his  cousin  William  Wil- 
liams of  Dalton.  The  two  served  usefully  together  upon  the  board 
of  trustees  until,  in  1802,  becoming  seventy  years  old,  Elijah  Wil- 
liams resigned.  William  Williams  continued  a  member  till  his  death 
in  1808.  In  the  meantime,  in  1804,  another  member  of  the  same 
general  family,  John  Williams  of  Deerfield,  a  grandson  of  the  Re- 
deemed Captive,  was  chosen  a  trustee  and  served  for  ten  years. 
Elijah  Williams  may  have  kept  in  his  own  possession  a  part  or  the 
whole  of  his  father's  fine  homestead  on  Stockbridge  Hill  about  half 
a  mile  north  of  the  present  meeting-house.  At  any  rate,  about  a 
dozen  years  before  his  death,  he  moved  thither,  and  lived  nearest 
neighbor  to  his  brother-in-law,  Stephen  West,  who  certainly  lived  on 
the  old  plot  of  ground  on  the  hill  given  to  Ephraim  Williams,  Senior, 
by  the  General  Court  in  1737,  and  on  which  he  built  his  Stockbridge 
house. 

Stephen  West,  the  second  of  the  State  appointees  of  1793,  became 
very  prominent  in  the  impulse  and  management  of  the  College  till 
his  resignation  in  1812.  At  the  first  meeting  of  the  new  board, 
Aug.  6, 1793,  all  the  trustees  being  present,  West  was  unanimously 
chosen  vice-president,  an  office  (not  a  sinecure)  which  he  held  for 
nineteen  years.  Connecticut  born,  a  graduate  of  Yale  in  1755,  con- 
nected as  a  chaplain  with  Fort  Massachusetts  for  about  a  year  in  its 
decline,  he  was  summoned  to  Stockbridge  as  preacher  and  pastor  in 
November,  1758,  and  continued  in  those  relations  till  his  dismission  in 
August,  1818,  a  period  of  a  little  less  than  sixty  years.  He  succeeded 
Jonathan  Edwards  in  the  pastoral  relation  both  to  Indians  and  the 
whites.  There  were  then  forty-two  Indian  families  and  eighteen  white 
families  in  Stockbridge.  Calvin  Durfee  in  his  "  Annals  "  says  proudly 
of  Stephen  West :  "  A  few  years  after  his  settlement  in  Stockbridge 
a  very  essential  change  took  place  in  his  religious  opinions  and  feel- 
ings :  from  being  an  Arminian  he  became  a  thorough  Hopkinsian : 
he  was  now  distinguished  for  his  spirituality."  The  same  author 
speaks  further  in  the  same  connection :  "  He  was  a  man  of  such 
uncommon  intellectual  powers  that  he  was  at  home  in  the  depths  of 
metaphysical  discussions,  or  when  analyzing  and  unfolding  the  most 
difficult  passages  in  the  writings  of  Isaiah  or  Paul."  Another  ac- 
count of  th;s  same  change  is  more  intelligible,  and  therefore  some- 
what more  rational.  In  Field's  "  History  of  Berkshire,"  under  the 
sub-title,  Stockbridge,  it  is  said  in  substance,  that  when  Stephen 


WILLIAMSTOWN    FREE   SCHOOL.  219 

West  was  settled  in  Stockbridge,  there  were  but  four  other  settled 
ministers  in  the  county  ;  namely,  Hubbard  of  Sheffield,  Strong  of  New 
Marlborough,  Bidwell  of  Tyringham,  and  Samuel  Hopkins  of  Great 
Barrington.  Hopkins  was  the  nearest,  and  with  him  West  con- 
tracted an  early  and  intimate  and  (as  the  result  shows)  a  very  happy 
friendship.  The  structure  of  their  minds  was  somewhat  similar. 
Both  were  fond  of  discussion  and  research.  West  was  dissatisfied 
with  what  his  predecessor,  Edwards,  had  written  on  the  Freedom  of 
the  Will,  and  on  many  points  relative  to  the  distinguishing  doctrines 
of  Grace.  These  became  the  topics  of  free  and  repeated  conversa- 
tion, and  of  profound  metaphysical  discussion  between  them.  The 
effect  was  that  WTest  gave  up  his  hope  of  a  personal  interest  in  Christ, 
which  he  had  long  entertained,  and  which  he  had  professed  before 
men ;  and  was  convinced  that  while  he  had  undertaken  the  charge 
of  souls,  his  own  soul  had  been  neglected. 

The  truth  about  this  whole  proceeding  and  its  subsequents,  which 
both  Field  and  Durfee  regard  as  peculiarly  Christian  and  divine, 
seems  to  be,  that  Samuel  Hopkins  was  a  more  subtle  metaphysician 
than  Stephen  West,  and  was  able  to  perplex  and  finally  to  silence 
his  friend  in  discussions  on  matters  of  which  neither  knew  anything ; 
namely,  "  fixed  fate,  free  will,  foreknowledge  absolute."  Both  were 
intensely  interested  in  devising  and  determining  what  they  were 
pleased  to  call  the  "Divine  Plan  of  Salvation,"  a  subject  of  which 
our  blessed  Lord,  as  reported  in  the  Gospels,  said  nothing;  and 
which  weak  and  changing  human  language  in  its  best  estate  would 
be  unable  to  bear  the  weight  of,  even  if  the  weak  and  limited  powers 
of  man  were  able  to  grapple  with  it.  What  men  needed  at  that 
time  and  what  they  need  at  all  times,  is,  to  find  and  embrace  and 
cling  to  and  take  the  risks  with  a  personal  Saviour.  One  of  the  last 
texts  which  these  constructive  New  England  theologians  with  Ed- 
wards at  their  head  would  naturally  have  dwelt  on  in  their  teaching, 
is  this,  "  God  so  loved  the  world  that  he  gave  the  only  begotten  Son,  that 
every  one  who  believeth  in  him  may  not  perish,  but  may  have  everlasting 
life  ;  "  and  another  is  this,  ((This  is  the  work  of  God,  that  ye  believe  in 
him  ivhom  he  sent"  Happily  there  is  not  a  man  in  Berkshire  County 
to-day  who  can  tell  what  it  was  to  be  a  "  Hopkinsian,"  or  who  cares 
a  copper  to  find  out.  More  Christian  and  more  Scriptural,  and  hence 
more  practical  and  religious,  inquiries  occupy  the  thought  and  impel 
the  action  of  this  generation. 

Samuel  Hopkins  and  Stephen  West  were,  nevertheless,  conscien- 
tious and  useful  men  in  their  day.  Through  the  influence  of  the 
latter,  the  former's  "System  of  Divinity"  was  read  for  a  time  as 


220  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

one  of  the  text-books  for  the  Senior  class  in  the  new  college.  In 
March,  1797,  President  Fitch  wrote:  "In  future  we  shall  read 
Doddridge's  Lectures  in  lieu  of  Hopkins's  System."  What  brought 
about  that  change?  The  following  letter  from  West  to  Hopkins, 
dated  Stockbridge,  Sept.  19,  1797,  gives  a  penetrative  view  into 
the  theological  views  of  that  time  and  locality. 

You  spoke  in  your  last  of  our  having  prohibited  your  System  being  recited  in 
Williams  College.  It  is  true,  the  trustees  have  prohibited  it.  It  was  introduced 
as  a  classical  study  without  the  order  of  the  Corporation.  The  President  intro- 
duced it  because,  as  he  told  me,  he  thought  it  much  exceeded  anything  of  the 
kind  he  had  seen.  But  the  civilian  part  of  the  board,  it  seems,  were  of  another 
opinion.  They  judged  that  it  being  recited  would  be  injurious  to  the  reputation 
of  our  new  Institution.  The  matter  was  considerably  discussed.  The  clerical 
part  of  the  board  [Fitch,  West,  Collins,  Seth  Swift,  Job  Swift,  Bobbins]  were 
all  of  one  mind  ;  and  were  greatly  opposed  to  its  being  rejected.  But  when 
the  vote  for  its  rejection  was  taken,  every  hand  was  up  [Bacon,  Jones,  Nobler 
Little,  Skinner,  Van  Schaak,  William  Williams,  Elijah  Williams,  Van  Kensse- 
laer]  excepting  those  of  the  ministers.  Though  the  world  seems  to  be  made 
for  Caesar,  yet  we  know  that  Zion's  God  reigns.  The  time  is  not  yet  come  for 
truth  to  prevail.  But  in  God's  good  time  it  surely  will  come.  The  Evil  One 
intends  to  hold  the  college,  but  the  Lord  will  support  his  own  cause. 

Although  this  was  a  private  and  confidential  letter  between  inti- 
mate friends,  one  cannot  let  it  pass  even  at  this  late  day  without 
remarking  the  uncharitableness  of  judgment  of  those  who  claimed 
"  disinterested  benevolence  "  as  their  distinctive  principle,  towards 
those  who  differed  from  them  theologically  or  otherwise.  Two- 
thirds  of  his  colleagues  on  the  board  of  trustees,  men  of  high 
character  and  intelligence,  thought  it  best  to  change  the  text-book 
in  theology;  and  after  open  and  full  discussion,  voted  to  sub- 
stitute Doddridge  for  Hopkins,  whereupon  their  vice-president 
writes  the  latter,  an  interested  outsider,  "The  world  seems  to 
be  made  for  Caesar,  yet  we  know  that  Zion's  God  reigns."  The 
same  individual  admits  in  the  same  letter,  that  these  his  colleagues 
"judged  that  it  being  recited  would  be  injurious  to  the  reputation 
of  our  new  Institution."  What  better  motive  than  that  could  the 
trustees  of  any  institution  act  under  ?  Yet  this  charitable  colleague 
writes  of  their  open  action,  "  The  time  is  not  yet  come  for  truth 
to  prevail."  And  more,  even,  than  this  flows  from  the  same  pen  at 
the  same  time  on  the  same  ground  of  judgment,  "The  Evil  One 
intends  to  hold  the  college,  but  the  Lord  will  support  his  own 
cause."  The  principle  of  Protestantism  is  the  right  of  private 
judgment  in  matters  religious.  Hopkins  and  West  and  all  the  high 
Orthodox  in  New  England  called  themselves  Protestants,  and  be- 


WILLIAMSTOWN   FREE   SCHOOL.  221 

lieved  themselves  to  be  such  to  the  core,  but  practically  they  were 
unwilling  to  tolerate  any  man's  "private  judgment"  that  differed 
from  their  own.  They  virtually  claimed  infallibility  for  them- 
selves, and  easily  passed  over  the  other  fellows  to  the  "  Evil  One." 
"  Orthodoxy  "  was  their  particular  "  doxy,"  and  the  "  doxy  "  of  the 
others  was  Heterodoxy  and  Heresy.  It  was  this  abominable  re- 
ligious intolerance  coupled  with  an  equally  abominable  coveting  of 
special  privileges  under  the  Law  for  themselves  and  their  "set," 
that  caused  the  downfall  in  New  England  of  the  "old  Order"  so- 
called.  They  lost  in  good  time  and  to  the  benefit  of  all  parties  both 
their  religious  and  political  precedence. 

In  another  connection  altogether,  Dr.  West  appears  to  better 
advantage,  in  describing  the  argumentative  method  of  his  friend 
and  spiritual  guide,  Dr.  Hopkins.  "His  manner  in  dispute  was 
unusually  mild,  fair  and  moderate ;  far  from  being  overbearing,  he1 
gave  every  just  advantage  to  his  opponent,  patiently  hearing 
whatever  he  advanced  in  favor  of  his  opinions,  and  giving  him  full 
opportunity  to  vindicate  them  by  every  argument  he  thought  favor- 
able. The  doctor  often  by  these  means  convinced  and  gained  over 
his  opposers ;  when,  had  his  manner  been  austere  and  overbearing, 
however  conclusive  his  argument,  the  opposing  party  would  have 
remained  unconvinced,  and  received  no  benefit." 

There  were  some  special  reasons,  however,  why  some  of  these 
trustees  were  personally  opposed  to  the  furtherance  of  the  theology 
of  Hopkins,  which  was  presumed  to  be  only  a  modification  of  that 
of  Jonathan  Edwards,  whom  the  Williams  family  as  such  had 
sturdily  opposed  in  his  pastoral  and  theological  struggles  at  North- 
ampton, and  later  and  more  face  to  face  in  the  same  at  Stockbridge. 
Hopkins  had  succeeded  Edwards  in  a  sort  of  theological  leadership 
in  southern  Berkshire  ;  while  it  was  rightly  understood  at  the  time 
that  West  had  come  to  Stockbridge  as  an  opponent  of  the  stringent 
tenets  of  his  predecessor.  Now  West  had  become  the  champion  of 
all  that  had  been  most  offensive  to  the  Williams  influence  on  the 
Connecticut,  and  later  on  the  upper  Housatonic.  Should,  accord- 
ingly, that  influence,  now  directly  represented  in  the  board  of 
trustees  by  Deacon  William  Williams  of  Dalton  and  Colonel  Elijah 
Williams  of  Stockbridge,  and  indirectly  by  several  more,  give  their 
consent  that  the  hated  doctrines  should  be  enthroned  in  a  school 
founded  by  one  of  their  own  number  in  a  town  called  by  their  own 
name  ?  Whether  "  the  Evil  One  intended  to  hold  the  college,"  or 
not,  it  is  very  plain  that  those  who  had  been  chiefly  instrumental  in 
establishing  it  "intended  to  hold"  it  clear  from  special  theologic 


222  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

views,  which  they  had  stiffly  opposed  for  a  whole  generation.  And 
they  very  properly  did  so.  And  they  did  so  in  such  a  degree  and 
for  such  a  length  of  time  as  makes  the  statement  of  Durfee  and 
others,  that  "  Williams  College  was  early  and  intimately  associated 
with  those  views  of  theology  which  were  advocated  and  defended  by 
Dr.  Samuel  Hopkins,"  untrue ;  and  still  more  untrue  the  further 
statement  in  the  same  connection,1  that  "  its  early  missionary  zeal 
was  the  result  or  fruit  of  its  [this]  theology :  the  one  was  the  pre- 
cursor of  the  other :  they  stood  related  as  cause  and  effect." 

The  third,  and  only  remaining,  charter-appointee  to  the  Board  of 
Trustees  was  Henry  van  Schaack,  at  that  time  of  Pittsfield.  He  was 
a  Dutchman,  born  in  Kinderhook  in  1733.  He  was  a  brave  soldier 
and  officer  in  the  last  French  War ;  and  is  said  to  have  been  in 
three  bloody  conflicts  in  one  day.  He  was  a  man  of  remarkable 
fearlessness  and  of  great  physical  endurance.  The  French  W^ar  well 
over,  he  engaged  in  the  fur  trade,  first  at  Niagara  and  then  at 
Detroit,  where  he  lived  many  years  in  the  beginnings  of  that  now 
beautiful  city,  and  became  like  others  of  his  class  very  rich.  About 
1770  he  came  back  into  his  native  region  and  settled  in  Pittsfield, 
where  he  resided  more  than  twenty  years.  As  he  was  rich  and  had 
no  children,  some  of  the  trustees  fondly  indulged  the  hope  that  he 
would  endow  the  College  with  at  least  a  portion  of  his  property. 
"  In  vain  is  the  snare  set  in  the  sight  of  any  bird."  He  continued 
till  1816  to  be  nominally  at  least  a  member  of  the  board.  Whether 
he  attended  their  sessions  or  not  does  not  appear.  Certainly  he 
endowed  the  College  with  no  portion  of  his  estate.  About  1806,  he 
returned  to  his  native  place,  and  died  there  in  1823,  aged  90  years. 
President  Martin  van  Buren,  a  native  and  resident  of  the  same 
place,  knew  him  well  in  his  later  years,  and  communicated  to  the 
College  some  of  above-mentioned  facts  in  relation  to  him. 

The  charter  for  the  College  was  obtained  in  the  early  summer  of 
1793 ;  and  in  October,  just  two  years  from  the  opening  of  the  Free 
School,  the  formal  organization  for  college  instruction  was  begun  by 
the  admission  of  three  small  classes  out  of  the  more  advanced  pupils 
of  the  Free  School,  and  probably  a  few  others  who  came  then  for 
the  first  time  to  enter.  This  beginning  of  college  instruction  and 
other  cognate  beginnings  had  been  prepared  for  by  a  meeting  at 
William stown,  August  6,  of  the  new  and  enlarged  board,  all  the 
trustees  being  present.  The  charter  itself  had  prescribed  to  Colonel 
Skinner  of  William  stown  the  duty  of  calling  this  meeting,  and  of 
advertising  the  date  of  it  beforehand  in  the  Stockbridge  newspaper. 
1  See  Durfee's  Sketch  of  Rev.  Ebenezer  Fitch,  D.D.,  p.  46. 


WILLIAMSTOWN   FREE    SCHOOL.  223 

This  appears  to  be  the  first  official  mention  of  Stockbridge  in  the 
records  of  the  College ;  but  from  that  time  till  the  close  of  its  first 
century,  in  one  intimate  relation  or  another,  that  town  has  been 
prominently  associated  with  the  College  and  its  town.  It  has  often 
been  said,  that  all  four  of  the  first  class  of  graduates  (1795)  were 
from  Stockbridge ;  but  closer  local  research  reveals  the  fact  that  one 
of  the  four  lived  in  Lenox,  but  just  on  the  border  of  Stockbridge. 
The  principal  votes  passed  by  the  board  at  this  its  initial  meeting, 
and  recorded  by  their  secretary,  Daniel  Dewey,  are  the  following:  — 

Voted, 

That  Commencement  be  on  the  first  Wednesday  in  September. 

That  a  grammar  school  be  connected  with  the  college. 

That  the  salary  of  the  President  be  £140,  and  the  corporation  provide  him 
with  a  house. 

That  Messrs.  Skinner,  Swift,  and  Noble,  be  a  committee  to  counsel  the 
President. 

That  Mr.  Noah  Linsley  be  appointed  Tutor  with  a  salary  of  £65  per  annum, 
and  Mr.  Nathaniel  Steel  Master  of  the  grammar  school  with  a  salary  of  £60. 

That  each  person  who  applies  for  admission  [as  a  Freshman]  be  able  to 
accurately  read,  parse,  and  construe  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  President  and 
Tutor,  Virgil's  ^Eneid,  Tully's  Orations,  and  the  Evangelists  in  Greek  ;  or,  if  he 
prefers  to  become  acquainted  with  French,  he  must  be  able  to  read  and  pro- 
nounce with  a  tolerable  degree  of  accuracy  and  fluency,  Hudson's  French 
Scholar's  Guide,  Telemachus,  or  some  other  approved  French  author. 

Fitch  and  Linsley,  the  latter  a  graduate  of  Yale  in  1791,  thus  con- 
stituted the  faculty  for  the  first  year.  For  the  next  two  years 
(1794-96),  there  were  three  tutors,  Elijah  Dunbar  and  Dan  Hunting- 
ton  and  Daniel  Dunbar,  the  first  being  senior  tutor,  and  the  others 
graduates  of  Yale  in  1794.  The  next  two  years,  Henry  Davis  (Yale, 
1794),  afterward  president  both  of  Middlebury  and  Hamilton,  and 
Jeremiah  Day  (Yale,  1795),  afterward  the  very  distinguished  presi- 
dent of  Yale,  were  tutors.  During  a  part  of  those  two  years, 
Chauncy  Lusk  (Williams,  1795),  was  also  a  tutor,  in  sole  charge  of 
the  Sophomore  class,  giving  instruction  the  first  term  of  his  service 
in  Horace,  Guthrie's  Geography,  and  Pike's  Arithmetic.  He  became 
a  lawyer,  settled  in  Lanesboro,  and  died  there  of  consumption  in 
1803. 

It  is  certain  that  some  students  from  Canada  came  hither  at  the 
opening  of  the  Free  School  in  1791.  The  vote  of  the  trustees  in  1793, 
offering  to  all  the  option  of  French  in  lieu  of  Greek,  shows  the  drift 
of  public  opinion  at  that  time.  Along  the  same  line  lies  the  ap- 
pointment in  1795  of  the  first  professor  in  the  College,  Samuel 
Mackay,  Professor  of  the  French  Language.  French  was  his  native 


224  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

tongue,  and  the  testimony  is  concurrent  that  he  excelled  in  the  teach- 
ing of  it  in  College.  He  was  born  in  Chambly,  Canada,  in  1764,  and 
died  in  Sullivan,  Maine,  in  1831.  He  held  his  professorship  but 
four  years,  and  it  was  discontinued  thereafter.  The  circumstances 
under  which  Professor  Mackay  left  the  College  in  1799,  although 
they  are  imperfectly  understood,  have  never  reflected  any  discredit 
upon  him,  but  rather  the  reverse :  the  number  of  pupils  in  the  Col- 
lege naturally  desirous  of  taking  French,  and  the  degree  of  their 
preparation  to  receive  instruction  at  the  hands  of  an  accomplished 
vernacular  scholar,  were  necessarily  meagre  at  the  outset;  there 
seems  to  have  been  a  certain  lack  of  dignity  in  his  manner  in  con- 
junction with  an  unwonted  enthusiasm  in  teaching,  as  is  illustrated 
by  the  story  of  the  late  Professor  Kingsley  of  Yale  College,  who  was 
a  student  here  from  1795  to  1797,  who  used  to  say  that  Professor 
Mackay  once  undertook  to  examine  the  seniors  in  Paley's  "  Moral  Phi- 
losophy," and  his  first  sudden  question  was,  "  Vat  is  the  vite  lie  f  " 
This  question  at  that  point  raised  so  much  laughter,  that  he  had  dif- 
ficulty in  proceeding  with  the  incongruous  exercise.  In  his  own 
language,  however,  he  was  a  successful  instructor,  and  much  re- 
spected. His  gentlemanly  manners  were  of  much  service  to  the  Col- 
lege in  its  crude  beginnings.  His  wife  was  the  daughter  of  the 
right  honorable  Chartier,  Marquis  de  Lotbiniere,  who  died  in  New 
York,  Oct.  7,  1798,  and  was  buried  there  in  the  Potter's  Field. 
When  Mrs.  Mackay  lay  upon  her  own  deathbed  here  about  four 
years  later,  she  requested  that  her  father's  name  and  title,  and  the 
time  and  place  of  his  death,  might  be  inscribed  upon  her  own  tomb- 
stone in  the  then  new  cemetery  on  Hemlock  Brook,  and  it  was  so 
inscribed ;  and  already  for  almost  a  century,  townspeople  and  stran- 
gers have  read  the  touching  filial  line  in  connection  with  the  daugh- 
ter's own  still  perfectly  legible  epitaph,  which  runs  in  elegance  as 
follows :  — 

ERECTED  IN  MEMORY 

OF 
MARIA  LOUISA  CHARTIER  DE  LOTBINIERE, 

WIFE  OF 
CAPT.  SAMUEL  MACKAY, 

U.  S.  INFANTRY.  v 

SHE  DIED  JULY  10,  1802, 
AGED  41. 

On  another  side  of  this  marble  monument  is  another  tender  epi- 
taph, which,  in  connection  with  the  two  others,  helps  makes  this  stone 
perhaps  the  most  memorable  within  the  valley. 


WILLIAMSTOWN   FREE   SCHOOL.  225 

THE  LAST  PLEDGE  OF  PARENTAL  TENDERNESS, 
ERECTED  JULY  14,  1796, 

BY    HER    DISCONSOLATE    PARENTS 

TO  THEIR  INFANT  DAUGHTER, 

NOW  MOULDERING  IN  THIS  DUST, 

LOUISA  MACKAY. 

These  parents  had  a  son  named  Samuel  Metcalf  Mackay,  born  in 
Bennington,  April  3, 1793,  before  their  coming  to  Williamstown,  who 
himself  came  to  have  afterward  intimate  relations  with  the  College 
and  the  county.  He  was  educated  in  the  College,  but  for  some  rea- 
son was  not  graduated  with  his  class.  The  College,  however,  be- 
stowed on  him  the  honorary  degree  of  M.  A.  in  1823.  He  was  a  law 
student  in  Boston,  but  entered  (like  his  father)  the  regular  army  of 
the  United  States  in  the  war  of  1812,  and  rose  from  the  rank  of  lieu- 
tenant to  that  of  major.  At  the  close  of  the  war,  he  became  a  citizen 
of  Pittsfield,  and  colonel  in  the  militia.  He  became  also  prominent 
in  civil  life,  and  represented  his  town  and  district  repeatedly  in 
both  branches  of  the  State  Legislature.  He  was  appointed  by  Gov- 
ernor Lincoln  Commissioner  of  Education,  and  in  1827,  a  mem- 
ber of  the  first  board  of  Massachusetts  Railroad  Commissioners.  He 
was  a  man  of  pronounced  opinions,  of  definite  aims,  and  of  great 
energy.  He  died  in  1834  of  consumption,  doubtless  the  mortal  dis- 
ease of  his  mother. 

In  the  journal  of  Thomas  Robbins,  then  a  senior  in  College,  are 
found  two  references  to  this  little  Louisa  Mackay.  "  The  professor 
lost  his  youngest  child.  Very  pretty.  Attended  the  funeral  of  Mr. 
Mackay 's  child."  This  language  displays  the  fact  that  the  father 
was  the  only  person  then  in  College  who  bore  the  title  of  "  Pro- 
fessor " ;  and  that  all  the  rest  of  the  instruction  was  given  by  the 
president  and  tutors.  We  like  to  linger  a  little  longer  before  closing 
the  earthly  record  of  the  first  professor  in  Williams  College.  He 
was  chosen  professor  of  the  French  language  September  2,  1795,  and 
resigned  the  post  Sept.  3,  1799.  The  thanks  of  the  corporation 
were  presented  to  him  and  are  on  record,  "  for  his  faithful  service." 
At  the  same  time  and  without  any  reasons  given  for  their  votes,  the 
corporation  repealed  the  proviso  in  the  laws  of  the  College  adopted 
Oct.  20,  1794,  permitting  the  substitution  of  French  for  Greek  at 
the  option  of  the  student  entering,  and  further  "  resolved,  that  the 
professorship  for  the  instruction  of  the  French  language  heretofore 
established  be  and  hereby  is  abolished."  Can  a  guess  be  safely  haz- 
arded, or  an  inference  be  logically  drawn,  that  shall  at  once  explain 
this  action  of  the  trustees  and  their  silence  as  to  the  grounds  of  it  ? 
Q 


226  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

During  the  years  1797  and  1798,  owing  to  outrageous  spoliations  on 
American  commerce  authorized  by  the  French  Directory  and  com- 
mitted on  the  seas  by  French  privateers,  the  United  States  was  on 
the  eve  of  a  war  with  France.  Public  opinion  turned  very  much 
against  that  country.  A  special  house-tax,  to  help  meet  the  cost  of 
a  war  that  was  imminent,  was  levied  by  Congress  and  apportioned 
among  the  States  in  accordance  with  the  Constitution.  The  assess- 
ment for  this  purpose  on  the  houses  in  Williamstown  was  made  to 
take  effect  on  Oct.  1,  1798.  Under  such  circumstances  as  these, 
could  it  be  regarded  as  a  proper  thing  to  emphasize  instruction  in 
the  French  language,  and  to  maintain  a  professor  for  that  purpose, 
in  a  new  and  struggling  college,  every  man  connected  with  the  con- 
trol of  which  being  specially  and  heavily  taxed  to  go  to  war  with  the 
French  nation  ?  If  this  conjecture  may  be  allowed,  another  and  a 
cognate  one  is  made  easier,  namely,  that  Samuel  Mackay  enlisted 
into  the  regular  army  under  the  war  fever  that  pervaded  New  Eng- 
land at  the  close  of  his  professorship,  for  we  certainly  find  him  as 
captain,  United  States  Infantry,  in  1802.  He  continued  his  legal 
residence  in  Williamstown  till  1804;  for  among  the  "Intentions  of 
Marriage  "  published  in  that  year  is  found  "  Captain  Samuel  Mackay 
of  Williamstown  and  Mrs.  Eunice  Seaman  of  Gouldsborough,  Han- 
cock County  "  (Maine). 


CHAPTER  III. 

TOWN    AND    COLLEGE    TILL    THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL. 

The  egg  unquickened  and  the  futile  bloom 
Are  types  repeated  there  f orevermore : 
Unfinished  is  the  fabric  in  the  loom  ; 
Uproofed  to  heaven  the  palace  built  in  yore, 
Unmatched  the  gleaming  marbles  of  its  floor. 
And  as  wide  Nature  and  the  works  of  man, 
So  is  the  man  unto  his  bosom's  core  : 
His  words  die  off  that  with  warm  speech  began, 
His  thoughts  defile  away,  a  visionary  clan. 

—  EDITH  M.  THOMAS. 

THE  writer  has  now  reached  in  the  detailed  composition  of  his  text 
the  beginnings  of  the  third  chapter  in  his  book  to  be  entitled  "  Wil- 
liamstown  and  Williams  College."  The  book  that  paved  the  way  for 
this,  of  which  this  is  but  the  continuation  and  the  completion,  is  en- 
titled "  Origins  in  Williamstown."  That  book  has  been  in  the  hands 
of  the  public  an  entire  year.  The  interest  excited  in  its  pages  has 
been  confined  for  the  most  part  to  those  who  have  been  connected 
with  the  town  in  the  way  of  residence  or  ancestry,  and  to  those  who 
have  been  connected  in  some  way  with  the  College  as  a  flourishing 
educational  institution.  These  two  factors  of  interest  have  been 
blended  from  the  first,  the  civil  and  the  educational,  and  there  has 
been  no  motive  to  separate  the  two  into  distinct  strands  of  construc- 
tion. Ephraim  Williams  conceived  of  the  township  as  one  to  be 
called  after  his  own  name,  at  the  same  time  that  he  conceived  of  the 
Free  School  to  be  maintained  out  of  funds  of  his  own  provision  for 
the  benefit  of  'the  sons  of  those  men  with  whom  he  himself  had  taken 
civil  risks  in  land  purchases  and  bodily  risks  in  siege  and  battle. 
The  executors  of  his  last  will  and  testament,  Israel  Williams  of  Hat- 
field  and  John  Worthington  of  Springfield,  held  themselves  bound 
to  but  one  general  charge  in  faithfully  caring  for  the  township  and 
its  name  in  1765,  and  for  the  Free  School  and  its  permanent  organi- 
zation in  1785.  Town  and  school  influenced  each  other  more  and 
more  in  every  attempted  lift  of  each  from  the  very  beginning ;  and 
coalesced  more  and  more  into  one  movement,  and,  as  it  were,  into 

227 


228  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

one  existence.  The  town  cannot  be  truly  and  graphically  depicted 
in  its  civil  and  social  relations  without  delineating,  at  the  same  time, 
the  shifting  features  of  that  institution  of  learning  that  has  drawn 
so  much  attention  to  its  own  local  environment ;  and  the  lines  of  the 
College  would  be  necessarily  awry  if  drawn  without  constant  and 
sympathetic  reference  to  the  kindred  growths,  both  political  and  ec- 
clesiastical, going  on  at  once  around  it  and  by  means  of  it.  It  does 
not  make  much  difference  whether  we  begin  now  with  town  or  gown ; 
there  must  be  a  vital  passing  and  repassing  from  one  to  the  other, 
and  the  action  and  reaction  of  each  upon  the  other  must  be  made 
visible  and  striking,  if  either  is  to  appear  as  it  was,  and  both  as  they 
have  come  to  be. 

From  the  day  when  Ebenezer  Fitch,  then  thirty-five  years  old, 
entered  the  little  hamlet  in  October,  1791,  to  become  the  bachelor 
preceptor  of  the  inchoate  Free  School;  and  particularly  from  the 
day  when,  six  months  later,  he  brought  into  town  as  his  wife  Mrs. 
Mary  Cogswell,  the  widow  of  his  college  classmate  and  most  intimate 
friend,  and  adopted  as  his  own  her  two  children,  Maria  and  James, 
he  began  to  exert  an  influence  personal  and  official  and  social 
and  political  and  ecclesiastical  at  once,  in  the  way  of  leadership, 
as  toward  a  part  of  the  small  community  just  coming  into  a  conscious 
life,  and  at  the  same  time  in  the  way  of  opposition  to  another  vital 
part  of  the  same  community.  The  principal  cleavage  was  along 
political  lines.  The  Federal  Convention  of  1787  had  formed  at 
Philadelphia  a  national  Constitution,  which  was  full  of  compromises 
as  between  individual  States  and  the  aggregate  people  of  the  thirteen 
States,  as  between  slavery  and  its  alleged  interests  and  the  growing 
demands  of  human  rights  as  such,  as  between  commerce  and 
restrictions  upon  it,  and  between  property  and  personality  as 
having  each  its  respective  weight  in  the  practical  administration  of 
affairs.  The  party  calling  itself  Federalist  had  carried  on  the 
national  government  from  1789  to  1801,  and  no  very  sharp,  at  least 
no  thoroughly  consistent,  lines  could  be  maintained  between  that 
party  as  such,  and  the  party  calling  itself  Republican  o'r  Democratic, 
that  had  been  aligning  itself  in  opposition  in  all  these  years  under 
the  masterful  leadership  of  Thomas  Jefferson.  In  his  own  inaugural 
address  as  President  in  1801,  Jefferson  states  what  he  deems  the 
fundamental  principles  of  government  in  this  country,  and  while 
claiming  them  as  his  own  and  those  of  his  party,  he  ascribes  them 
also  with  astonishing  facility  and  liberality  to  his  fellow-citizens  as 
a  whole.  "  We  have  called  by  different  names  brethren  of  the  same 
principle.  We  are  all  Republicans  ;  we  are  all  Federalists.  Equal 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.        229 

and  exact  justice  to  all  men,  of  whatever  State  or  persuasion,  religious 
or  political  ;  peace,  commercial  and  honest  friendship  with  all  nations, 
entangling  alliances  with  none  ;  the  support  of  the  State  governments  in 
all  their  rights,  as  the  most  competent  administrations  for  our  domestic 
concerns,  and  the  surest  bulwarks  against  antirrepiiblican  tendencies  ; 
the  preservation  of  the  general  government  in  its  whole  constitutional 
vigor,  as  the  sheet-anchor  of  our  peace  at  home  and  safety  abroad  ; 
a  jealous  care  of  the  right  of  election  by  the  people,  a  mild  and  safe 
corrective  of  abuses  which  are  lopped  off  by  the  sword  of  revolution 
where  peaceable  remedies  are  unprovided  ;  absolute  acquiescence  in  the 
decisions  of  the  majority,  the  vital  principle  of  republics,  from  which  is 
no  appeal  but  to  force,  the  vital  principle  and  immediate  parent  of 
despotism;  all  will  bear  in  mind  this  sacred  principle,  that  though  the 
will  of  the  majority  is  in  all  cases  to  prevail,  that  will,  to  be  rightful, 
must  be  reasonable,  that  is,  the  minority  must  still  hold  their  equal 
rights  ;  a  well-disciplined  militia,  our  best  reliance  in  peace,  and  for  the 
first  moments  in  war,  till  regulars  may  relieve  them;  the  supremacy  of 
the  civil  over  the  military  authority;  economy  in  the  public  expense, 
that  labor  may  be  lightly  burdened  ;  the  honest  payment  of  our  debts, 
and  sacred  preservation  of  the  public  faith  ;  encouragement  of  agricul- 
ture, and  of  commerce  as  its  handmaid  ;  the  diffusion  of  information, 
and  arraignment  of  all  abuses  at  the  bar  of  the  public  reason;  freedom 
of  religion  ;  freedom  of  the  press ;  and  freedom  of  the  person,  under 
the  protection  of  the  HABEAS  CORPUS;  and  trial  by  juries  impartially 
selected" 

At  the  close  of  the  last,  and  the  opening  of  the  present  century, 
the  clergy  in  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut  were  virtually  settled 
for  life,  and  naturally  took  on  themselves  some  of  the  functions  of 
an  aristocracy,  and  roused  themselves  in  some  opposition  to  a  claim, 
—  then  indeed  but  timidly  urged,  but  long  ago  everywhere  triumph- 
ant,—  namely,  a  change  that  should  leave  the  appointment  and 
maintenance  of  the  ministers  to  the  direct  order  of  the  congregations. 
To  remove  Jonathan  Edwards  from  his  church  in  Northampton  in 
1750,  contrary  to  the  views  of  the  hierarchy  that  had  ordained  him 
there  in  1727,  caused  a  tremendous  upheaval  of  the  central  valley  of 
the  Connecticut  Eiver.  A  very  large  majority  of  the  ministers  and 
lawyers  of  New  England  naturally  allied  themselves  with  the 
Federalist  party  ;  indeed,  they  became  and  continued  the  leaders  of 
it.  On  the  other  hand,  the  opposers  of  the  system  which  maintained 
the  ministers  in  a  position  of  public  privilege,  —  a  system  clearly  in 
opposition  to  the  general  drift  of  Democratic  institutions,  —  naturally 
allied  themselves  with  the  followers  of  Jefferson,  that  is,  with  the 


230  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

Kepublican  party.  In  its  wide  and  influential  ramifications  along 
the  Connecticut  and  to  the  west  of  it,  the  Williams  family  had  come  to 
be  opposed  to  the  hierarchical  view  in  the  churches,  and  considerably 
to  the  political  views  of  the  Federalists.  But  it  was  more  especially 
the  young  men,  the  young  farmers  and  artisans  and  doctors,  who 
became  the  strength  of  the  Democratic  party  in  western  Massa- 
chusetts and  who  imbibed  from  the  wholesome  writings  of  Jefferson 
(more  wholesome  by  much  than  his  suspicious  intrigues),  those 
doctrines  of  the  equality  of  privilege  before  the  law  of  all  classes  of 
men,  which  have  given  the  prevailing  political  and  ecclesiastical  tone 
to  New  England.  Generalizations  are  not  easy  here;  sharp  lines 
cannot  be  confidently  drawn ;  the  New  England  clergy  were  slandered 
beyond,  as  well  as  truthfully  exhibited  within,  their  aristocratical 
tendencies;  while  Jefferson  was  caricatured  in  New  England  to 
ridiculous  extremes,  religiously  and  politically  and  socially,  as  well 
as  at  the  same  time  held  up  by  others  to  admiration  as  a  scientist, 
a  political  economist,  and  a  philosophical  statesman. 

When  Ebenezer  Fitch  came  to  Williamstown  to  open  his  School, 
the  French  Revolution  had  been  for  two  years  in  full  career,  all 
the  more  imperfectly  understood  on  this  side  the  water  because  it 
came  largely  in  direct  consequence  of  the  American  Revolution  and 
its  influences  of  the  decade  preceding.  The  political  lines  were  not 
very  quickly  and  never  very  sharply  drawn  as  between  the  trustees 
of  the  School  and  the  College  in  their  relations  with  each  other  and 
with  the  town  as  such.  But  the  lines  were  there,  hazy  and  shifting 
perhaps,  from  the  very  beginning.  Fitch  was  a  Federalist  in  every 
fibre  of  the  man.  So  was  Swift,  the  pastor  of  the  village  church. 
So  particularly  and  emphatically  was  Theodore  Sedgwick  of  Sheffield. 
On  the  other  hand,  T.  J.  Skinner  of  Williamstown,  a  young  mechanic 
and  Freemason,  gifted  beyond  his  peers  with  the  powers  of  effective 
speech,  was  the  most  pronounced  and  consequently  promoted  Demo- 
crat in  the  county  of  Berkshire.  With  him  stood,  particularly  in 
all  the  religious  aspects  of  the  division,  William  Williams  of  Dal  ton 
and  Elijah  Williams  of  Stockbridge.  Rather  with  Fitch  and  Sedg- 
wick, than  with  Skinner  and  Williams,  would  naturally  have  gone 
Collins  of  Lanesboro,  and  Swift  of  Bennington,  and  Robbins  of 
Norfolk,  while  Bacon  of  Stockbridge,  Little  of  Pittsfield,  and  Noble 
of  Williamstown,  more  perhaps  as  laymen  than  otherwise,  would 
have  swerved  against  the  ministers. 

The  political  strifes  in  the  town  waxed  extremely  warm,  and 
proved  themselves  uncommonly  persistent,  and  issued  with  only 
occasional  intermissions  in  favor  of  the  Democratic  party.  Skinner 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       231 

was  a  natural  leader  of  the  masses  of  men,  and  specifically  a  leader 
of  men  working  their  way  out  from  under  what  they  thought  and 
what  really  was  a  sort  of  priestly  domination.  His  personal  rise  in 
politics  was  phenomenal,  and  has  never  yet  been  repeated  in  Massa- 
chusetts. It  is  never  likely  to  be.  One  might  almost  say,  it  is 
impossible  that  it  ever  should  be.  Several  of  the  young  farmers  and 
artisans  and  professionals  here,  who  served  with  him  as  subaltern 
officers  in  the  Revolution,  took  substantially  the  same  political  views 
with  Skinner,  and  both  helped  him  forward  and  found  occasion 
thereby  to  raise  themselves.  Samuel  Kellogg  and  Absalom  Blair 
and  William  Towner  may  stand  as  representative  of  scores  of  these 
intelligent  and  pushing  young  Democrats.  The  author  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  had  become  a  favorite  writer  and  an 
acknowledged  guide  in  statesmanship  to  considerable  classes  of  men 
in  New  England,  who  of  course  know  nothing  about  his  feminine 
and  culpable  and  contemptible  operations  in  partisanship.  President 
Fitch  and  Pastor  Swift  and  Judge  Sedgwick  looked  with  extreme 
disfavor  upon  the  political  opinions  and  combinations  and  official 
elevations  of  these  men.  It  was  not  then  so  well  understood  as  it  is 
now,  and  it  is  not  now  so  well  known  as  it  ought  to  be,  that  natural 
temperament  and  historical  training  and  local  tendencies  have  so 
much  to  do  with  political  predilections  and  persistences.  President 
Fitch  and  his  Federalist  neighbors  did  not  know  how  to  meet  these 
young  men  with  proper  concessions  and  conservative  arguments. 
They  did  not  themselves  fully  understand  (classes  privileged  under 
the  law  rarely  do  understand)  the  grievances  complained  of  under 
the  plea  of  God-given  equalities.  It  was  much  easier  and  more 
self-righteous  for  them  to  dilate  on  the  excesses  of  the  French 
Revolution,  on  the  fact  that  Jefferson  had  been  much  French- 
domiciled  and  largely  French-educated,  and  on  these  devilish 
falsehoods  then  busily  circulated  in  New  England  that  he  was 
himself  an  infidel  in  respect  to  Christianity  and  a  wanton  in  prac- 
tical morals. 

There  is  a  curious  and  yet  credible  statement  that  has  come  down 
to  posterity  through  Giles  B.  Kellogg,  a  graduate  of  the  College  in 
1829,  as  to  what  occurred  at  dinner  at  the  table  of  President  Fitch 
on  the  day  that  Thomas  Jefferson  was  first  inaugurated  President  of 
the  United  States.  That  day  was  March  4,  1801.  Dr.  Fitch's 
house  was  of  course  the  social  centre  in  Williamstown  ever  after 
his  marriage  in  May,  1792,  with  Mrs.  Cogswell.  David  Noble  gave 
the  College  an  acre  of  land  fronting  on  the  Main  Street  where  Hop- 
kins Hall  now  stands  for  the  president's  house,  and  it  was  soon 


232  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

erected  by  the  College  for  the  use  of  Fitch  and  his  successors,  and 
is  still  standing  on  another  part  of  the  same  acre,  and  is  constantly 
occupied  by  a  professor  as  a  tenant  of  the  College.  President  Fitch 
was  hospitable,  and  entertained  beyond  his  pecuniary  means.  On 
the  day  in  question  he  had  two  or  three  gentlemen  as  guests,  each 
of  whom  was  a  Federalist,  one  or  two  of  these  college  teachers,  and 
a  chance  guest  also  in  the  person  of  Isabella  Blair,  afterward  the 
second  wife  of  Samuel  Kellogg,  2d.  The  Blairs  were  Scotch-Irish 
people,  as  a  rule  quicker  in  their  wits  than  their  average  neighbors, 
and  more  likely  than  they  to  be  readers  of  books.  The  Blairs  here 
intermarried  with  the  Bacons  and  also  with  the  Kelloggs.  All  three 
families  were  Republicans  so-called,  and  all  were  able  on  occasion  to 
hold  their  own  in  argument  or  retort  with  Federalists,  a  part  of 
whose  outfit  was  a  sense  of  superiority  in  some  ways  over  their 
political  opponents.  Mrs.  Fitch  and  Isabella  Blair  were  the  only 
ladies  at  the  table.  The  latter  was  no  common  woman.  She  had 
the  faculty  of  conversation  and  anecdote ;  and  used  to  keep  a  sort 
of  record  or  diary  of  talks  heard  or  had  with  President  Fitch  or 
other  notable  persons.  This  record  was  burned  with  the  Kellogg 
law  office  in  Troy  in  1883 ;  but  Mr.  Kellogg  remembers  hearing  her 
describe  orally  what  occurred  at  this  dinner  in  1801.  The  gentle- 
men deemed  it  proper  to  retail  to  each  other  in  the  presence  of  the 
two  ladies  some  of  the  vile  and  foul  scandals  and  slanders  of  the 
late  campaign,  as  these  had  been  made  current  in  New  England,  in 
relation  to  the  private  life  of  Jefferson,  for  political  ends.  Isabella 
Blair  was  better  informed,  as  well  as  more  pure-minded.  She  stood 
the  talk  as  long  as  she  could  in  silence,  and  then,  fixing  sharp  eyes 
upon  them,  said,  "  You  may  be  good  scholars,  but  you  are  no  gentle- 
men /•"  This  story  exhibits  some  of  the  limitations  of  Ebenezer 
Fitch  as  a  public  man  and  as  a  private  host.  He  was  not  broadly 
intelligent  enough  to  understand  the  bearings  of  the  great  questions 
on  which  parties  were  divided  at  first  during  the  last  decade  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  on  which  or  some  of  which  they  have  remained 
substantially  divided  for  one  hundred  years  (only  acting  under  differ- 
ent names  which  are  always  superficial  under  such  circumstances), 
and  on  which  also  they  are  divided  in  some  substantial  part  now  as 
the  nineteenth  century  is  going  out.  To  suppose,  as  Fitch  did,  that 
more  than  one-half  of  the  citizens  of  the  United  States,  including 
more  than  one-half  of  the  citizens  of  Williamstown,  were  impelled 
by  unworthy  motives  and  had  insufficient  grounds  for  political  action 
in  the  memorable  campaign  of  1800,  was  to  make  plain  his  own 
incapacity  to  penetrate  the  real  drift  of  public  men  and  measures  in 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMT-CENTENNIAL.       233 

that  important  interval  of  time  between  Independence  and  the  second 
war  with  Great  Britain.  As  always  happens  under  such  circum- 
stances, the  truth  lay  between  the  great  political  leaders.  Both  par- 
ties were  largely  right,  and  partly  wrong ;  otherwise  there  could  not 
have  arisen,  and  been  long  maintained,  two  great  popular  parties. 

This  dinner  incident  of  1801  makes  it  plain  also,  what  was  abun- 
dantly proven  otherwise,  that  Fitch  was  too  reserved  and  diffident  a 
man  to  make  a  good  host,  or  even  to  guide  in  a  dominant  way  the 
conversation  at  his  own  table  so  as  to  protect  the  ladies  of  his  family 
from  unpleasant  and  indecent  remarks  and  sallies.  One  who  knew 
him  well  wrote  of  him,  "His  appearance  and  deportment  were 
always  gentlemanly  and  dignified ;  though  sometimes,  through  his 
great  modesty,  not  marked  with  perfect  ease  and  elegance."  An- 
other, a  graduate  of  the  College  in  1802,  and  some  time  a  boarder  in 
his  family,  wrote,  "  Perhaps  the  most  prominent  qualities  of  his 
heart  and  disposition  were  purity  and  benevolence.  As  a  natural 
consequence  of  the  purity  of  his  own  intentions,  he  was  very  seldom 
suspicious  of  others ;  and  his  benevolent  feelings  were  awakened 
whenever  an  object  was  presented  adapted  to  their  excitement ;  and 
his  benevolence,  when  carried  out  in  acts  of  kindness  and  charity, 
was  limited  only  by  the  extent  of  his  ability.  As  a  scholar,  his 
literary  acquirements  were  highly  respectable.  His  official  duties  in 
connection  with  the  College,  and  the  many  cares  necessarily  incident 
to  the  management  of  a  numerous  and  dependent  family,  did  not 
leave  him  sufficient  leisure  for  extensive  scientific  investigations, 
or  for  becoming  acquainted  with  the  whole  circle  of  general  litera- 
ture." 

The  first  Commencement  at  Williams  College  was  held  on  Sept. 
2,  1795,  in  the  old  meeting-house  on  the  "Square"  erected  in 
1768.  It  was  felt  that  the  place  was  unsuitable;  and  the  follow- 
ing letter  from  President  Fitch  to  Van  Schaack,  a  member  of  the 
corporation,  exhibits  a  local  device  in  order  to  avoid  the  necessity 
of  going  there.  Probably  Fitch  thought  that  Van  Schaack  would 
furnish  the  $50  required  for  the  temporary  building.  But  he  was 
not  that  sort  of  a  man,  although  he  was  a  rich  man.  Before  the 
next  Commencement  there  was  a  stronger  and  more  varied  opposi- 
tion to  going  into  the  old  meeting-house.  Young  Bobbins,  who  was 
to  speak,  entered  this  and  much  more  like  it  in  his  journal:  "A 
scandal  to  have  Commencement  in  such  an  old  meeting-house."  This 
letter  of  the  president,  for  a  copy  of  which  these  pages  and  their 
writer  are  gratefully  indebted  to  Fisher  Howe,  also  exhibits  the 
intense  federalism  of  certain  members  of  the  corporation. 


234  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

WILLIAMSTOWN,  August  18,  1795. 

Dear  Sir, I  have  only  time  to  thank  you  for  your  last  letters  and  the  papers 

that  accompanied  them.  The  Defence  of  the  Treaty,  so  far  must  give  satisfac- 
tion to  every  candid  mind,  but  the  Democrats  are  many  of  them  incapable  of 

conviction Nothing  will  satisfy  them.    The  Charge  is  excellent.     I  return  all 

the  papers.  We  have  Mr.  Webster's  Paper  every  week  from  New  York.  The 
plan  of  accommodation  for  Commencement,  which  we  talk  of,  is  a  slight  building 
covered  with  boards,  in  the  easiest  and  cheapest  manner,  of  80  or  90  feet  in 
length  and  proportionally  wide,  with  seats  of  boards,  a  stage  &c.  We  have  not 
chosen  the  place  to  erect  it.  I  expect  it  will  cost  the  Corporation  at  least  50 
Dollars  :  but  the  expense  appears  to  me  unavoidable. 

Mrs.  Fitch  joins  me  in  respects  to  yourself  and  Lady. 
I  am,  Dear  Sir, 

Your  cordial  friend 

&  obliged,  humble  serv*. 

HENRY  VAN  SCHAACK,  Esq.  EBENB  FITCH. 

A  true  copy. — FISHER  HOWE,  JR.,  Boston,  May  25,  1892. 

Four  young  men  then  became  Bachelors  of  Arts.  All  four  were 
from  the  county  of  Berkshire,  illustrating  the  strictly  local  origins 
of  the  College.  Two  of  the  four  became  lawyers,  and  the  other  two 
physicians.  One  of  the  four,  Chauncy  Lusk,  was  chosen  a  tutor  in 
the  College  in  the  fall  of  1796,  and  had  the  sole  instruction  of  the 
Sophomore  class  during  the  first  term,  teaching  them  in  Horace,  in 
Guthrie's  Geography,  and  in  Pike's  Arithmetic.  He  died  (a  lawyer) 
of  consumption  in  Lanesboro  in  the  year  1803.  The  next  Commence- 
ment witnessed  the  graduation  of  six  Bachelors  of  Arts.  One  of 
these  was  a  Williamstown  boy  born  and  bred,  Daniel  Noble,  son  of 
David  Noble  of  the  original  Board  of  Trustees,  and  he  himself  was 
the  first  alumnus  of  the  College  to  become  a  trustee.  He  was  born 
the  third  day  after  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  was  a  trustee 
from  1809  till  1830,  and  treasurer  of  the  College  from  1814  till 
his  death  in  1830.  In  the  deepest  exigency  through  which  the 
College  passed  in  the  first  century  of  its  existence,  he  rendered  per- 
haps the  most  vital  service  that  has  ever  yet  been  rendered  by  a 
single  individual,  —  a  service  that  will  be  depicted  at  some  length 
farther  on.  Another  of  the  six  graduates  of  1796  somewhat  dis- 
tinguished in  his  long  day  and  generation,  to  whom  the  College  at 
any  rate  is  under  large  and  varied  obligation,  was  Thomas  Bobbins. 
He  was  just  thirteen  months  younger  than  Daniel  Noble,  and  had 
the  advantage  of  being  trained  till  his  senior  year  in  Yale  College, 
of  which  his  father  was  an  alumnus  in  1760,  and  later  a  trustee. 
The  father  became  a  trustee  at  Williams  also  in  1794,  and  was 
pleased  with  the  distinction  conferred.  As  a  sort  of  recognition  of 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       235 

this,  and  as  he  was  a  pastor  in  Norfolk,  just  halfway  between  New 
Haven  and  Williamstown,  he  made  arrangements  for  his  son  Thomas 
to  spend  the  bulk  of  his  senior  year  under  instruction  here,  and  to 
take  his  degree  here  with  the  class  of  1796,  and  the  next  week  to 
take  the  corresponding  degree  with  his  old  class  at  New  Haven. 
This  all  happened  according  to  plan.  Bobbins  himself  became  a 
trustee  here  in  1844  and  continued  till  1853,  and  died  in  1856  aged 
79  years. 

The  chief  of  several  features  that  will  always  make  Thomas 
Eobbins  an  attractive  figure  to  those  interested  in  Williamstown 
and  Williams  College,  is  the  diary  he  began  Jan.  1,  1796,  and 
continued  without  the  intermission  of  a  day  till  Sept.  9,  when 
he  left  Williamstown  for  New  Haven.  These  entries  throw  a  clear 
light  upon  the  general  state  of  things  both  in  College  and  town  for 
nearly  nine  months  at  a  time  when  other  sources  of  information  are 
quite  deficient.  The  diary  thus  commenced  was  kept  up  with  very 
slight  interruptions  by  reason  of  sickness,  for  fifty-eight  years.  It 
was  printed  in  full  at  the  expense  of  his  nephew,  Bobbins  Battell, 
in  1886,  edited  in  two  very  large  and  elegant  volumes  by  Increase 
N.  Tarbox,  and  is  a  priceless  thesaurus  of  almost  endless  details 
useful  to  the  curious,  and  particularly  the  religious  antiquarians. 
Dr.  Bobbins  continued  to  wear  the  old  "  Continental "  and  clerical 
costume,  —  the  knee-breeches  and  shoe-buckles,  —  so  long  as  he 
lived.  He  was  an  object  at  once  of  curiosity  and  veneration  when- 
ever he  came  to  Williamstown  in  his  old  age  as  one  of  the  trustees. 
The  last  time  he  came  was  in  1852,  when  the  present  writer  was 
graduated.  "  16.  Took  the  cars  and  went  on  to  Springfield,  to  Litch- 
field,  to  Adams,  and  dined.  Met  friends  and  rode  to  Williamstoicn. 
Find  many  acquaintance.  TJie  corporation  mostly  present.  17.  Quite 
unwell.  Had  a  poor  night.  Well  accommodated.  The  corporation  had 
a  good  deal  of  business.  The  college  increases.  I  have  never  seen  its 
prospects  as  favorable.  18.  I  am  too  umvell  to  attend  the  Commence- 
ment exercises.  Rode  to  Adams  and  took  the  cars  and  came  to  Pitts- 
field,  Springfield,  and  home  about  middle  of  the  afternoon."  When  the 
Semi-centennial  of  the  College  was  kept  in  August,  1843,  Dr.  Bobbins 
delivered  one  of  the  two  formal  addresses  before  the  Society  of 
Alumni,  Dr.  Mark  Hopkins  delivering  the  other.  These  addresses 
were  reprinted  by  the  College  in  full  for  the  Centennial  in  1893, 
under  the  editorship  of  Professor  L.  W.  Spring,  in  a  handsome 
pamphlet.  Dr.  Bobbins  made  the  following  entries  in  relation 
to  his  experiences  at  the  Semi-centennial.  "15.  In  the  morning 
rainy.  Took  cars  and  rode  to  Pittsfield.  Dined  at  Springfield.  Got 


236  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

acquainted  with  Bishop  Onderdonk.  TJie  scenery  and  the  work  of  the 
railroad  between  Westfield  and  Pittsfield  are  astonishing.  Took  a 
stage  and  rode  to  Williamstown.  Very  kindly  entertained  at  Pres. 
Hopkins' 's.  Had  a  pleasant  day.  16.  Attended  an  interesting  meeting 
of  the  alumni.  I  am  the  senior  president.  Attended  the  public  services. 
The  president  delivered  a  very  good  address  respecting  the  college.  I 
delivered  mine.  Too  long  —  an  hour  and  forty-Jive  minutes  —  but 
kindly  heard.  The  alumni  had  a  long  public  dinner.  A  very  numerous 
and  highly  respectable  collection.  Gov.  [Marcus]  Morton  is  present. 
At  evening  attended  speaking  of  undergraduates.  Brothers  James  and 
Francis  [each  of  them  an  alumnus]  arrived  in  the  evening.  Not 
greatly  fatigued.  17.  Met  with  the  corporation.  We  voted  two  divinity 
doctorates.  Attended  the  Commencement  exercises;  good,  but  want  of 
variety.  It  is  said*  that  there  has  never  been  so  great  a  collection  of 
people  on  a  like  occasion.  See  many  a  former  acquaintance.  Feel  a 
want  of  rest.  The  alumni  voted  to  publish  the  president's  address  and 
mine.  Left  Williamstown  towards  evening.  Tarried  at  a  private 
house  in  Hancock." 

On  the  17th  of  June  previous  to  the  first  Commencement,  President 
Fitch  had  been  ordained  in  Williamstown  to,  the  gospel  ministry, 
having  been  licensed  to  preach  while  a  tutor  at  Yale  in  May,  1787. 
The  ordination  was  performed  by  the  Berkshire  Association  of 
ministers ;  Judson  of  Sheffield,  with  whom  he  had  studied  divinity 
previous  to  his  license,  preached  the  ordination  sermon;  West  of 
Stockbridge,  whose  relations  to  the  College  were  to  become  extremely 
intimate  and  influential,  gave  the  usual  charge ;  and  Swift  of  Wil- 
liamstown offered  the  right  hand  of  fellowship,  in  the  course  of 
which  he  remarked,  "We  rejoice  at  your  readiness  to  engage  in 
the  great  work  of  the  gospel  ministry,  and  to  make  preaching 
your  business  at  College  and  other  places,  so  far  as  your  study  and 
business  at  College  will  permit."  Harvard  College  bestowed  on  him 
in  September,  1800,  the  honorary  degree  of  Doctor  in  Divinity.  But 
it  proved  that  he  had  neither  the  natural  aptitudes  for  a  good 
preacher,  nor  the  leisure  in  the  midst  of  all  his  college  and  family 
cares  for  the  study  and  other  pains  needful  to  write  and  deliver 
impressive  sermons.  He  seems  to  have  understood  all  this  himself. 
A  copy  of  his  baccalaureate  sermon  of  1799  was  "  reluctantly  fur- 
nished to  the  press  "  at  the  request  of  the  graduating  class.  The 
subject  of  this  discourse  was  "  Useful  Knowledge  and  Religion  rec- 
ommended to  the  Pursuit  and  Improvement  of  the  Young."  The 
poet  Bryant,  who  was  a  member  of  College  in  1811,  wrote  of  the 
then  president  in  1859:  "He  often  preached  to  us  on  Sundays, 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       237 

but  Ms  style  of  sermonizing  was  not  such  as  to  compel  our  attention. 
We  listened  with  more  interest  to  Professor  Chester  Dewey,  then  in 
his  early  manhood,  the  teacher  of  the  Junior  class,  who  was  the 
most  popular  of  those  who  were  called  the  Faculty  of  the  College." 
Besides  the  baccalaureate  just  mentioned,  a  funeral  sermon  preached 
at  Bennington  under  extraordinary  circumstances  (to  which  reference 
will  be  had  hereafter),  and  a  missionary  sermon  preached  at  Hudson 
in  1814,  were  all  of  his  discourses  printed  in  his  lifetime  and  with 
his  consent.  Calvin  Durfee,  Williams  College,  1825,  in  a  useful 
sketch  of  the  life  of  President  Fitch,  published  in  1865,  printed 
entire  for  the  first  time  the  farewell  discourse  to  his  people  in  West 
Bloomfield  preached  by  their  aged  pastor  in  November,  1827. 

The  first  president  of  the  College  took  hold  of  his  duties  as  such 
with  conscientious  fidelity  and  with  a  good  degree  of  skill  and 
success.  Practically  he  assumed  the  sole  instruction  of  the  Senior 
class.  He  taught  Locke  as  his  text-book  in  Mental  Science,  Paley 
in  Moral  Philosophy,  and  Vattel  on  the  Law  of  Nations.  The 
extant  testimony  of  his  pupils  is  uniform  to  the  effect,  that  he  had 
a  fair  mastery  of  these  great  subjects,  that  he  was  possessed  of 
a  good  fund  of  historical  illustration  and  relevant  anecdote,  and 
that  his  manners  as  a  teacher  were  dignified  and  yet  communica- 
tive and  conciliatory.  Something  about  the  College,  at  any  rate, 
and  it  must  have  been  chiefly  about  the  president  himself,  proved 
decidedly  attractive  to  students.  A  catalogue  of  the  College,  the 
first  ever  issued  in  this  country,  was  printed  in  the  fall  of  1795,  and 
held  the  names  of  seventy-five  students.  The  following  note  was 
appended,  "  Besides  the  above  members  of  College,  there  are  about 
forty  students  in  the  Academy  connected  with  the  College."  The 
names  of  the  faculty  were  not  printed  at  first  in  connection  with  the 
names  of  the  students  on  the  small  single  sheet,  which  continued  the 
style  for  some  years.  Yale  issued  a  similar  sheet  the  year  following, 
that  is,  1796.  This  is  recorded  on  the  explicit  testimony  of  Thomas 
Bobbins,  who  was  graduated  at  both  the  colleges  the  last-named 
year.  In  1799,  a  catalogue  of  the  graduates  of  this  College  was 
published  containing  the  names  of  the  faculty,  and  this  custom  has 
been  continued  triennially  ever  since.  The  tutors  of  the  College 
gave  all  the  instruction  to  the  members  of  the  academy  also, 
academy  recruited  the  College,  so  long  as  the  former  continued,  but 
of  course  it  made  perplexities,  as  all  the  operations  of  both  went 
forward  within  a  single  building. 

Two  letters  of  President  Fitch  to  Isaac  Beers  of  New  Haven, 
evidently  a  bookseller  there,  are  herewith  given  entire,  because  they 


238  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

cast  a  clear  and  contemporary  light  upon,  (1)  the  nature  of  some  of 
the  practical  difficulties  encountered  by  him  in  organizing  and  admin- 
istering the  young  college,  particularly  as  to  books  and  apparatus ; 
(2)  his  own  qualities  and  deficiencies  in  relation  to  pecuniary 
matters,  which  caused  him  and  others  troubles  and  losses,  from 
the  time  of  his  youthful  mercantile  venture  with  Daggett  of  New 
Haven  till  his  death  in  debt  in  1833 ;  (3)  his  personal  devotion  to 
the  political  party  of  the  Federalists,  and  his  implied  prejudices 
against  the  opposing  party  called  Republicans,  or  by  their  adversa- 
ries Democrats,  of  which  last  a  large  majority  of  the  people  of 
Williamstown  were  composed.  General  Skinner,  the  most  active 
and  prominent  member  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  as  such,  a  Republi- 
can, was  elected  a  member  of  Congress  from  the  Berkshire  district 
in  1796,  receiving  a  great  majority  of  the  votes  of  the  people  of 
Williamstown,  aggregating  296  votes  for  Skinner  and  Sedgwick 
both.  Fitch  had,  of  course,  a  perfect  right  to  his  own  political 
opinions  and  action,  and  so,  fortunately,  had  Skinner  and  those 
who  went  with  him;  one  trouble  was  that  neither  party  properly 
respected  the  deliberate  conclusions  of  the  other :  but  it  was  not 
simply  a  difference  of  political  opinion;  the  more  radical  difficulty 
was  that  the  Federalists  wanted  and  were  bound  to  get,  if  possible, 
certain  political  privileges  for  themselves  at  the  cost  of  the  rest  of 
the  people,  and  contrary  to  the  sound  doctrine  of  equality  of  citizens 
under  the  law  —  equality,  that  is,  not  of  condition,  but  of  RIGHTS. 
In  the  struggle  on  this  point  the  Federalists  were  beaten  out  of 
sight  and  sound.  The  inauguration  of  Jefferson  as  President  of  the 
United  States  in  1801  marked  the  final  demise  of  our  first  national 
party  of  privilege. 

WILLIAMSTOWN  Jaitf   15th  1798. 

Dear  #*>,  —  Your  favor  of  Octr  7th,  with  the  Books  by  Mr.  Tutor  Deriison, 
came  safely  to  hand.  I  designed  to  remit  you  the  amount  by  him,  but  our 
treasury  is  empty.  Large  arrearages  are  due  to  it  from  College,  and  a  payment 
of  800  Dollars  due  last  June  for  a  township  of  land  which  we  sold,  is  positively 
promised  this  month.  About  150  Dollars  of  our  Library  Fund  which  our  Laws 
impowered  me  to  draw  from  the  treasury  last  September  is  not  yet  paid  me.  I 
am  considerably  in  advance  on  the  Library  account.  However  I  think  I  may 
depend  on  having  some  money  for  myself  and  you  in  three  or  four  weeks.  I 
shall  then  take  the  earliest  opportunity  to  send  you  by  a  private  hand  or  by  the 
Mail  the  balance  of  your  Ace1  and  also  payment  for  the  books  you  may  send  me 
by  Mr.  Denison  on  his  return. 

The  following  I  wish  to  have  : 

1  Dissertations  respecting  India 

2  Doddridge's  Lectures,  (8VO  if  you  have  them) 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       239 

1   Hunter's  Biographical  Lectures,  6  vol.  in  3 

1   Cavallo  on  Atmospheric  and  Animal  Electricity.     If  you  have  not  this  book, 
I  wish  you  to  import  it  for  me. 

Have  you  Henry's  History  of  England,  and  Bradshaw's  Josephus  in  8VO,  and 
at  what  price  ?  Please  to  inform  me,  and  also  the  statement  of  my  acct.  When 
Mr.  Day  made  you  the  last  payment,  you  had  not  leisure,  he  told  me,  to  state 
the  Ace1.  —  1  do  myself  the  pleasure  to  enclose  you  our  last  Catalogue.  As  we 
have  been  a  College  but  four  years  last  Septr,  you  will  see  that  we  have  had  a 
pretty  rapid  increase.  — Please  to  present  my  cordial  respects  to  Mrs.  Beers  and 
to  your  brothers  and  their  families.  I  retain  a  great  affection  for  many  friends 
in  New  Haven.  —  With  cordial  esteem  and  friendship,  I  am,  Dear  Sir, 

Your  very  humble  Serv* 

MR.  ISAAC  BEERS.  EBENB  FITCH. 

WILLIAMSTOWN  July  20th  1798. 

MR.  ISAAC  BEERS 

Dear  Sir,  — Your  two  favors  of  June  22d  from  New  Haven  and  June  29th  from 
New  York  came  duly  to  hand.  And  a  few  days  since  I  received  from  Troy  the 
Box  of  Books  in  good  order.  I  thank  you  for  the  Pamphlets  you  sent  me  as  a 
present.  They  are  very  acceptable. 

Till  this  afternoon,  I  knew  not  that  the  bearer,  Mr.  Aspenwall,  was  going  to 
New  Haven.  As  you  said  nothing  in  your  letters  about  my  sending  the  money 
till  Mr.  Denison  goes  to  New  Haven  about  six  weeks  hence,  I  had  calculated  to 
send  the  money  by  him.  I  know  our  Treasury  is  nearly  empty  at  present,  or  I 
should  apply  for  money  to  send  by  this  conveyance.  If  however  you  wish  for 
the  money  before  Mr.  Denison  goes,  and  will  please  to  inform  me,  I  will  send 
by  the  Stage,  if  no  other  conveyance  presents. — I  am  a  little  surprised  that 
Dr  Cogswell  had  not  sent  you  the  30  Dollars.  He  told  me  in  his  letter  that  he 
would  send  it  soon,  and  has  ever  before  been  punctual  in  answering  my  orders. 
I  shall  write  him  next  monday,  and  will  remind  him  of  it. 

I  find  there  is  to  be  a  Supplementary  Volume  to  the  Encyclopedia.  I  must 
have  it,  and  wish  you  to  get  it  for  me  when  it  comes  out.  I  know  not  on  what 
conditions  it  is  to  be  published. 

Your  celebration  of  Independence  was,  I  find,  very  splendid,  and  in  a  superior 
style.  We  had  two  Orations  and  two  separate  entertainments  here.  College 
was  wholly  with  the  Federal  Class  of  our  Citizens,  and  breathe  the  pure  spirit 
of  Independence  and  attachment  to  our  Government  and  our  Country. 

Mr.  Denison's  class  will  want  in  the  fall  as  many  of  Enfield's  Philosophy 
as  you  can  spare.  Do  reserve  all  you  can  for  them.  He  will  treat  with  you 
about  the  Books  in  vacation. 

Please  to  present  my  respects  to  your  family  and  to  inquiring  friends.  — I  am 

Your  obliged,  humble  Serv* 
EBENB  FITCH. 

Fitch's  letter  to  Van  Schaack  in  1795,  already  quoted  entire,  shows 
the  sense  of  the  College  as  the  first  Commencement  was  approaching 
in  that  year,  of  the  unfitness  of  the  old  meeting-house  of  the  Pro- 
prietors, built  by  them  in  1768  and  still  owned  and  controlled  by 


240  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

them,  for  the  exercises  of  the  Commencement  which  were  held  there, 
nevertheless,  because  there  was  no  other  possible  place.  As  the 
next  Commencement  approached,  the  old  dissatisfaction  renewed 
itself  in  vigorous  expression  on  the  part  of  the  class  who  were  to 
speak,  "  It  is  a  scandal,"  cried  Bobbins,  "  to  have  Commencement 
in  such  an  old  meeting-house."  Another  entry  in  his  diary  under 
the  loth  of  July,  —  "Great  disturbance  in  town  on  account  of  the 
meeting-house  being  set  on  fire  last  night : l  it  was  happily  extin- 
guished: various  conjectures  about  the  perpetrators."  When  the 
trustees  came  together  they  voted,  September  6,  "  to  hold  the  next 
Commencement  in  the  town  of  Pittsfield  or  Lanesboro  unless  a 
suitable  place  should  be  provided  in  William stown,"  and  appointed 
a  committee  to  carry  their  vote  into  effect.  But  nothing  was  then 
accomplished,  doubtless  owing  to  much  ill-feeling  then  prevalent  as 
between  town  and  college  on  political  and  other  grounds,  and  the 
Commencement  of  1797  also  was  held  in  the  small  and  dark  build- 
ing. The  new  meeting-house  erected  on  the  site  of  the  old  one  (this 
having  been  removed  a  short  distance)  was  so  far  advanced  toward 
completion  at  the  time  of  the  Commencement  .of  1798,  that  its  exer- 
cises were  held  within  it,  and  thereafter  uniformly  until  its  destruc- 
tion by  fire  in  1866. 

The  state  of  things  and  of  feelings  both  in  town  and  college 
directly  after  the  Commencement  of  1796,  afforded  President  Fitch 
an  opportunity  which  he  nobly  improved,  not  only  to  secure  a  larger 
and  better  and  much-needed  meeting-house  for  all  parties,  but  also 
by  personal  conversation  and  solicitation  with  everybody  to  bring 
about,  so  far  as  possible,  a  better  understanding  between  neighbors 
and  neighborhoods,  and  a  sense  of  a  community  of  interests  as 
between  all  classes.  He  wrote  out  with  his  own  hand  a  subscription- 
paper  for  a  new  edifice,  and  personally  circulated  it  from  house  to 
house  over  most  parts  of  the  town,  himself  entering  the  name  of 
each  individual  subscriber  and  the  sum  subscribed  in  his  own  hand. 
The  paper  is  dated  Sept.  26,  1796.  The  amount  thus  secured 
by  him  under  sixty-five  names  entered  in  his  handwriting  was 
£1143  12s.  Od  The  paper  was  afterward  circulated  by  another  in 
the  parts  of  the  town  more  distant  in  general  from  the  centre,  and 
£224  02s.  9d.  was  secured  from  twenty -four  additional  names,  mak- 
ing in  all  £1367  14s.  9d.  from  eighty-nine  persons.  This  sum 
amounted  in  dollars,  just  then  coming  into  vogue  for  the  first  time 
as  a  standard  of  value,  to  $  4525.79.  This  original  subscription  paper 

1  See  Origins  in  Williamstown,  p.  530,  for  the  final  conflagration  of  the  old  shell 
in  1828. 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       241 


is  the  property  of  the  present  writer,  and  now  lies  open  before  him 
on  his  desk.  He  believes  that  there  will  be  those  in  the  future  for  a 
long  time  to  come,  who  will  like  to  read  Fitch's  heading  to  this  im- 
portant document,  and  to  look  over  these  eighty-nine  names  and  the 
sums  respectively  which  they  felt  called  upon  to  give  for  a  new  and 
better  place  of  worship. 

We  whose  names  are  hereunto  subscribed  do  severally  promise  and  agree  to 
pay  unto  such  person  or  persons  as  a  majority  of  the  subscribers  shall  appoint  a 
committee  to  receive  the  same  the  several  sums  set  against  our  names  respec- 
tively, to  be  applied  to  the  purpose  of  erecting  a  House  of  public  Worship  on  the 
eminence  where  the  old  Meetinghouse  now  stands  in  Williamstown  ;  the  money 
so  subscribed  to  be  paid  at  such  time  or  times  and  the  house  to  be  built  of  such 
dimensions  and  upon  such  a  model  as  the  majority  of  the  subscribers  shall 
direct. 


September  26th, 

T.  J.  &  B.  Skinner 
William  Hamilton 
Eli  Cotton 
0.  Barrit 

Shubael  Wilmarth 
Samuel  Sloan 
R.  Sheldon 
Daniel  Day 
Elisha  Baker 
A.  Harrison 
C.  Sabin 
E.  Cotton,  Jr. 
Abram  Starks 
S.,  Kellogg 
j.  Day 

L.  &  E.  Smedley 
H.  Richardson 
E.  Mather 
Corporation 
Dan'l  Dewey 
Aaron  Foote 
Stephen  Patchen 
Barney  McMan 
Tim'y  Northam 
Dan'l  Foote 
Lemuel  Stewart 
Ebenezer  Stratton 
William  Young 
W.  Starkweather 
David  Johnson 
Isaac  Miller 
Samuel  Higgins 


£  s.  d. 
100-0-0 
25-0-0 
4-10-0 
20-0-0 

9-0-0 
60-0-0 
15-0-0 
40-0-0 
25-0-0 
12-0-0 
15-0-0 

3-0-0 
1-10-0 
25-0-0 
12-0-0 
50-0-0 

5-0-0 

15-0-0 

100-0-0 

15-0-0 

3-0-0 
1-10-0 
2-10-0 

9-0-0 

2-0-0 
75-0-0 
20-0-0 
20-0-0 
20-0-0 
20-0-0 
0-12-0 
15-0-0 


James  Greene 
William  Turner 
Asa  Russell 
Josiah  Wright  3d 
Stephen  Hickox 
N.  Chamberlain 
D.  &  Deo.  Noble 
Z.  Ford 

Josiah  Wright,  Jr. 
J.  &  H.  Meacham 
Wm.  Foster 
Wm.  Wells 
Wm.  Smith 
T.  Boardman 
Sam'l  Satterlee 
Ezekiel  Burk 
T.  &  D.  Smith 
Jacob  Bacon 
Chas.  Bulkley,  Jr. 
Rev.  Seth  Swift 
Jas.  Meacham 
Earth.  Woodcock 
Absalom  Blair 
Warren  Roberts 
John  Sweet 
Isaac  Sherwood 
Wm.  Sloan 
Dan'l  Burbank 
Joseph  Osborn 
John  Douning 
Amza  Smith 
Thomas  Bishop 


£  s.  d. 

3-0-0 

15-0-0 

10-0-0 

3-0-0 

10-0-0 

15-0-0 

80-0-0 

12-0-0 

5-0-0 

24-0-0 

15-0-0 

20-0-0 

9-0-0 

600 

300 

1  10  0 
12  0  0 
12  0  0 

900 

15  0  0 

600 

30  0  0 

12  0  0 

200 

600 

10  0  0 

300 

400 

7  10  0 

5  10  0 

2  10  9 
12  0  0 


242 


WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 


£  s.  d. 

Tiin'y  Balch  9-0-0 

Perly  Putnam  20-0-0 

Jos'h  Balch  8-0-0 

Jona.  Danforth  22-0-0 

Stephen  Scott  5-0-0 

Pardon  Starks  1-10-0 

Benj'n  Simonds  6-0-0 

Elijah  Thomas  8-0-0 

Sol oman  Woolcot  7-0-0 

Elisha  Williams  15-0-0 

Nathaniel  Kellogg  10-0-0 

Nathan  Smith  6-0-0 
Amount,  £1,367  14  9. 


£  s.  d, 

Jedidiah  Stone  140 

Jeremiah  Smith  140 

Jos'h  Talmage  &  Son  20  0  0 

Constant  Williams  10  0  0 

Sam'l  Tyler  15  0  0 

Reuben  Sealey  10  0  0 

Jonathan  Bridges  15  0  0 

Lewis  Tousant  140 

Jas.  Fowler  10  0  0 

Abial  Hawkins  10  0  0 

Nehemiah  Woodcock  10  0  0 

Joel  Baldwin  20  0  0 


In  addition  to  these  eighty-nine  names,  there  are  two  others  written 
on  the  margin  of  this  venerable  paper,  Solomon  Wright  and  William 
Young,  both  of  them  well-known  citizens  at  the  time,  who  seem  to 
have  subscribed  in  materials  or  personal  services;  but  the  words 
cannot  now  be  fully  made  out  a  hundred  years  after  they  were 
written.  Doubtless  there  were  some  further  subscriptions  made 
afterward  and  by  other  persons  resident  in  the  town,  for  the  $4526 
would  hardly  have  been  sufficient  to  erect  and  complete  so  large  and 
good  a  building.  The  extraordinarily  interesting  national  house-tax 
assessed  in  Williamstown  while  this  meeting-house  was  in  process  of 
construction,  gives  the  names  of  only  107  householders  occupying 
homesteads  worth  $100  and  upward.  Some  of  these  were  farm- 
tenants.  It  would  seem,  accordingly,  that  nearly  all  the  house- 
owners  in  town  subscribed  something  toward  the  erection  of  this 
House  of  God.  There  were  certainly  some  exceptions  ;  and  one  of 
these  is  curiously  connected  with  the  meeting-house  in  another 
very  different  way.  William  Bissell  Sherman  was  born  in  North 
Kingston,  Rhode  Island,  Oct.  13,  1759,  the  very  day  that  the  news  of 
General  Wolfe's  great  victory  over  the  French  at  Quebec,  September 
13,  reached  the  place  of  his  nativity.  In  other  words,  it  then  took  a 
whole  month  for  a  great  piece  of  news  to  travel  from  Quebec  to 
Providence.  The  boy  grew  up  in  extreme  poverty,  and  without 
schooling  of  any  kind.  Before  the  time  of  his  majority  he  found 
his  way  to  Pownal,  and  worked  for  hire  seven  days  in  the  week  on 
the  farm  of  "  Tory  Gardner  "  there,  a  man  notoriously  underwitted, 
who  perhaps  for  that  reason,  in  part,  lived  to  be  104  years  old. 
When  Sherman  was  twenty-one,  that  is,  in  1780,  he  married  a  daugh- 
ter of  his  employer,  then  fifteen  years  of  age,  who  never  learned  to 
read  or  write,  and  never  cared  for  anything  except  to  gain  arid  keep 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       243 

the  things  of  this  world.  He  was  naturally  somewhat  brighter,  and 
would  have  been  less  acquisitive  than  she,  had  he  married  a  decently 
intelligent  woman.  He  had  had  no  more  instruction  than  she,  but 
he  came  to  be  able  to  keep  accounts  in  some  hidden  way,  so  that  they 
were  never  questioned  by  others,  and  he  was  never  cheated  himself. 
As  prospectively  affording  a  better  place  to  make,  money  than  Pow- 
nal,  the  pair,  upon  marriage,  came  immediately  to  Williamstown, 
and  extemporized  a  primitive  dwelling  in  the  woods  west  of  the 
village,  out  of  which  wilderness,  together  with  some  purchases  of 
adjoining  lands  from  Stewart  and  Baldwin,  they  brought  under  in 
ten  years'  time  what  is  still  called  the  "  red-house  farm,"  and  which 
remained  in  the  Sherman  family  for  one  hundred  years.  All  days 
of  the  week  were  alike  in  that  family  ;  work  and  gain  were  the  only 
objects  in  life;  they  had  planted  an  orchard  as  soon  as  possible,  and 
the  woman  made  and  vended  dried  apples,  and  the  man  made  and 
vended  cider,  as  well  as  other  farm  products,  often  carrying  them  to 
Troy  in  exchange  for  groceries,  which  in  turn  he  came  to  vend  at 
home  ;  he  soon  came  to  be  able  to  buy  and  sell  lands  in  a  small  way 
uniformly  at  a  profit,  and  later  on  loaned  money  on  bond  and  mort- 
gage, always  promptly  foreclosing  on  default;  and  before  many 
years  had  passed,  both  came  to  think  that  they  could  carry  out  their 
ends  in  life  better  in  the  village  proper.  Accordingly,  they  settled 
for  good  in  the  east  end  of  the  village  on  original  House-lot  No.  57, 
much  of  which  their  descendants  own  and  derive  an  income  from  to 
this  day.  They  lived  for  a  time  in  the  original  "  regulation  house  " 
on  the  middle  of  that  lot ;  when  they  determined  to  build  a  large, 
two-story  house  there,  making  the  old  house  an  L  to  the  new  one. 
It  was  characteristic  of  Bis  sell  Sherman,  who  always  seized  the 
main  chance,  that,  while  the  new  meeting-house  was  in  process  of 
building  in  1797,1  and  the  carpenters  on  it  came  short  of  lumber  and 
had  to  stop  temporarily,  he  hired  them  all  off  in  a  body  to  work  on 
his  own  new  house.  Under  the  circumstances  he  got  them  cheaply. 
But  they  built  for  him  a  strong  front,  securely  tying  it  to  the  north 
end  of  the  one-story  house,  which  was  then  at  least  thirty  years  old, 
and  front  and  L  united  have  not  been  vacant  of  occupants  from  that 
day  to  this. 

The  new  front  held  four  large  square  rooms,  two  below  and  two 
above  ;  and  in  the  east  room  below,  the  owner  opened  a  grocery  store, 
which  then  meant  substantially  a  place  where  sugar  and  molasses 
and  tobacco  and  spirits  were  sold.  Sherman  himself  never  became 
a  drunkard,  though  he  took  his  "  bitters  "  regularly  three  times  a 
i  In  Origins  in  Williamstown,  p.  441,  the  year  is  wrongly  given  as  1796. 


244  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

day  before  eating ;  while  several  members  of  his  family  were  ruined 
by  drink,  and  one  of  them  certainly  died  in  delirium  tremens.  It 
hardly  needs  to  be  said,  that  Bissell  Sherman  had  none  of  the 
natural  qualities  of  a  good  merchant.  He  gave  up  the  store  after  a 
while,  and  rented  that  room  to  other  parties,  and  sometimes  rented 
the  room  above  it  for  a  school  for  "  down  street,"  since  the  regular 
public  schoolhouse  stood  on  the  "  Square,"  and  it  was  too  far  for 
the  Green  River  children  to  go  to  that  in  all  seasons.  The  late 
James  Smedley,  born  in  1804,  often  told  the  writer,  that  he  attended 
a  district  school  in  that  room  in  his  childhood.  He  was  also  heard 
to  say,  that  he  saw  as  a  guest  the  marriage  of  Sarah  Sherman  to 


GENERAL   SLOAN'S     HOUSE. 
Built  in  1801. 


Samuel  Duncan  in  the  west  room  below.  Duncan  belonged  by 
descent  to  the  Scotch-Irish  people  of  central  Massachusetts,  was  a 
wheelwright  by  trade,  a  very  intelligent  and  ingenious  man,  but 
became  addicted  to  drink  to  his  utter  downfall.  Their  son,  the  late 
Dr.  Samuel  Duncan,  was  one  of  the  most  intellectually  gifted  boys 
ever  born  and  bred  in  this  town,  and  became  correspondingly  accom- 
plished in  the  medical  profession.  He  had,  however,  in  early  life 
the  roving  trait,  that  carried  him  to  sea  in  the  service  of  the  United 
States  Navy.  His  only  son,  at  about  the  same  age  and  under  cir- 
cumstances in  many  respects  similar,  but  with  much  less  in  the  way 
of  excuse,  manifested  the  same  trait  and  was  led  transiently  into 
gross  wrong-doing.  Bissell  Sherman  went  steadily  on  from  day  to 
day  and  year  to  year  in  his  real  estate  operations,  investing  and  re- 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       245 

investing  his  gains  as  they  came  in,  until  he  became  the  richest  man 
in  the  town.  He  continued  to  eat  from  a  wooden  trencher  so  long 
as  he  lived.  He  had  few  of  the  decencies  and  conveniences  of  life 
in  his  own  house,  when  he  came  into  possession,  by  foreclosure  of 
mortgage,  of  by  far  the  finest  house  in  the  town,  General  Sloan's 
house,  mortgaged  and  lost  by  his  son,  Major  Douglas  Sloan,  now 
belonging  to  the  College  and  occupied  by  successive  presidents.  He 
was  transiently  tempted  to  move  "  up  street,"  and  to  live  himself  in 
this  handsome  house  directly  opposite  to  the  West  College  ;  but  he 
became  very  shortly  sensible  of  the  incongruity  and  even  absurdity 
of  Mrs.  Sherman's  becoming  the  mistress  and  he  the  master  of  such 
a  residence. 

"  Old  Bissell  Sherman  "  was  not  generally  regarded  by  his  neigh- 
bors as  a  dishonest  man,  though  close-fisted  to  the  last  degree,  and 
though  lacking  in  moral  discriminations  and  all  high  ideals.  The 
late  Professor  John  Tatlock  once  heard  him  in  one  of  the  stores  re- 
tailing in  his  own  rough  way  the  old  lingo  about  everybody  having  his 
price,  and  nobody  being  strictly  honest,  and  so  on,  when  Tatlock,  in 
his  blunt  British  manner,  struck  in :  "  That  shows  that  you  are  not 
honest  yourself  ;  for  if  you  were,  you  ivould  know  that  there  is  at  least 
one  honest  man  in  the  world,  that  there  is  one  man  in  this  store  this 
minute  who  can't  be  bought  at  any  price  !  Your  talk  shows  you  up  as 
dishonest  anyhow!"  The  old  man  had  wit  enough  to  see  himself  for 
once  in  a  very  tight  place.  He  paid  the  homage  of  silence  to  a  piece 
of  unanswerable  logic.  Sherman  was  an  inflexible  Democrat  all  his 
life.  He  could  not,  probably,  have  given  any  rational  reasons  for 
his  becoming  and  remaining  so.  But  that  has  no  tendency  to  prove 
that  there  were  not  such  reasons  and  a  plenty  of  them.  He  left 
behind  him,  at  any  rate,  a  pleasant  memorial  of  his  political  faith. 
When  Andrew  Jackson  became  the  idol  of  the  Democratic  party, 
and  the  epithet  "  Old  Hickory  "  came  to  be  attached  to  his  name,  he 
planted  a  tree  of  that  denomination  in  his  front  yard,  which  shows 
as  yet  no  sign  of  decay.  He  died  in  1846  in  the  older  part  of  his 
own  house,  Mrs.  Sherman  having  preceded  him  three  years  before. 
She  was  seventy-nine,  and  he  eighty-seven. 

The  corporation  of  the  College  subscribed  £100  as  toward  the 
new  meeting-house  in  the  fall  of  1796.  Their  chief  motive,  of  course, 
was  to  secure,  as  soon  as  might  be,  a  suitable  place  for  the  public 
exercises  of  their  Commencements.  It  was  not  probably  then  ex- 
pected that  the  new  building  could  be  in  readiness  for  the  class  of 
1797  to  graduate  in ;  and  in  point  of  fact,  this  class  was  the  last  to 
hold  their  Commencement  in  the  small  and  dark  old  meeting-house  of 


246  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

1768.  This  class  was  the  third  to  be  graduated,  and  it  numbered 
ten  men.  Four  of  the  ten  were  Williamstown  boys.  Two  of  the 
ten  became  distinguished  men.  These  were  Asa  Burbank  and  Elijah 
H.  Mills.  The  former  was  a  son  of  Lt.  Daniel  Burbank,  one  of  the 
first  settlers  at  the  South  Park,  coming  from  what  is  now  Warren, 
and  buying  his  farm  here  in  1763.  Asa  was  born  in  1772.  He 
served  in  the  College  as  a  tutor  two  full  years  after  his  graduation, 
and  then  studied  medicine  with  Dr.  William  Towner,  a  distinguished 
practitioner  in  Williamstown.  He  then  attended  medical  lectures 
in  New  York,  and  settled  in  his  profession  at  Lanesboro,  and  there 
acquired  a  good  and  wide  reputation.  He  was  thrown  from  a  horse 
when  he  was  about  fifteen  years  old,  and  injured  his  head  in  a  way 
that  did  not  seem  at  first  to  aifect  his  mind,  although  it  ultimately 
did  so,  and  shortened  his  life.  He  told  the  physicians  in  Albany 
that  there  was  water  on  his  brain,  but  they  did  not  believe  it. 
He  said  he  could  hear  it ;  and  it  was  found  to  be  so  after  his  death. 
He  married  a  Hubbell  of  Lanesboro,  and  both  are  buried  in  the 
cemetery  there.  When  the  Society  of  Alumni  was  formed,  in  1821, 
the  first  organization  of  its  kind  in  this  country,  Asa  Burbank  was 
chosen  its  first  president.  A  year  or  two  later  the  Berkshire  Medi- 
cal Institution  was  established  in  Pittsfield,  and  placed  under  the 
care  and  supervision  of  the  College,  the  medical  degrees  being  con- 
ferred at  Commencement  by  the  president  in  connection  with  the 
academical  degrees,  and  Burbank  was  appointed  professor  of  Materia 
Medica  and  Obstetrics.  He  afterward  lectured  and  practised  in 
Albany  for  four  years,  but  returned  to  Williamstown  in  a  feeble 
state  of  health,  and  died  in  1829.  One  of  his  colleagues  at  Pittsfield, 
Dr.  Williams,  wrote  of  him :  "  I  was  intimately  acquainted  with 
him  in  this  institution  where  I  was  a  fellow-laborer  with  him  in  the 
department  of  medical  jurisprudence,  and  I  can  bear  ample  testi- 
mony to  his  worth  and  usefulness.  He  was  one  of  the  most  com- 
panionable and  facetious  of  men,  and  his  happy  turn  of  relating 
anecdotes,  of  which  an  abundance  was  stored  in  his  capacious  mind, 
often  kept  an  assemblage  of  his  friends  in  a  roar  of  laughter.  He 
had  a  most  happy  and  enviable  faculty  of  cheering  the  minds  of 
his  patients,  even  in  the  most  desponding  cases,  and  often  of  sooth- 
ing their  pillows  in  their  descent  to  the  grave.  No  one  can  doubt 
that  he  was  both  a  moral  and  a  highly  religious  man."  His  daughter 
wrote  of  him  :  "  My  father  was  tall,  six  feet,  and  well  proportioned, 
with  an  eye  that  seemed  to  read  character  at  once,  retiring  in  his 
manner,  but  could  indulge  in  severe  satire  when  he  thought  he  was 
not  honestly  dealt  with.  In  his  profession  his  love  for  doing  good 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       247 

seemed  to  be  the  governing  principle  of  his  life.  I  think  he  braved 
the  winter  storms  of  old  Berkshire  with  more  readiness  to  visit  the 
very  poor  than  those  who  had  ample  means  to  reward  him  for  so 
doing.  To  benefit  the  town  in  which  he  lived  he  was  willing  to  and 
did  make  great  sacrifices,  both  to  encourage  education  and  in  many 
other  ways  to  improve  society."  Burbank  was  a  great  talker,  and  a 
great  Federalist,  too.  When  the  neighboring  town  of  Cheshire  in  its 
naming  zeal  for  Jefferson  and  democracy  manufactured  its  huge  and 
famous  cheese  in  1801,  and  sent  Elder  John  Leland  with  it  to 
Washington  as  a  present  to  the  president,  Asa  Burbank  wrote  some 
satirical  and  witty  verses  on  the  cheese  and  the  journey  and  the 
presentation.  These  verses  became  very  popular  in  Federalist 
circles,  and  are  still  extant.  If  he  had  known  at  the  time,  what  has 
indeed  only  recently  come  to  light  from  the  publication  of  the  great 
president's  private-purse  book,  that  Leland  received  $200  clean  cash 
for  his  ostentatious  gift,  the  verses  would  doubtless  have  been  still 
more  stinging. 

Dr.  Burbank's  classmate,  Elijah  Hunt  Mills,  became  as  notable  in 
the  field  of  law  and  politics  as  Burbank  did  in  that  of  medicine. 
Mills  spent  his  whole  life  in  Northampton.  When  the  Society  of 
Alumni  was  formed  here  in  1821,  and  Burbank  was  chosen  its  first 
president,  Mills  was  selected  at  the  same  time  as  its  first  orator.  He 
was  then  a  senator  of  the  United  States,  and  was  reflected  to  that 
position.  He  had  previously  served  three  terms  in  the  national 
House  of  Kepresentatives.  But  he  did  not  fulfil  his  appointment 
as  Alumni  orator.  Why  not  ?  Because  his  town  of  Northampton 
was  then  strenuously  contending  for  the  removal  of  Williams  College 
thither,  or  to  some  other  town  near  by  on  the  Connecticut  River. 
The  Society  of  Alumni  had  been  formed  with  the  design  to  strengthen 
the  College  in  its  low  estate  and  in  its  present  position.  Whatever 
may  have  been  his  own  opinion  in  this  much-disputed  matter,  Mills 
would  have  compromised  his  town  and  locality  by  appearing  here  as 
Alumni  orator  at  that  time;  therefore  he  did  not  come.  But  the 
College  got  on  and  stayed  where  it  had  been  placed,  though  the 
struggle  was  desperate  and  long  continued,  as  we  shall  learn  later. 

President  Fitch  drew  up  his  subscription  paper  for  a  new  meeting- 
house, and  the  first  party  to  whom  he  presented  it  was  the  firm  of 
T.  J.  &  B.  Skinner.  They  put  down  £100.  They  were  carpenters 
and  builders.  They  had  built  the  West  College  five  years  before. 
Their  present  subscription  may  have  been  somewhat  more  liberal 
than  it  otherwise  would  have  been,  because  they  expected  to  do  the 
work  of  putting  up  the  meeting-house.  Again,  the  talk  was  then 


248  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

getting  strong  of  the  pressing  need  of  another  college  building. 
Still  again,  T.  J.  Skinner  was  a  candidate  for  Congress  that  fall. 
The  election  fell  on  September  5  :  whether  the  Skinner  subscription 
was  actually  promised  before  or  after  that  date,  there  was  a  special 
motive  in  either  case  for  a  generous  pledge,  because  Skinner  was 
elected.  The  subscription  paper  from  which  we  are  quoting  is  dated 
September  26 ;  but  a  preliminary  had  been  going  its  rounds  more  or 
less,  as  we  know  from  the  diary  of  Thomas  Bobbins  under  date  of 
February  19,  "  The  President  has  started  a  subscription  for  a  meeting- 
house :  it  is  circulating."  This  diary  of  Bobbins  in  and  relating  to 
Williamstown,  covering  almost  nine  full  months,  beginning  Jan.  1, 
1796,  together  with  this  invaluable  subscription  paper,  illuminates 
that  year  of  town  and  college  history  more  than  any  other  year  of 
that  century  is  lightened  up  for  us  from  all  sources  combined. 
Especially  do  these  entries  exhibit  facts  and  points  of  character 
manifested  by  these  Skinner  brothers  and  members  of  their  fami- 
lies,—  two  of  the  prominent  families  of  the  town  at  that  juncture. 
We  have  already  made  the  acquaintance  at  several  points  of  Tomp- 
son  J.  Skinner,  and  he  will  cross  our  path  repeatedly  in  the  time  to 
come ;  but  Benjamin  Skinner,  a  brother  two  years  younger,  born  in 
1754,  while  walking  in  general  a  less  commanding  path,  escaped 
perhaps  for  that  reason  the  dismal  pitfall  into  which  the  other  fell. 
The  brothers  owned  their  real  estate  in  common,  and  naturally  made 
this  subscription  to  the  meeting-house  in  common.  They  owned 
together  at  that  time,  and  had  undoubtedly  built  together  a  few 
years  before,  the  original  Mansion  House,  which  stood  on  the  Square 
at  the  junction  of  North  and  Main  Streets,  where  the  principal  hotel 
of  the  town  has  stood  ever  since.  The  United  States  assessed  the 
Mansion  House  in  1798  at  $3220,  and  put  down  its  "  owners  "  as 
T.  J.  &  Benj.  Skinner,  and  George  Beab  as  its  "occupier"  or  tenant. 
Another  house  is  put  down  in  the  same  document  to  the  same  owners 
with  Tompson  J.  Skinner  as  the  occupier,  and  is  assessed  at  $575. 
This  was  the  house  diagonally  across  the  Square  from  the  Mansion 
House,  built  by  Benjamin  Simonds  and  kept  as  a  tavern  by  him 
before  he  moved  north  of  the  Hoosac  and  built  the  tavern  still  stand- 
ing, now  owned  and  occupied  by  Sheriff  George  H.  Prindle.  The 
United  States  regarded  this  house  north  of  the  river  as  worth  for 
taxing  purposes  $977.50,  and  Simonds's  old  house  on  the  Square  (then 
owned  by  the  Skinners)  as  worth  $575.  This  last  house  was  occupied 
by  T.  J.  Skinner  so  long  as  he  lived.  Very  likely  Benjamin  Skinner 
had  at  first  lived  with  him  in  this  house,  which  was  a  house  of  con- 
siderable size,  and  occupied  the  site  of  the  present  fine  house  of 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       249 

Henry  Sabin ;  but  we  are  able  to  locate  him  first  certainly  as  a  house- 
holder in  the  Simonds  house  across  the  river,  by  the  following  entry 
in  Eobbins's  journal  under  date  of  Feb.  17,  1796,  "Employed  in 
settling  my  affairs  to  live  at  Mr.  Skinner's." 

By  his  marriage  with  the  oldest  daughter  of  Colonel  Simonds, 
Benjamin  Skinner  was  knitted  into  the  oldest  family  in  Williams- 
town,  since  his  wife  was  the  first  child  born  in  the  town,  April  8, 
1753,  and  there  were  three  other  Simonds  children  born  here  before 
the  birth  of  Esther  Hosford,  May  19,  1760,  daughter  to  William 
Hosford  and  Esther  Smedley,  the  second  pair  of  parents  to  welcome 
the  birth  of  a  child  in  Williamstown.  But  Eachel  Simonds,  Skinner's 
wife,  had  been  previously  married  when  twenty  years  of  age  to 
Thomas  Train,  and  had  given  birth  to  Sally  Train,  when  her  husband 
died  suddenly  in  Virginia,  and  after  two  or  three  years  of  widowhood 
she  married  Skinner,  and  Sally  Train  was  brought  up  with  the  Skinner 
children.  Sally  Train  was  thus  the  first  grandchild  of  Colonel 
Simonds,  and  the  first  grandchild  of  the  town.  When  eighteen  she 
became  Mrs.  William  Blair,  July  17,  1792,  and  died  universally  re- 
spected and  beloved  in  1864.  Colonel  Simonds  kept  his  tavern  and 
carried  on  his  large  farm  north  of  the  Hobsac  till  he  was  about  seventy 
years  of  age,  when  he  had  his  portrait  painted  bearing  on  the  back 
of  it  "  W.  Jennys  pinx*  1796 "  which  is  herewith  figured  in  steel, 
and  made  arrangements  with  his  son-in-law,  Skinner,  to  come  into 
the  tavern  and  to  carry  on  the  farm.  Here  we  find  him  in  February, 
1796.  Here  Thomas  Robbins,  a  senior  in  college,  found  at  the  same 
time  Alice  Skinner  the  oldest  daughter  of  the  house,  then  about 
eighteen  years  of  age.  He  was  nineteen,  and  both  of  them  in  the 
eye  of  prudence  were  foolish  and  inflammable.  The  diary  begins 
to  bristle  with  references  (some  of  them  enigmatical)  to  "Miss  A. 
Skinner."  Within  ten  days  after  the  new  boarder  had  settled  his 
"  affairs  to  live  at  Mr.  Skinner's,"  there  is  an  entry  which  the  editor 
of  the  diary  (Dr.  Tarbox)  thinks  extremely  significant,  "  Settled  the 
matter";  because  the  next  day  there  is  an  entry,  "May  it  never 
be  an  occasion  of  grief."  The  underscoring  is  in  the  manuscript. 
During  the  summer  there  are  four  distinct  dates  of  "  evening  spent 
at  General  Skinner's."  He  did  not  go  alone.  The  references  to 
rides,  and  visits  here  and  there,  and  evenings  spent  in  social  company 
both  at  home,  at  the  public  house,  and  elsewhere,  are  recurrent  and 
unintelligible,  except  on  the  hypothesis  that  he  and  Miss  Alice  had 
"settled  the  matter."  The  next  day  after  Commencement,  which 
fell  that  year  September  7,  "my  mamma  made  a  visit  to  Mr. 
Skinner's." 


250  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

Nevertheless  this  long  avenue  (short  in  point  of  time)  led  to 
nothing.  The  two  never  really  and  finally  "  settled  the  matter." 
Thomas  Bobbins  lived  a  tremendous  bachelor  life  in  knee  breeches 
and  shoe  buckles  till  his  death  in  1856,  leaving  behind  him  a  marvel- 
lous manuscript,  which,  when  printed  thirty  years  later  by  his  nephew, 
Bobbins  Battell,  filled  two  hug6  volumes  of  about  1100  pages  each. 
The  why  and  when  and  how  of  the  dislocation  of  these  young  hearts 
does  not  appear  in  either  of  these  immense  volumes.  Plenty  of  room 
for  it,  and  it  might  well  have  taken  the  place  of  some  of  the  entries 
about  the  weather,  and  the  state  of  his  salt-rheum.  Posterity  is  not 
curious  as  to  such  matters  as  these ;  but  there  are  those  living  one 
hundred  years  after  those  times,  who  would  willingly  exchange  five 
hundred  of  the  average  entries  in  1797  and  1798  for  one  good  honest 
statement  of  what  it  was  that  separated  these  young  people.  Under 
date  of  April  20,  1796,  there  is  this  entry,  "  In  the  afternoon  visited 
the  President  with  Alice."  This  appears  to  be  the  last  reference  to 
her  by  name.  He  taught  school,  studied  theology,  and  preached  the 
Gospel  as  he  understood  it,  in  various  places,  made  missionary  tours 
through  Vermont  and  western  New  York,  until  1808,  when  he  was 
settled  in  the  ministry  for  nineteen  years  in  what  is  now  South 
Windsor,  Connecticut.  Here  he  really  began  what  proved  to  be  the 
great  enterprise  of  his  life,  namely,  to  collect  a  library  which  was 
destined  to  become  one  of  the  great  private  libraries  of  his  genera- 
tion. This  collection  of  books,  mostly  of  an  historical  and  theological 
cast,  went  on  through  several  j^ears  of  miscellaneous  preaching  here 
and  there,  and  especially  through  the  thirteen  years  of  pretty  steady 
preaching  in  Mattapoisett,  Massachusetts,  when  in  1844  an  arrange- 
ment was  made  with  the  Connecticut  Historical  Society  at  Hartford, 
by  which  his  library  was  to  become  the  property  of  that  institution, 
and  he  himself  was  to  become  the  society's  librarian  at  a  stipulated 
salary  through  the  remaining  years  of  his  active  life.  This  service 
he  gracefully  and  honorably  rendered  for  ten  years;  and  two  years 
later  the  end  came  to  him. 

As  to  Alice  Skinner,  after  a  couple  of  years  or  so,  she  married 
Jonathan  Edwards  Robinson  of  Bennington,  a  graduate  in  the  class 
of  1797,  and  thus  became  the  first  of  the  long  line  of  Williamstown 
girls,  who  have  married  graduates  of  the  College,  coming  from  places 
other  than  Williamstown.  From  a  list  of  such  marriages  made  out 
with  great  care  by  some  old  people  here,  whose  lives  nearly  covered 
the  nineteenth  century,  it  is  probable  that  on  an  average  during  the 
first  century  of  the  College,  one  such  graduate  a  year  took  away  a 
bride  from  the  town  sooner  or  later.  The  same  list  makes  it  pretty 


TOWN"   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       251 

certain,  that  about  half  as  many  brides  more  were  found  here  by 
students  of  the  College  not  graduating.  A  catalogue  of  the  marital 
engagements  made  and  broken  as  between  students  and  young  resi- 
dents of  the  other  sex,  whether  any  hearts  were  broken  in  the  pro- 
cess or  not  (there  were  certainly  some),  has  never  been  attempted 
and  could  never  have  been  ascertained.  The  Eobinson  family  of 
Bennington,  by  much  the  most  prominent  family  there  from  the 
beginning  of  the  town,  has  sent  many  of  its  members  to  the  College. 
There  were  two  in  the  class  of  1797,  David  and  Jonathan  Edwards. 
The  latter  was  the  one  who  married  Alice  Skinner.  His  father  was 
a  chief  justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Vermont,  and  from  1807  to 
1815  a  member  of  the  Senate  of  the  United  States.  The  Robinsons 
were  influential  politicians  of  the  Jefferson  school,  which  fact  easily 
brought  them  into  touch  with  the  Skinners  here  of  the  same  polit- 
ical faith  and  practice.  Alice  Skinner  Robinson  bore  to  her  hus- 
band two  daughters  and  two  sons,  and  died  in  Bennington  in  1811. 
Quite  intimate  were  the  relations  between  the  two  towns  during  the 
first  half-century  of  their  existence  as  such,  —  much  more  so  than 
since.  Mary  Harwood  from  Hardwick,  one  out  of  the  very  first 
company  that  settled  on  Bennington  Hill,  became  the  wife  of  Nehe- 
miah  Smedley  in  1763:  relatives  and  neighbors  from  Bennington 
came  down  to  help  him  "raise"  into  place  the  heavy  white-oak 
timbers  of  his  second  house  in  October,  1772 :  the  battle  of  Benning- 
ton was  almost  common  so  far  as  concerned  the  citizens  of  these  two 
towns.  When  Mrs.  Alice  Skinner  Robinson  died,  members  of  the 
Smedley  family  attended  the  funeral  and  burial ;  and  although  it  is 
between  eighty  and  ninety  years  ago,  the  tradition  in  that  family 
is  distinct  and  certain,  coming  down  through  only  one  person  born 
in  1804,  that  the  two  little  Robinson  girls,  Mary  Alice  and  Julia, 
respectively  eleven  and  nine  years  old,  stood  by  the  open  grave  and 
protested  with  burning  tears  and  piercing  cries  of  "  Don't  put  my 
mamma  into  the  ground  !  "  against  what  is  in  some  aspects  of  it  the 
most  dismal  feature  of  death.  Stephen  C.  Foster,  song-writer  and 
musical  composer,  considered  to  be  the  best  and  most  moving  of  all 
his  negro  melodies,  "Masstfs  in  the  Cold,  Cold  Ground." 

Benjamin  Skinner  and  Rachel  Simonds  had  two  other  daughters 
besides  Alice,  Rachel,  and  Harriet,  both  of  whom  married  graduates 
of  the  College  and  distinguished  men;  and  also  five  sons,  —  Benja- 
min, Samuel,  John  Burr,  William,  and  Harry.  The  first  three  of 
these  became  graduates  of  the  College  and  influential  men.  The 
father  was  chosen  deacon  of  the  church  in  1806,  was  postmaster  in 
1819,  and  lived  in  all  these  later  years  on  the  Main  Street,  south  side. 


252  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

a  little  to  the  west  of  West  College.  "  Deacon  Skinner's  meadow," 
as  it  was  called  for  fifty  years,  comprised  all  the  land  between  what 
is  now  Hoxie  Street  and  Spring  Street,  and  between  Main  Street  and 
Latham  Street  in  its  more  western  stretch.  His  first  wife  died  in 
1802.  A  year  later  he  married  Deodama  Noble ;  and  George  Noble 
Skinner,  Williams  College  1827,  was  the  only  child  of  the  second 
union.  The  good  deacon  was  caught  in  his  old  age,  like  many 
another,  by  what  was  then  called  the  "  western  fever,"  and  removed 
into  the  southeastern  corner  of  Michigan  by  the  river  Eaisin  and 
died  there  in  1828.  The  widow  returned  to  Williamstown  after  the 
death  of  her  son  in  Michigan  in  1850,  and  lived  many  years  on 
South  Street  with  her  near  relatives,  also  widows,  Mrs.  Buckley  and 
Mrs.  Brewster.  Rev.  Mason  Noble  in  a  centennial  discourse  deliv- 
ered here  in  1865  uses  of  her  the  following  language  :  — 

"And  there  was  Mrs.  Deacon  Skinner  whose  house  was  the  home  of 
a  bright  and  cheerful  hospitality,  where  the  young  people  met  such  a. 
cordial  welcome  and  the  old  people  found  their  spirits  quickened  by 
her  genial  wit  and  hearty  good  will.  How  quick  was  her  step,  and 
how  full  of  grace  her  manners,  and  how  unvarying  her  faith  in  God 
her  Saviour  though  suffering  so  many  years  the  bereavement  of 
widowhood  and  though  left  childless  amid  the  infirmities  of  ex- 
treme old  age;  and  how  hard  it  was  to  believe  that  we  could  get 
on  as  well  without  her,  even  when  the  Lord  called  her  in  her 
ninety-fifth  year  to  Himself." 

Benjamin  Skinner  was  a  Free  Mason,  as  were  many  (if  not 
most)  of  the  prominent  men  in  Williamstown  at  the  close  of  the 
eighteenth  and  at  the  begining  of  the  nineteenth  century.  He 
long  served  as  a  chaplain  at  the  lodge  here,  and  at  the  funerals  of 
deceased  members  when  they  were  buried  with  Masonic  honors. 
Thomas  Robbins  entered  in  his  diary  under  date  of  July  27,  while 
he  was  living  with  Skinner  at  the  Simonds  house,  "This  evening 
Free  Masons  meet  here :  noisy."  Two  days  later  there  is  this-  en- 
try, "A  man  dies  with  the  dysentery  in  the  prime  of  life :  large  con- 
course at  the  funeral :  the  Free  Masons  have  great  formality."  He 
doubtless  meant,  that  the  dead  man  was  interred  with  Masonic  rites. 
The  brick  house  at  the  east  end  of  the  village,  built  by  Judah  Wil- 
liams and  long  owned  and  occupied  by  David  Noble,  had  also  a 
secret  chamber  for  Masonic  meetings.  So  also  had  the  house  of 
William  Young  at  the  South  Part.  All  three  of  these  houses  are 
still  standing  at  the  present  writing.  But  it  was  scarcely  at  all  as 
a  tavern-keeper  in  the  house  of  his  father-in-law  north  of  the  river,. 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL    THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       253 

and  certainly  not  a  great  deal  more  as  a  chaplain  of  the  Free  Masons 
on  their  public  occasions,  that  Benjamin  Skinner  made  a  permanent 
impression  upon  his  contemporaries,  but  chiefly  as  a  fervent  Chris- 
tian man  in  daily  life  and  as  a  faithful  church  official.  On  this 
point  hear  Mason  Noble  again,  a  younger  contemporary :  — 

"And  Deacon  Skinner !  Is  there  one  of  those  who  once  knew  him 
who  cannot  now  see  him  as  he  stood  up  to  pray  for  Zion  ?  his  voice 
gradually  rising  to  a  shrill  and  trembling  note  and  then  breaking 
into  tenderness  while  the  tears  came  coursing  down  his  venerable 
cheeks !  How  clear  and  strong  were  his  views  of  Christian  truth,  and 
how  firmly  he  stood  here  as  a  pillar  in  the  temple  of  God.  How 
pleasant  it  is  to  know  to-day  that  while  his  three  younger  sons  at- 
tained to  honorable  positions  in  the  profession  of  law  and  were  all 
like  himself  officers  in  the  church  of  Christ,  his  three  eldest  sons  also 
around  whom  his  deepest  anxieties  were  gathered,  did  for  many 
years  before  their  death  exhibit  a  character  unstained  by  vice,  and 
proved  to  the  world  the  blessings  of  that  covenant  which  secures 
the  favor  of  God  to  the  children  of  good  men  after  them." 

The  subscription  to  the  new  meeting-house  in  1796  next  largest  to 
this  of  the  Skinner  brothers,  is  that  of  the  Noble  brothers,  Daniel 
and  Deodatus,  —  "D.  &  Deo.  Noble,  £80."  Various  things  had  hap- 
pened during  the  preceding  summer,  that  continued  to  press  home 
upon  College  and  citizens  alike,  the  necessity  of  a  better  house  of 
worship,  and  doubtless  contributed  to  more  liberal  subscriptions  than 
could  otherwise  have  been  had.  Our  contemporary  diary  gives 
repeated  notices  to  this  effect.  "  The  President  has  started  a  sub- 
scription for  a  meeting-house."  "  The  meeting-house  foundation  is 
begun."  "  How  scandalous  that  we  must  have  Commencement  in  this 
old  meeting-house:  almost  discouraged  about  its  being  destroyed." 
"The  meeting-house  assaulted  more  or  less  every  night."  "Great 
disturbance  in  town  on  account  of  the  meeting-house  being  set  on  fire 
last  night."  Under  all  the  circumstances  it  was  more  natural  that 
the  contribution  to  the  meeting-house  from  the  Noble  family  should 
come  rather  from  the  sons,  as  it  did,  than  from  the  father,  David 
Noble,  who,  though  a  member  of  the  church,  never  showed  so  warm 
an  interest  in  religious  things  as  did  his  sons,  nor  did  he  bear  so 
good  a  reputation  as  they  for  consistent  Christian  conduct.  David 
Noble  became  a  judge  of  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas  in  1797,  which 
took  him  a  good  deal  away  from  home  until  his  death  in  1803.  The 
brick  house,  which  had  long  been  his  home,  fell  to  be  occupied  by 
his  son  Deodatus,  who  was  chosen  to  be  deacon  in  1814,  and  who 


254  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

faithfully  served  in  this  relation  till  1833,  when  he,  too,  removed  to 
Monroe,  Michigan.  Mason  Noble  was  one  of  his  several  sons,  and 
in  the  centennial  discourse  already  twice  quoted  from  we  are  for- 
tunate to  find  the  following  filial  words :  — 

"  And  is  it  proper  for  me  to  omit  in  this  record  of  the  past  my 
own  venerable  father  ?  He  always  seemed  to  me  to  have  many 
thoughts  and  cares  for  the  kingdom  of  God  to  one  for  himself  and 
his  more  immediate  temporal  interests.  Living  in  comparative  in- 
dependence and  leisure  on  the  estate  inherited  from  his  father,  he 
spent  much  of  his  time  in  reading  Edwards  and  Emmons  and  Baxter 
and  William  Mason  and  Doddridge  and  Thomas  Scott,  and  in  watch- 
ing over  the  interests  of  the  church  and  the  town  —  using  the  office 
of  a  deacon  well  in  guiding  the  erring  and  stirring  up  the  good,  and 
proving  himself  a  useful  citizen  and  an  upright  Justice  by  turning 
lawsuits  into  arbitrations,  while  he  himself  set  the  example  of  kind 
forbearance  toward  unfortunate  debtors  by  making  it  a  rule  during 
his  long  Christian  life  never  to  sue  a  man  for  debt.  His  children  all 
knew  and  deeply  felt  that  he  was  a  holy  man  living  not  for  this  but 
a  better  world,  and  that  what  he  most  desired  for  them  was  not 
wealth  or  position  but  character  and  usefulness." 

Mason  Noble  himself  was  a  graduate  of  the  College  in  1827,  as 
well  as  a  native  of  the  village,  and  led  a  long  and  useful  life  termina- 
ting in  1881,  as  a  pastor  of  Presbyterian  churches  in  New  York  and 
Washington,  and  as  a  chaplain  in  the  navy  of  the  United  States. 
His  own  four  sons  (to  continue  the  record  for  a  little),  all  became 
graduates  of  the  College  in  succession,  and  all  useful  ministers  of  the 
Gospel; — Franklin  in  1856,  Mason  in  1862,  George  in  1865,  and 
Charles  in  1866.  So  far  of  Deacon  Deodatus  Noble,  one  of  the  sub- 
scribers in  1796,  and  of  some  of  his  posterity.  Of  Daniel  Noble,  his 
brother,  born  here  in  1776  and  graduated  in  1796,  the  record  is  full, 
and  highly  gratifying  to  all  friends  of  the  College.  He  was  a  light- 
complexioned,  quick-motioned  man,  of  good  abilities  as  a  lawyer,  a 
profession  which  he  carried  on  in  his  native  place  after  1811,  be- 
coming treasurer  of  the  College  in  1814,  and  throwing  all  his  weight 
as  a  private  citizen  and  as  a  member  of  the  State  legislature  in  both 
branches  and  of  the  Governor's  council  against  the  removal  of  the 
College  from  Williamstown.  During  the  six  years  when  President 
Moore  was  at  the  head  of  the  College,  the  president  himself  and  a 
large  majority  of  the  trustees  were  in  favor  of  removing  the 
institution  to  Northampton.  But  for  the  powerful  and  concen- 
trated influence  and  efforts  of  Daniel  Noble,  the  College  would 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       255 

unquestionably  have  been  removed.  In  this  influence  and  in  these 
efforts,  he  had  a  few  strenuous  coadjutors,  particularly  his  cousin, 
Charles  A.  Dewey,  also  a  native  of  the  town,  and  a  fellow-alumnus. 
In  November,  1830,  it  became  necessary  for  Treasurer  Noble  to  visit 
Portland  on  business  connected  with  the  College.  On  his  way 
thither  he  took  a  severe  cold,  and  died  after  a  short  sickness  in  the 
chamber  he  had  first  entered  on  reaching  that  city.  His  remains 
were  brought  home  for  interment.  He  left  two  daughters,  Mary  and 
Juliette,  and  several  sons,  four  of  whom  became  graduates  of  the 
College.  Not  all  of  his  sons  did  credit  to  the  family  name.  When 
did  ever  a  stream  starting  from  ever  so  pure  a  spring  flow  far  with- 
out becoming  more  or  less  muddy  and  defiled  ?  Daniel  Noble  built, 
not  long  before  he  died,  the  fine  house  on  East  Main  Street,  north  side, 
not  very  far  west  from  his  father's  and  brother's,  the  brick  house. 
There  were  then  but  two  really  spacious  and  elegant  private  houses 
in  town;  the  Day  house,  on  the  same  level  with  this  and  on  the 
same  side  of  the  street  farther  west,  and  the  Sloan  house  on  the 
eminence  just  north  of  the  West  College.  The  tradition  is  still 
lively  in  town,  likely  enough  to  have  been  passed  on  by  the  young 
ladies  themselves,  that  they,  having  been  absent  from  home  during 
the  construction  or  at  least  the  completion  of  the  new  house,  cried 
when  they  entered  it  on  their  return,  because  it  was  so  low  between 
joints  and  otherwise  less  ample  than  they  had  expected.  After  the 
death  of  Miss  Juliette  Noble,  this  house  and  the  broad  meadow 
extending  north  from  it  to  the  river,  was  purchased  by  the  late 
Joseph  White,  when  he  became  treasurer  of  the  College  in  1859, 
was  thoroughly  renovated  by  him,  and  at  the  present  writing  is 
owned  and  occupied  by  his  widow,  Hannah  Danforth  White. 

The  family  of  Noble  we  find  located  in  Westfield  in  1667.  David 
Noble,  the  father  of  Deodatus  and  Daniel  Noble,  after  about  two 
years'  residence  in  Yale  College,  came  north  through  New  Milford 
to  Williamstown.  Erastus  Noble,  the  progenitor  of  the  other  fami- 
lies of  that  name  in  Williamstown,  though  from  the  same  original 
stock,  diverged  before  the  movement  of  either  in  this  direction. 

The  next  largest  subscriber  to  the  Nobles  on  our  century-old  and 
time-stained  slip  for  the  new  meeting-house  is  "Lemuel  Stewart, 
£75."  We  know  but  little  of  this  man,  but  what  we  do  know  is 
much  to  his  credit.  This  is  the  largest  individual  subscription  to 
the  meeting-house.  But  Stewart  was  not  a  member  of  the  church; 
neither  was  his  wife,  Lydia.  A  Jerusha  Stewart,  however,  was  ad- 
mitted in  1794;  and  a  Rhoda  Stewart  was  a  member  as  early  as  1781. 
These  were  probably  members  of  the  family  of  Samuel  Stewart, 


256  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

a  brother  of  Lemuel,  who  lived  on  a  part  of  the  "  red  house  "  farm, 
already  mentioned  as  originally  cleared  up  by  old  Bissell  Sherman. 
There  was  also  in  the  last  decade  of  the  last  century  a  Lemuel  Scovil 
Stewart,  a  well-to-do  landowner  and  householder.  Besides  these, 
there  was  a  little  later,  at  any  rate,  an  Ethel  Stewart,  unrelated  to 
the  others,  no  church-goer,  a  drinking  man,  and  profane,  who  lived 
in  the  angle  between  the  Berlin  and  Treadwell  Hollow  roads,  near 
John  Brookman's,  and  whose  land  is  now  owned  by  Brookman.  It 
was  he  who,  when  Mr.  Gridley  announced  himself  at  the  door  as  the 
minister,  retorted:  <k  TJie  devil  you  be!  Take  a  cJieer!"  The  min- 
ister himself  enjoyed  reporting  the  cordiality  of  his  own  reception. 
Five  children  were  born  here  to  Lemuel  and  Lydia  Stewart  between 
the  dates  1770  and  1784.  It  is  known  that  during  the  Revolution- 
ary War,  Lemuel  Stewart  was  a  captain,  and  was  left  here  in  com- 
mand of  a  few  men  and  boys  at  the  time  of  the  battle  of  Bennington ; 
and  that  in  that  capacity  he  placed  guards  at  the  Simonds  bridge 
to  the  north  of  the  village,  and  also  at  the  Green  River  bridge  at  its 
east  end.  He  lived  at  that  time  in  a  house  either  directly  on  the 
corner  of  South  Street  and  Main,  or  in  another  house  a  little  to  the 
south  of  this,  long  kept  as  a  tavern,  and  well  remembered  by  many 
now  living..  Both  of  these  houses  were  only  separated  from  the 
Square  by  the  width  of  the  South  Street,  and  our  liberal  householder 
may  have  had  a  strong  personal  and  family  motive  in  having  substi- 
tuted for  the  old  shell  of  1768  right  before  his  front  windows  a 
sightly  structure  like  that  actually  built  on  the  same  general  site  in 
1797.  The  gambrel-roofed  house  then  standing  on  the  corner  fronted 
to  the  west  toward  the  Square,  unlike  the  present  house,  long  owned 
and  occupied  by  Thomas  McMahon.  Both  houses  stood  on  the 
original  House-lot  No.  36,  set  apart  by  the  proprietors  when  the 
village  was  laid  out  in  1750  in  the  behoof  of  a  school,  to  be  thereby 
maintained  for  their  children.  This  proposed  "  school "  had  nothing 
in  common  with  the  one  mentioned  and  foundationed  by  Colonel 
Ephraim  Williams  in  his  will  five  years  later.  This  house-lot, 
lying  along  the  east  side  of  South  Street  for  120  rods  from  Main,  is 
exactly  parallel  to  House-lot  No.  1,  laid  out  on  the  west  side  of  the 
same  street  to  the  same  distance.  The  lot  itself  was  soon  sold  by 
the  proprietors,  and  the  proceeds  put  to  the  prescribed  uses  by 
building  a  schoolhouse  on  the  line  between  Nos.  1  and  3,  on  the 
south  side  of  the  Square,  under  the  lea  of  the  old  meeting-house. 
For  some  reason,  not  known  to  the  writer,  No.  36  was  not  built  on 
so  soon  or  so  much  as  the  other  house-lots  equally  near  to  the  original 
Square.  Besides  the  corner  house  but  just  now  mentioned  and  the 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       257 

tavern  stand  a  few  rods  to  the  south  of  it,  in  one  or  other  of  which 
lived  Captain  Lemuel  Stewart,  no  other  house  was  built  on  No.  36 
in  the  last  century,  except  a  very  small  and  poor  one  on  the  site  of 
the  present  fine  house  of  Colonel  Archibald  Hopkins,  and  that  was 
built  by  Betty  Hubbell  Cox,  the  mother  of  the  late  Thomas  Cox  of 
blessed  memory.  There  is  some,  and  perhaps  sufficient,  evidence, 
that  the  large  landed  property  of  Captain  Stewart  lay  upon  Bee 
Hill,  and  comprised  the  Hickox  farms  of  that  locality. 

Samuel  Sloan  subscribed  £60  toward  the  new  building.  We  have 
learned  a  good  deal  about  this  man  already.  He  came  from  Canaan, 
Connecticut.  His  wife  was  daughter  to  Asa  Douglas,  the  first  set- 


NEHEMIAH    SMEDLEY'S    HOUSE   ON    GREEN    RIVER. 
Its  frame  was  lifted  8  Oct.,   1772.     He  was  born  in  Litchfield  in  1732,  and  died  in  this  house,  1789. 

tier  of  Hancock,  in  1762,  from  the  same  place.  Sloan  was  a  black- 
smith by  trade,  and  was  one  of  the  very  earliest  settlers  in  South 
Williamstown,  where  he  became  after  a  little  the  largest  landholder 
and  the  richest  man,  and  where  the  town  has  since  commemorated 
him  in  naming  by  vote  the  road  from  the  early  tavern,  which  he 
first  opened,  running  straight  west  to  the  Oblong  through  his  farm 
of  over  five  hundred  acres,  the  "Sloan  Road."  In  1796,  when  this 
subscription  was  made,  Sloan  was  still  living  on  this  farm,  as  we 
learn  from  the  Bobbins  diary,  "In  the  afternoon  rode  down  to 
Colonel  Sloan's  on  a  visit."  When  the  meeting-house  was  opened 
for  public  worship,  and  so  long  thereafter  as  he  lived  (he  died  in 


258  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

1813),  General  Sloan  occupied  the  front  pew  on  the  right-hand  side 
of  the  broad  aisle.  Judge  David  Noble,  who  died  in  1803,  occupied 
the  pew  opposite  on  the  left  hand.  General  Sloan  was  a  short  and 
thick-set  man,  highly  honored  by  his  townsmen,  and  used  to  ride 
emeritus  at  the  military  trainings  here  so  long  as  he  was  able  to 
mount  his  horse.  So  did  General  William  Towner,  a  later  graduate 
of  the  Militia,  who,  by  the  way,  subscribed  £15  for  the  new  place 
of  public  worship. 

No  other  subscription  than  these  already  noted  reached  £50  in 
amount,  except  that  of  the  brothers  "  L.  and  E.  Smedley,"  which, 
was  precisely  that.  These  sons  of  Captain  Nehemiah  Smedley 
jointly  inherited  his  farm,  married  cousins  by  the  name  of  Gibbs 
from  Litchfield  (now  Morris),  brought  up  large  families  under  the 
same  roof  and  all  eating  at  one  table  in  harmony,  and  at  length, 
concluding  to  divide  the  large  farm  between  themselves,  agreed 
beforehand  to  ask  no  man's  advice  as  to  the  division  and  to  make 
no  complaint  to  anybody  subsequent  to  it.  Levi,  the  older  brother, 
who  by  agreement  kept  the  homestead,  in  1828  was  chosen  deacon 
of  the  church,  which  he  had  joined  in  1792,  and  continued  in  office 
till  his  death  in  1849.  The  house  in  which  he  lived  and  died  was 
raised  by  his  father  on  his  eighth  birthday,  Oct.  8,  1772  and  is  still 
owned  and  occupied  by  the  great-great-grandson  of  the  builder.  It 
is  figured  below. 

The  other  brother,  Elijah,  made  his  home  in  plain  sight,  a  few 
rods  south  of  the  other,  where  the  main  road  turns  east.  Both  had 
large  families,  and  both  have  left  a  large  and  reputable  posterity. 

"E.  Mather,  £15,"  may  properly  delay  us  a  moment.  A  branch 
from  a  great  stock  was  this  Elias  Mather.  He  was  in  the  eighth  gene- 
ration from  John  Mather  of  England,  whose  grandson,  Rev.  Richard 
Mather,  emigrated  to  Dorchester,  Massachusetts,  in  1635,  and  became 
the  ancestor  of  a  long  line  of  eminent  clergymen  and  civilians  down  to 
our  own  day.  This  Elias  Mather,  born  at  Colchester,  Connecticut, 
Oct.  25,  1770,  probably  brought  more  "  blood  "  to  Williamstown  than 
any  other  man  who  ever  settled  in  it.  He  was  a  hatter  by  trade, 
became  intemperate  and  poor,  moved  down  the  river  to  Pownal, 
where  his  son,  Benjamin  F.  Mather,  was  born,  July  6,  1810.  The 
father  died  Sept.  3,  1839.  The  son,  long  the  principal  merchant  in 
Williamstown,  died  May  22,  1888. 

It  is  not  worth  while  to  follow  further  at  present  these  subscribers 
to  the  old  meeting-house  either  by  name  or  amount.  Many  of  them 
will  be  referred  to  later  in  other  connections.  It  is  enough  to  say 
now,  that  these  subscriptions  constituted  a  heavy  tax  upon  the  com- 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       259 

paratively  few  inhabitants  of  the  hamlet,  and  also  that  they  built  a 
strong  and  large  and  handsome  house  of  worship,  which  stood  plumb 
and  sound  for  the  most  part  for  about  eighty  years,  when  it  was 
destroyed  by  fire.  The  site,  though  high  relatively  to  the  surround- 
ing lands,  was  clayey  and  somewhat  wet  toward  the  rear.  The  rear 
timbers,  accordingly,  were  heaved  by  the  frost  and  slowly  thrown 
out  of  plumb,  when  about  1850  a  successful  device  was  hit  on  to 
strengthen  the  building  in  that  quarter  by  means  of  an  annex  of 


MEETING-HOUSE   OF   1796. 

strong  timbers  so  attached  to  the  rear  of  the  building  as  to  hold  the 
entire  frame  in  place.  The  present  writer  cannot  explain  this 
mechanically,  but  he  knows  that  it  was  effective  as  toward  the  end 
in  view.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hoisington,  returned  missionaries  from 
India,  lived  for  some  time  in  a  house  back  of  the  church  and  in  full 
view  of  this  insignificant-looking  appendage,  which  Mrs.  Hoisington 
once  wittily  characterized  as  "the  native  helper." 

As  the  College,  through  its  president  and  otherwise,  had  urged 
forward  the  erection  of  the  edifice  for  their  own  accommodation  in 


260  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

part,  so  the  first  public  use  of  it  was  for  the  Commencement  of  1798. 
It  was  not  then  quite  finished,  but  was  adequate  for  the  joyful 
occasion.  In  the  meantime  the  College  itself  had  become  much 
engaged  as  toward  the  erection  of  a  new  building  for  its  own  exclu- 
sive uses.  Hear  President  Fitch :  — 

"January,  1796.  The  number  of  students  is  increasing  so  rapidly  that  we 
are  already  in  want  of  another  college  edifice.  We  hope  to  obtain  from  the 
State  a  grant  of  a  township  of  land  in  the  Province  of  Maine,  which,  if  obtained, 
will  enable  us  to  erect  another  building.  At  present  we  have  a  very  likely 
collection  of  young  men.  They  are  very  studious  and  orderly,  and  give  us 
scarcely  any  trouble." 

Four  months  later  (May  6,  1796)  young  Eobbins  entered  in  his 
diary,  "  Considerable  talk  in  town  about  the  situation  of  the  new 
college."  It  will  be  remembered  that  the  trustees  hesitated  at  first 
whether  to  erect  their  first  building  where  they  actually  placed  it, 
or  on  the  parallel  eminence  to  the  east,  "  opposite  to  the  old  lime- 
kiln." When  a  new  building  became  a  necessity,  they  naturally 
reverted  to  their  original  alternative,  and  placed  there  what  as 
naturally  came  to  be  called  "East  College."  Its  erection  went  for- 
ward simultaneously  with  the  building  of  the  new  meeting-house. 
Both  were  finished  at  about  the  same  time  in  1798.  It  is  to  be 
presumed  that  "T.  J.  and  B.  Skinner"  who  subscribed  £100  toward 
the  meeting-house,  the  same  sum  as  the  "  Corporation  "  subscribed, 
and  who  certainly  built  the  West  College,  were  also  the  builders  of 
both  the  meeting-house  and  the  East  College.  The  same  enterpris- 
ing parties  owned,  certainly  in  1798,  the  Mansion  House,  the  first 
considerable  tavern  in  the  village,  for  they  are  put  down  as  the 
owners  in  the  United  States  house-tax  assessment  for  that  year; 
and  that  they  themselves  had  built  it  not  long  before  is  almost  as 
certain  as  the  fact  of  their  ownership  of  it  then.  It  is,  indeed, 
remarkable  that  these  three  quite  large  buildings  were  in  process 
of  erection  in  this  small  village  at  just  about  the  same  time,  and  it 
is  at  least  as  remarkable  that  all  were  destroyed  by  fire, —  the  East 
College  in  1841,  the  meeting-house  in  1866,  and  the  Mansion  House 
in  1870. 

President  Fitch  estimated  that  the  East  College  cost  $12,400. 
On  petition  of  the  trustees,  the  Legislature  had  passed  an  act,  Feb.  4, 
1796,  granting  the  College  two  townships  of  land  in  Maine,  of  the 
contents  of  six  miles  square  each,  for  the  purpose  of  building  the 
new  East  College.  These  lands  were  sold  for  about  $10,000,  and 
the  proceeds  devoted  thereto.  It  was  of  brick,  and  of  much  the 
same  style  of  architecture  as  the  West  College.  Both  were  four 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL    THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       261 

stories  high,   and  very  strongly  built.     The   rude   picture   figured 
below,  in  which  the  building  to  the  right  represents  the  East  Col- 


lege, the  considerable  one  next  it  Griffin  Hall,  West  College  in  the 
centre,  and  the  president's  house  near  it,  the  Mansion  House  mid- 


262  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

way  between  that  and  the  meeting-house  at  the  extreme  left,  is  poor 
enough  in  its  perspective  and  in  the  relative  position  of  the  build- 
ings, but  is  invaluable  as  furnishing  the  only  known  pictorial  rep- 
resentation of  the  East  College.  The  meeting-house  never  had 
anything  corresponding  to  a  tower,  but  at  different  times  three  dif- 
fering finials,  one  a  wooden  cone  of  large  size,  and  another  the  four- 
posted  top  of  the  belfry  as  given  in  the  picture  a  few  pages  back. 

The  East  College  was  in  many  respects  a  copy  of  the  West  College, 
the  main  differences  being  that  in  the  former  there  were  two  halls 
running  through  it  east  and  west,  instead  of  the  original  one  through 
"West  College  in  the  same  direction;  and  then  there  were  two  bed- 
rooms to  each  study-room,  while  in  the  older  building  there  were 
originally  no  distinct  bedrooms  at  all.  The  Chapel  remained  in 
West  College,  as  did  also  the  recitation  rooms  for  the  Freshmen  and 
Sophomore  classes,  which  were  on  the  ground  floor  (moving  'about 
for  convenience),  the  rooms  themselves  being  nowise  different  from 
the  dormitory  rooms  in  that  building,  until  in  1828  the  new  Chapel 
was  dedicated  (Griffin  Hall),  when  the  space  thus  released  in  West 
College  on  the  second  and  third  floors  was  given  to  two  permanent 
recitation  rooms,  one  for  the  Sophomores  on  the  south  end  of  the 
third  floor,  and  one  for  the  Freshmen  directly  below  it,  of  the  same 
size  and  lighting  from  windows.  This  arrangement  continued  until 
Kellogg  Hall  was  built  in  1847.  Thereafter  for  many  years  the 
Sophomores  recited  in  general  in  the  east  room  (ground  floor)  of 
the  new  Hall,  and  the  Freshmen  in  the  west  room  corresponding. 
These  new  rooms  were  nicely  and  strongly  fitted  up  by  the  College 
with  permanent  benches  for  seats  around  the  walls,  and  long  and 
strong  (though  movable)  benches  in  the  middle.  Up  to  that  time 
the  Freshmen  and  Sophomores  owned  as  classes  the  seats  and  other 
furniture  in  the  recitation  rooms  in  West  College,  and  regularly 
sold  these  out  to  the  next  entering  class,  while  they  proudly  migrated 
to  the  eastward. 

The  new  East  College  held  the  recitation  rooms  of  the  Senior  and 
Junior  classes,  and  this  of  itself  gave  its  location  some  prestige  over 
the  older  building,  which  was  decidedly  increased  when  the  new 
Chapel  was  placed  on  the  same  eminence  directly  across  the  Main 
Street.  The  West  College  grounds  relatively  waned  from  that  time 
on,  for  Kellogg  Hall  was  an  insignificant  building  in  itself,  and 
stood  on  comparatively  low  ground.  The  later  building  of  the 
present  East  and  South  colleges  on  what  was  practically  the  site  of 
the  old  East  College  consumed,  although  the  north  line  of  the  present 
and  smaller  East  College  is  twelve  feet  farther  south  than  the  cor- 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       263 

responding  line  of  the  old  building,  and  the  still  smaller  South 
College  stands  entirely  south  of  the  old  site,  together  with  the  later 
erection  of  the  Library  and  stone  Chapel  upon  the  same  eminence, 
to  say  nothing  of  Clark  Hall  and  the  Soldiers'  Monument  still  later 
placed  still  further  east,  seemed  to  settle  the  question  of  compara- 
tive dignity  for  all  time  against  the  originally  selected  foundations. 
But  Time  often  has  its  silent  and  unexpected  revenges.  The  final 
placing  in  1867  of  the  Congregational  meeting-house,  after  sharp 
disputes,  on  the  slope  of  the  more  westerly  hill,  and  then  the  putting 
of  the  lordly  Morgan  Hall  directly  opposite  that  across  the  street, 
and  the  three  magnificent  Thompson  Laboratories  still  further  west, 
—  one  of  them  wholly  west  of  even  West  College  itself, —  not  only 
fully  restored  the  balance  as  between  the  hills,  but  also  promises  for 
the  future  some  compensation  in  the  way  of  extra,  though  always 
sober,  brilliance  for  the  partial  eclipse  of  the  western  height,  which 
the  fathers  on  the  whole  preferred. 

Student  E-obbins  entered  in  his  diary  under  date  of  July  5,  1796, 
"Saw  a  man  making  brick  —  to  make  300,000  for  a  new  college." 
Eobbins  passed  every  day  from  his  boarding-place  at  Deacon  Skin- 
ner's north  of  the  river  to  his  duties  at  the  College  by  the  clay  pits 
at  the  northern  foot  of  the  Mansion  House  Hill,  where  the  brick  for 
the  West  and  old  East  College  were  certainly  burnt.  The  owner  of 
that  field  at  the  present  time  lately  had  occasion  to  plough  it  over 
for  the  purpose  of  seeding  it  down,  when  there  were  displayed  to  the 
incurious  eyes  of  the  present  generation  (a  couple  of  them  curious 
enough)  bits  of  old  brick  to  an  immense  number  scattered  over  an 
half  acre  of  ground,  and  coming  up  to  the  surface  under  the  push  of 
the  ploughshare  from  a  sleep  of  a  century.  Out  of  these  300,000 
whole  brick  the  old  East  College  walls  were  constructed.  When 
the  building  burned  down  in  1841,  it  became  a  part  of  the  contract 
in  the  erection  of  the  present  East  and  South  colleges  that  the  brick 
of  the  burnt  building  should  be  used  in  the  walls  of  the  new  ones  so 
far  as  they  could  be  made  available.  There  they  have  been  for  more 
than  fifty  years,  and  there  they  are  now  —  mostly  out  of  sight,  it  is 
true  —  in  the  inner  walls  and  in  the  chimneys.  This  contractor, 
Henry  B.  Curtis,  is  yet  living  and  in  Williamstown,  and  told  the 
writer  these  facts  but  a  few  days  ago. 

A  casual  incident  of  some  interest  to  all  graduates  of  the  College 
and  dwellers  in  the  town  who  remember  the  late  Thomas  Cox,  the 
pious  and  faithful  "  professor  of  dust  and  ashes,"  who  for  about  forty 
years  swept  the  colleges  and  made  the  student's  beds,  and  who  for 
all  that  time  and  much  longer  bore  constant  testimony  in  his  life 


264  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

and  words  to  his  divine  Master  in  such  a  way  as  to  secure  the  respect 
of  everybody,  both  in  College  and  town,  so  connects  his  name  with 
the  building  of  the  old  East  College  as  to  make  the  writer  desire  to 
help  perpetuate  the  memory  of  both  so  long  as  possible  and  in  con- 
nection each  with  each.  The  old  prpprietors'  book  holds  this  among 
its  early  records  of  births,  "  John  E.  Cox  and  Betty  his  wife  their 
offspring  Thomas  their  son  born  August  14th,  1787."  Betty  Cox 
was  the  daughter  of  Jedediah  Hubbell  of  Lanesboro,  the  rude,  and 
consequently  not  always  accurate,  land-surveyor  of  Williamstown's 
original  lots  and  farms.  He  was  a  good  man,  and  possessed  so  good 
a  conscience,  that  he  lived  well  into  his  hundredth  year,  as  one  may 
still  read  on  his  headstone  in  the  south  cemetery  at  Lanesboro. 
He  came  early  to  Lanesboro  from  "ancient  Woodbury,"  was  one  of 
the  Committee  of  Safety  and  Correspondence  appointed  by  that  town 
in  1774,  and  continued  useful  in  that  capacity  throughout  the  Revo- 
lution; and  became  so  poor  in  his  old  age  that  the  only  present  he 
could  make  to  his  new  minister,  Rev.  Noah  Sheldon,  on  his  settle- 
ment, was  a  wooden  "  piggin  "  made  by  his  own  hands  when  he  was 
ninety-eight  years  old.  Poverty  and  piety  descended  to  his  daughter, 
Betty  Cox,  and  to  his  grandson,  Thomas  Cox.  The  latter  was  ten 
years  old  while  the  old  East  College  was  going  up.  His  mother 
had  recently  secured  a  small  piece  of  cheap  land  on  South  Street, 
where  now  stands  the  house  of  Colonel  Archie  Hopkins,  and  had 
given  her  "  chintz  gown  "  in  wages  to  a  poor  mason  who  had  put  up 
for  her  there  a  rude  stone  chimney  to  her  ruder  hovel.  House  and 
land  were  not  esteemed  as  worth  $100  in  1798,  as  we  learn  nega- 
tively from  the  national  assessment  of  the  house-tax  in  that  year. 
She  had  previously  lived  with  her  children  further  south  on  the 
same  road,  at  the  foot  of  Stone  Hill,  in  a  wet  pasture  now  belonging 
to  Mrs.  Lucy  B.  Smedley,  where  are  still  growing  roses  transplanted 
by  her  from  the  garden  of  her  first  pastor,  deceased,  Rev.  Whitman 
Welch.  Cox  used  to  say,  and  there  are  many  persons  now  living 
who  have  heard  him  say,  that  while  playing  around  his  mother's 
door  he  heard  the  bricklayers  on  the  new  College  shouting  "  Mort ! 
Mort!"  to  the  hod-heavers  below.  The  distance  must  be  fully  half 
a  mile  or  more,  with  a  shallow  valley  lying  between  the  two  points, 
in  which  there  was  not  then  a  single  house  or  other  building  of  any 
sort,  but  in  which  now  lies  the  most  populous  part  of  the  town,  both 
in  dwellings  and  business  places,  including  the  post-office  and  the 
two  banks  and  the  spacious  houses  in  Grace  Court  and  the  entire 
Spring  Street,  which  is  and  will  always  remain  the  business  street 
of  Williamstown. 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       265 

The  appended  picture  of  Thomas  Cox,  which  shows  him  faithfully 
as  he  looked  about  1860,  indicates  indeed  that  deficiency  of  mental 
powers  which  was  obvious  to  all  his  contemporaries,  but  which 
proved  to  be  no  essential  barrier  to  a  long  life  of  usefulness.  Several 
of  the  worthies  of  the  first  century  of  Williamstown,  who  will  be 
remembered  perhaps  as  long  as  any  of  their  more  gifted  contem- 
poraries, such  as  Thomas  Cox  and  Bill  Pratt l  and  Charity  Boot, 
were  more  or  less  wanting  in  intellect,  but  in  God's  wide  world 
there  is  opportunity  for  all  in  a  varied  usefulness,  and  all  that  can 
be  gotten  out  of  life  by  high  or  low  is  USEFULNESS. 


THOMAS   COX, 
Professor  of  Dust  and  Ashes. 

The  Senior  recitation  room  in  the  new  East  College  was  in  the 
north  end  of  the  third  story,  the  middle  room.  The  Junior  recita- 
tion room  was  in  the  south  end  of  the  second  story,  the  middle  room. 
The  students  owned  the  seats  in  both  rooms,  on  the  theory  that  they 
would  be  likely  to  complain  less  and  take  more  care;  which  theory 
was  confirmed  on  the  change  of  plan  in  the  new  Kellogg  Hall  when 
i  See  Bill  Pratt,  the  Saw- Buck  Philosopher,  by  Zelie  and  Perry,  1895. 


266  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

the  Sophomores  tore  up  with  crowbars  and  split  with  axes  the  per- 
manent oak  seats  in  their  room  in  the  fall  of  1848.  The  Philologian 
and  Philotechnian  societies  held  their  weekly  meetings  for  debates 
and  other  literary  exercises  for  more  than  forty  years  in  these  Junior 
and  Senior  recitation  rooms  in  East  College.  The  origin  of  these 
societies,  which  are  still  extant  and  still  in  a  sense  distinct,  is  found 
in  the  Adelphic  Union  Society,  almost  coeval  with  the  College  itself. 
This  consisted  of  all  the  members  of  College  and  a  few  of  the  more 
advanced  students  of  the  Academy.  In  1795  this  society  had  a 
library  which  numbered  about  one  hundred  volumes,  and  which 
was  kept  in  the  southwest  corner  room  of  the  fourth  story  of  West 
College,  opposite  to  what  was  afterward  and  for  a  long  while  the 
tutor's  room.  In  the  fall  of  the  year  just  mentioned  all  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Freshman  class,  and  all  those  newly  entered  the  upper 
classes,  were  admitted  into  this  Adelphic  Union  Society,  which  held 
its  meetings  in  the  fourth  story  of  West  College,  in  the  northeast 
corner  room,  diagonally  across  the  hall  from  their  small  library. 
The  accessions  to  College  that  autumn,  together  with  all  the  old 
members,  made  up  so  many  that  they  could  not  all  be  accommodated 
well  in  their  place  of  meeting,  and  a  committee  was  appointed  to 
report  a  plan  of  division.  Knapp  and  Mason  of  the  class  of  '96  and 
Towner  of  the  class  of  '97  were  probably  that  committee;  at  any 
rate,  it  has  long  been  understood  that  these  three  were  the  indi- 
viduals most  active  in  bringing  about  the  pending  changes  in  the 
society,  which  were  important  and  proved  to  be  far-reaching.  A 
plan  of  division  was  reported  by  the  committee.  It  was  discussed 
for  several  evenings,  and  the  result  was  the  formation  of  the  Philo- 
logian and  Philotechnian  societies,  the  two  together  to  be  known  by 
the  old  name  of  the  Adelphic  Union,  and  the  library  to  be  held  in 
common.  After  the  East  College  was  built,  the  weekly  meeting  of 
these  societies  were  held  in  the  Senior  and  Junior  recitation  rooms, 
respectively,  and  the  library  was  kept  thereafter  for  many  years  on 
the  third  floor  of  the  West  College  in  the  room  over  the  east  entry- 
way.  These  societies  have  continued  with  names  unchanged  and 
their  principal  reciprocal  relations  maintained  till  the  present  time ; 
and  they  have  been  subject  almost  as  a  matter  of  course  to  alternate 
seasons  of  prosperity  and  decline,  some  of  the  causes  and  conse- 
quences of  which  may  probably  come  up  for  comment  on  a  future 
page  of  this  book. 

On  a  Sunday  afternoon  in  October,  1841,  while  the  students  were 
at  church  on  the  Square,  a  sudden  alarm  of  fire  was  given  in  the 
meeting-house,  and  the  students  rushed  out,  to  find  the  north  end 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       267 

of  the  East  College  all  in  a  blaze.  It  was  supposed  to  have  been 
communicated  from  a  stick  of  wood  falling  from  the  fireplace  to  the 
floor  in  a  room  directly  over  the  Senior  recitation  room,  that  is,  in 
a  room  situated  on  the  fourth  floor  and  west  side  and  north  hall. 
The  students,  as  they  always  do  under  such  circumstances,  showed 
the  greatest  pluck  and  persistency  in  saving  whatever  was  possible 
to  be  saved.  The  building  was  forty- five  years  old;  the  wooden 
interior  dried  by  the  fires  of  so  many  winters ;  no  water  nearer  than 
the  College  spring,  and  of  that  only  enough  to  wet  the  blankets, 
with  which  the  combustible  parts  of  the  Astronomical  Observa- 
tory were  covered,  and  so  was  saved  that  building  with  all  its  valu- 
able instruments ;  so  that  the  fire  spread  with  great  rapidity  from 
floor  to  floor,  and  from  end  to  end,  and  soon  the  noble  edifice  was  a 
smouldering  ruin.  The  students,  however,  were  enabled  to  save 
most  of  their  furniture  and  books,  excepting  those  which  were  in  the 
immediate  vicinity  of  the  room  in  which  the  fire  at  first  broke  out. 
The  small  theological  library  was  entirely  destroyed.  The  rooms 
belonging  to  the  Philologiari  and  Philotechnian  societies,  which  had 
been  recently  fitted  up  anew  by  the  students,  were  of  course  de- 
stroyed also,  but  the  major  part  of  their  libraries  and  furniture  was 
removed,  though  not  without  great  injury,  and  only  in  consequence 
of  the  utmost  exertions  of  the  students.  Some  of  those  who  will 
give  their  attention  to  these  pages  of  record  in  the  time  to  come  will 
probably  have  noted  already  that,  so  far  as  we  know  and  believe, 
the  very  first  subject  of  general  interest  and  discussion  to  the 
students  of  this  College  was  a  Literary  Society  of  their  own,  the 
Adelphic  Union,  and  a  library  of  their  own  in  connection  with  that; 
and  there  will  be  opportunity  of  observing,  from  time  to  time,  how 
earnestly  and  generously  and  almost  constantly  during  the  first 
century  of  the  College  the  students  gave  time  and  thought  and  money 
and  an  honest  rivalry  to  the  interests  generally  and  to  the  libraries 
in  particular  of  their  respective  literary  societies,  the  Philologian 
and  the  Philotechnian.  Many  an  Alumni  meeting  at  Commence- 
ment time  has  been  enlivened  by  the  reminiscences  of  old  graduates, 
how  one  society  or  the  other  was  supposed  to  have  gotten  the  advan- 
tage by  some  stroke  of  policy  or  embellishment. 

Thomas  Bobbins  entered  in  his  diary  under  the  date  of  May  14, 
1796,  "The  scholars  clean  the  ground  around  college  thoroughly." 
That  is,  around  the  West  College.  From  the  very  beginning,  until 
after  1850,  the  woodpiles  for  the  fall  and  winter  fuel  of  "the 
scholars,"  each  pile  by  itself  for  the  occupants  of  one  room,  rarely 
more  in  a  pile  than  one  cord  of  four-foot  wood,  were  laid  up  for  the 


268  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

most  part  against  the  outer  four  walls  of  the  building.  The  sawing 
of  the  wood  was  mostly  done  out  of  doors  and  at  these  piles,  and 
almost  exclusively  by  the  students  themselves.  About  Thanks- 
giving time  each  year  some  of  the  farmers  from  the  hills  around 
would  drive  into  the  College  yard  with  what  purported  to  be  a  cord 
of  "body"  wood,  and  offered  it  for  sale  at  a  given  price  to  some 
student.  "  There's  a  cord,  just  about,  but  you'll  take  it  for  just  what 
there  is!"  If  the  cautious  student  proposed  to  help  unload,  and 
pile  it  up  to  measure  it,  there  were  insuperable  objections  of  all 
sorts,  the  most  common  one  being,  "  /  tell  you,  I  can't  wait,  I've  got 
to  get  home  t'  chore  time  —  take  it  or  leave  it."  The  present  writer  has 
roomed  in  West  College  as  a  student,  and  witnessed  even  more  than 
he  experienced,  and  it  is  no  far-off  distant  tale  that  he  is  telling 
now.  By  the  judgment  of  charity  in  general,  and  by  the  subsequent 
measurement  of  many  a  load  in  particular,  the  average  quantum  of 
these  loads  may  have  been  three-fourths  of  a  cord.  Even  at  a  just 
measurement  of  the  cords,  however,  wood  for  fuel  was  cheap  in 
Williamstown  up  to  1850,  owing  to  the  abounding  forests  on  all  the 
encircling  hills.  But  whether  full  cords  or  short,  body  wood  or  top, 
beech  or  birch,  the  yard  itself  was  always  well  littered  by  spring- 
time with  the  inevitable  chips  and  bits  of  bark  and  sawdust  and 
whatnot.  It  seems  from  our  matter-of-fact  diarist  that  the  students 
from  the  very  first  deemed  it  to  be  their  proper  function  to  clean  up 
the  yard  in  the  springtime  "thoroughly."  In  this  prime  instance 
of  1796,  it  was  done  May  14.  The  same  custom  undoubtedly  estab- 
lished itself  at  once  in  connection  with  the  new  East  College.  Un- 
doubtedly, also,  there  came  to  be  some  rivalry  as  to  which  of  the 
two  grounds  should  present  the  "slickest"  appearance  after  the 
annual  cleaning.  Precisely  when  the  holiday  from  immemorial 
time  denominated  here  "  Chip  Day  "  originated,  there  are  no  means 
of  determining;  but  that  it  was  in  full  operation  throughout  the 
first  half  of  the  century  there  are  no  grounds  to  question.  It  cer- 
tainly went  out  of  usage  in  the  way  following,  to  wit :  the  students 
came  to  enjoy  the  spring  holiday  better  by  making  excursions  in  the 
neighborhood,  or  by  going  out  of  town,  than  by  working  themselves 
at  the  chips  with  rake  and  shovel  and  wheelbarrow ;  and  so  it  came 
about  that  a  committee  appointed  in  each  class  undertook  to  collect 
a  small  subscription,  say  ten  cents  on  the  average,  from  the  body 
of  the  class,  with  which  to  hire  some  outside  hangers-on  to  do  the 
work,  while  the  thereby  relieved  principals  went  their  ways  to  enjoy 
the  holiday  as  best  they  might.  Several  conspiring  principles  of 
our  common  human  nature  inevitably  brought  it  about  that  work 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       269 

done  under  such  circumstances  was  ill  done,  and  increasingly  so,  so 
that  the  College  authorities  came  to  take  the  care  of  the  grounds 
into  their  own  hands. 

The  class  of  1798,  which  was  the  first  to  hold  its  Commencement 
exercises  in  the  new  meeting-house,  which  was  not  even  then  quite 
finished,  was  at  its  graduation  just  three  times  as  large  as  the  class 
preceding,  and  just  five  times  as  large  as  the  class  of  1796.  As  we 
say  nowadays  under  like  conditions,  the  College  was  "booming." 
The  East  College  was  nearly  or  quite  finished,  and  presented,  espe- 
cially to  those  approaching  the  town  from  the  east,  a  really  fine 
appearance.  The  interest  of  every  part  of  Berkshire  County  in  the 
new  institution  in  its  northwestern  corner  is  evidenced  by  a  personal 
representation  of  each  part  in  this  relatively  large  class.  Levi 
Glezen  and  Amasa  Jerome  and  Oliver  Partridge  Sergeant  were  from 
Stockbridge;  William  Henry  Williams  was  from  West  Stockbridge, 
son  of  Colonel  Elijah  Williams,  half-brother  of  the  Founder;  Simeon 
Ford  and  David  Lord  Perry  were  from  Richmond;  William  P. 
Walker  was  from  Lenox;  William  Williams  was  from  Dalton;  Silas 
Hubbell  was  from  Lanesboro;  Daniel  Jones  from  North  Adams; 
and  Benjamin  Skinner,  son  of  Deacon  Benjamin  Skinner,  from 
Williamstown.  This  class  exhibits  also  the  first  considerable  in- 
coming for  educational  purposes  into  the  upper  valley  of  the  Hoosac 
from  all  portions  of  the  country  contiguous  to  Berkshire  County, 
—  an  incoming,  of  course,  with  temporary  fluctuations,  that  has  never 
ceased  to  this  day.  Williams  College  is  happily  situated  topographi- 
cally and  otherwise  in  relation  to  a  constituency  from  New  York 
and  Connecticut  and  Vermont.  The  Hoosac  Mountain  always  has 
been,  and  in  some  sense  will  continue  to  be,  notwithstanding  the 
Hoosac  Tunnel,  some  obstacle  to  patronage  from  the  central  parts 
of  Massachusetts  and  from  southern  New  Hampshire.  The  class 
of  1798  had  at  graduation  eight  members  from  Connecticut,  five 
from  Massachusetts  outside  of  Berkshire  County,  three  from  eastern 
New  York,  and  two  from  southern  Vermont.  Two  of  its  members, 
Levi  Glezen  and  William  P.  Walker,  were  the  second  and  third 
graduates  of  the  College  to  become  members  of  the  Board  of  Trustees, 
the  former  in  1813  and  the  latter  in  1824;  and  these  two,  on  other 
grounds  also,  may  properly  be  considered  the  most  distinguished 
members  of  that  class. 

They  were  graduated  amid  unusual  political  excitements.  John 
Adams  was  chosen  President  of  the  United  States  by  a  small  majority 
over  Jefferson  for  the  term  beginning  March  4,  1797;  and  the  main 
point  of  the  vehement  disputes  as  between  the  two  parties,  called 


270  WILLIAMSTOWIST   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

respectively  Federalists  and  Kepublicans,  was  the  attitude  to  be 
assumed  by  the  new  republic  toward  the  French  Revolution  and  the 
successive  governments  in  France  to  which  that  gave  rise.  The 
Federalists  were  in  general  opposed  to  the  French,  and  were  deter- 
mined at  all  events  to  maintain  a  neutral  position  as  between  Euro- 
pean combatants  and  complications;  while  the  Republicans,  in 
general,  took  opposite  grounds.  The  French  Directory  issued  decrees 
and  orders  virtually  authorizing  privateering,  and  other  measures 
highly  injurious  to  American  commerce;  and  public  opinion  on 
this  side  becoming,  in  consequence,  substantially  united  against  the 
French,  a  small  navy  was  set  on  foot,  an  army  partly  levied,  with 
Washington  for  commander-in-chief,  and  a  state  of  quasi  war  with 
France  ensued.  There  was  much  excitement.  The  students  here 
wrote  a  patriotic  letter  to  President  Adams,  offering  their  services 
to  the  country,  which  brought  back  from  him  a  handsome  letter,  a 
copy  of  which  ought  to  be  in  the  archives  of  the  College,  but  the 
present  writer  has  never  been  able  to  find  it.  In  the  pretty  certain 
prospect  of  this  war  with  France,  Congress  passed  a  house-tax,  which 
was  assessed  in  due  form,  and  is  on  record  so  far  as  Massachusetts 
is  concerned,  but  was  never  collected,  because  war  itself  was  averted 
by  means  of  three  special  commissions  sent  over  by  our  Government, 
who  fortunately  succeeded  in  arranging  peacefully  all  the  matters 
in  dispute  with  Bonaparte,  then  just  elected  First  Consul.  But  the 
house-taxes  assessed  in  the  towns  of  Massachusetts  remain  on  record 
in  the  Secretary's  office  at  Boston,  and  are  of  great  historical  sig- 
nificance, and  go  far  to  compensate,  in  the  information  they  impart 
to  later  generations  of  the  relative  condition  of  their  ancestors,  for 
all  the  excitements  and  pecuniary  losses  of  an  impending  war  with 
France.  The  knowledge  of  the  existence  even  of  these  assessments, 
so  far  as  Williamstown  is  concerned,  was  first  learned  by  the  writer 
a  few  years  ago,  and  were  carefully  copied  by  him  for  the  present 
purpose  and  use.  They  were  never  before  this  printed.  They  will 
be  here  given  entire,  with  absolute  fidelity  to  the  originals  in  every 
particular.  The  penetrating  reader  will  perceive  their  value. 

"I*  Oct.  1798. 

Dwelling-Houses  with  the  Out-houses  appurtenant  thereto  and  the  Lots  not 
exceeding  two  Acres  in  any  case  [which]  were  owned,  possessed,  or  occupied, 
within  the  assessment  District  No.  8  in  the  9th  Division  of  the  State  of  Massa- 
chusetts, exceeding  in  Value  the  sum  of  100  Dollars. 

Perches 

Aaron  Deming  25  $264.50 

Matthew  Dunning  Jr.  25  116.15 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       271 


Perches 

Jonathan  Danforth  25 

Col  Danforth  25 

John  Day  25 

Daniel  Dewey  40 

Daniel  Day  25 

Daniel  Day  25 

Jared  Foster  80 

William  Foster  25 

Zadock  Ford  25 

James  Fowler  25 

Jonathan  Giles  25 

James  Greene  40 

Robert  Hawkins  25 

Isaac  Holmes  25 

Calvin  Holmes  25 

Joseph  Hand  25 

Stephen  Hickox  25 

William  Hamilton  25 

Lemuel  Higgins  40 

David  Haydon  40 

John  Joslin  40 

Oliver  Barrett  25 

Reuben  Judd  25 

David  Johnson  1st  25 

Daniel  Kinny  25 
(heirs  of  Daniel  Kinny  deceased) 

Elizabeth  Krigger  25 
(heirs  of  John  Krigger  deceased) 

Samuel  Kellogg  25 

Nathaniel  Kellogg  25 

Richard  Kinny  25 

James  Meacham  40 

Samuel  Mills  25 

Samuel  McKay  40 

Thomas  Malady  40 

Elias  Marther  40 

Timothy  Northum  40 

Elias  Newbre  25 

David  Noble  40 

James  and  Willard  Morse  25 
(David  Noble  owner) 

Deodatus  Noble  40 

Ebenezer  Blin  40 
(Deodatus  Noble  owner) 

Samuel  Porter  40 

Thomas  Roe  25 

Warren  Roberts  25 

Elijah  Rich  25 


$132.25 
120.75 
747.50 
977.50 
172.50 

1495.00 
287.50 
264.50 
120.75 
116.15 
345.00 
207.00 
184.00 
116.15 
116.15 
116.15 
287.50 
125.35 
862.50 
690.00 
391.00 
138.00 
384.10 
132.25 
116.15 

116.15 

862.50 
116.15 
172.50 

1150.00 
207.50 
805.00 
132.25 
747.50 
172.50 
143.75 

1265.00 
287.50 

977.50 
1380.00 

460.00 
116.15 
143.75 
172.50 


272 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 


Perches 

Benjamin  Reed  25 

Pratt  25 

(Geo.  Reab  owner) 

Ard  Roberts  25 

William  Sloan  40 

Isaac  Sherwood  25 

Daniel  Smith  25 

Asa  Standish  350  sq.  ft. 

Benjamin  Skinner  25 
(Benj.  Simonds  owner) 

Abraham  Starke  25 
(Benj.  Simonds  owner) 

Ephraim  Seelye  25 

Reuben  Seelye  25 

Constant  Williams  25 

Seth  Swift  untaxed 

Jesse  Spencer  25 

Smedley  Levi  and  Elijah  25 

Elihu  Shearman  25 

Samuel  Sloan  25 

Samuel  Sloan  25 

Elnathan  Holmes  25 

Samuel  Stewart  25 

Charles  Sabin  25 

Timothy  Sabin  25 
(Charles  Sabin  owner) 

Samuel  Satterlee  2  acres 

Higgins  36 

(Samuel  Satterlee  owner) 

Wm  Bissell  Shearman  40 

Peruda  Isbell  25 
(W.  B.  Shearman  owner) 

William  Smith  40 

Lemuel  Stewart  25 

Lemuel  Scovil  Stewart  30 

Burral  Sutton  40 

Joseph  Tallmadge  1  acre 
(Lem.  Scovil  Stewart  owner) 

Stephen  Scott  2  acres 
(Tompson  J.  Skinner  owner) 

Lewis  Stebbins  40 

South'^  Munn  25 
(Lewis  Stebbins  owner) 

William  Starkweather  40 

Remembrance  Sheldon  40 

Ebenezer  Stratton  25 

Tompson  J.  Skinner  40 
(T.  J.  and  Benj.  Skinner  owner) 


$161.00 
120.75 

184.00 
207.50 
116.15 
149.50 
103.50 
977.50 

126.50 

632.50 
149.50 
264.50 

116.15 
977.50 
287.50 
287.50 
575.00 
1265.00 
149.50 
287.50 
129.37 

460.00 
230.00 

977.50 
264.50 

805.00 

1205.00 

1035.00 

402.50 

316.25 

287.50 

517.50 
120.75 

1840.00 
977.50 
345.00 
575.00 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       273 


Perches 

George  Reab  40 
(T.  J.  and  Benj.  Skinner  owners) 

Samuel  Tyler  25 

Elijah  Thomas  25 

Joseph  Thurston  40 

William  Towner  25 

William  Torrey  25 

Zebedee  Turner  25 

Joseph  Tallmadge  25 

James  Walker  25 

Nehemiah  Woodcock  25 

Bartholomew  Woodcock  25 
Joseph  Corbin                             650  sq.  ft. 

Solomon  Wolcott  25 

Solomon  Wright  30 

Elisha  Williams  30 

William  Wells  30 

Stephen  Wilcox  25 

Shubael  Wilmarth  25 

Whitman  Tim.  and  J.  P.  40 

Andrew  Young  40 

William  Young  40 

John  Snow  25 
(William  Young  owner) 

Moses  Young  25 


$3220.00 

172.50 
116.15 
345.00 
287.50 
287.50 
172.50 
247.25 
172.50 
230.00 
920.00 
103.50 
575.00 
690.00 
287.50 
116.15 
130.00 
143.75 
575.00 
120.75 
690.00 
120.75 

120.75 


Rate  prescribed  by  the  Commissions   15  per  centum.     Daniel  Dewey  was 
Principal  Assessor,  and  signs  the  return  as  such. 

Assistant  assessors  for  8th  District  9th  Division  of  Massachusetts  :  — 


Israel  Jones 
Samuel  Sloan 
Deodatus  Noble 
George  Lapham 
Joseph  Williams 
Jesse  King 

Nicolas  Clark 


North  Adams 

Williamstown 

Williamstown 

Hancock 

Savoy 

'  Unincorporated  Land  on 

Hoosac  Mountain ' 
Clarksburg 


Taxes  assessed  on  higher  Values  than  the  valuation  of  Principle  Assessor 
10  or  12  per  centum.'''1 

Here,  then,  in  the  autumn  of  1798,  were  107  houses  with  their 
immediate  premises  officially  assessed  as  of  a  value  exceeding  $100. 
There  were  probably  twice  as  many  more  houses,  say  214,  which 
fell  below  the  legally  required  valuation,  or  321  in  all  the  town. 
The  proof  of  this  probability  is  this :  by  the  first  national  census, 
in  1790,  there  were  1769  inhabitants  in  Williamstown ;  and  by  the 
next  census,  in  1800,  there  were  2086,  an  increase  in  the  ten  years 


274  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

of  317  persons.  If  we  may  assume  that  this  increase  were  uniform 
throughout  the  decade,  that  would  be  an  increment  of  nearly  32  per- 
sons a  year,  or  a  population  of  2015  in  1798.  It  was  at  any  rate 
2086  in  1800.  Now,  if  we  may  safely  assume  further  that  there 
were  on  the  average  six  heads  in  every  house  in  town,  then  were 
there  642  people  lodged  in  the  taxed  houses,  leaving  1373  people  in 
the  untaxed,  or  six  heads  at  least  in  each  of  the  214  thus  exempted 
from  the  national  tax  assessment.  This  is  of  course  only  approxi- 
mate, but  it  cannot  be  very  far  away  from  the  exact  truth.  The 
majority  of  the  people  of  Williamstown  in  1798  must  have  been 
very  poor. 

Only  eight  houses  in  town  were  then  valued  at  over  $1000  each, 
namely:  the  Mansion  House,  $3220;  William  Starkweather's, 
$1840;  Daniel  Day's,  $1495;  Deodatus  Noble's,  $1380;  Lemuel 
Stewart's,  $1265;  David  Noble's,  $1265;  James  Meacham's,  $1150; 
and  Scovil  Stewart's,  $1035. 

Only  twenty-two  homestead  premises  more  were  then  valued 
at  over  $500  each,  namely:  Daniel  Dewey's,  $977.50;  Deodatus 
Noble's,  $977.50;  Benjamin  Simonds's,  $977.50;  L.  and  E.  Smed- 
ley's,  $977.50;  Remembrance  Sheldon's,  $977.50;  Bissell  Sher- 
man's, $977.50  (six  thus  assessed  at  the  same  figure) ;  Bartholomew 
Woodcock's,  $920;  Lemuel  Higgins's,  $862.50;  Samuel  Kellogg's, 
$862.50;  Samuel  McKay's,  $805;  William  Smith's,  $805;  John 
Day's,  $747.50;  Elias  Mather's,  $747.50;  David  Haydon's,  $690; 
Solomon  Wright's,  $690;  William  Young's,  $690;  Ephraim  Seelye's, 
$632.50;  Solomon  Wolcott's,  $575;  T.  J.  Skinner's,  $575;  T.  and 
J.  P.  Whitman's,  $575;  Samuel  Sloan's,  $575;  and  Lewis  Steb- 
bins's,  $517.50.  The  rest  of  the  taxed  homesteads  as  such,  seventy- 
seven  in  number,  were  assessed  below  $500,  the  lowest  one,  that 
of  Joseph  Corbin,  being  put  at  $103.50.  Joseph  Corbin  had  two 
brothers,  Asa  and  Amasa,  also  settled  here  with  their  families  at 
that  time,  but  neither  of  these  had  a  house  that  came  up  to  the 
national  scratch  in  1798.  Indeed,  Joseph  Corbin,  who  had  seven 
children  born  here  1779-93,  removed  from  here  to  Plattsburg, 
New  York,  in  1799,  where  he  still  has  posterity.  William  G.  Bos- 
worth,  Williams  College,  '89,  is  a  direct  descendant  of  his;  and  so 
is  Austin  Corbin  of  New  York,  a  man  who  has  been  prominent  in 
financial  and  other  honorable  circles  in  his  day  and  generation. 
Clement  Corbin,  born  in  1616,  was  the  father  of  James  Corbin,  who 
became  the  first  settler  of  Woodstock,  Connecticut.  James's  three 
sons,  Asa  and  Amasa  and  Joseph,  were  in  military  service  in  the 
Eleventh  Eegiment  of  Connecticut  in  1776  in  the  campaign  around 


TOWN    AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       275 

New  York.  Not  long  after,  all  three  came  to  Williamstown,  and 
settled  at  the  South  Part,  one  or  more  of  them  on  the  Gore.  In 
the  line  of  Asa  Corbin  is  the  second  wife  of  Deacon  Henry  Blair 
of  South  Williamstown,  both  husband  and  wife  still  living,  much 
thought  of  by  their  neighbors,  in  this  year  of  Grace,  1895. 

About  a  score  of  the  houses  assessed  in  1798  are  still  standing  at 
the  present  time,  most  of  them  a  good  deal  changed  in  their  external 
appearance;  but  some  of  them  certainly,  and  among  these  William 
Young's  and  Bartholomew  Woodcock's  at  the  South  Part,  and  Re- 
membrance  Sheldon's  and  Benjamin  Simonds's  at  the  North  Part, 
look  very  much  as  they  did  then.  One  who  has  been  longer  a  pro- 
fessor in  Williams  College  than  any  one  else  during  the  first  century 
of  its  existence,  marks  with  pleasure  that  the  very  first  professor  in 
the  College,  Samuel  McKay,  lived  in  and  owned  one  of  the  best 
houses  then  in  town,  assessed  at  a  valuation  of  $805.  Seth  Swift, 
the  first  minister,  also  lived  in  a  good  house  still  standing,  but  as  it 
could  not  be  taxed  under  Massachusetts  laws,  it  was  courteously 
non-assessed  by  the  United  States. 

Nearly  half  a  score  of  the  unassessed  dwellings  in  1798,  including 
all  of  the  still  existing  "regulation  houses,"  may  be  identified  at  the 
present  time.  If  we  compare  carefully  the  subscription  list  for  the 
new  meeting-house  in  1796  with  this  assessment  list  of  two  years 
later,  we  shall  be  gratified  to  find  that  fully  one-half  of  those  eighty- 
eight  subscribers  dwelled  in  houses  not  deemed  worth  while  by  the 
United  States  to  tax,  on  account  of  their  not  being  adjudged  as 
worth  $100  each.  Some  of  these  subscriptions  made  by  ill-lodged 
residents  were  quite  large, —  as  many  as  five  subscribing  £20  each, 
seven  £15  each,  six  £12  each,  eight  £10  each,  and  Elisha  Baker, 
who  died  in  the  interval  between  the  subscription  and  the  assess- 
ment, put  down  and  paid  for  the  new  meeting-house  £25.  The 
smallest  subscription  was  that  of  Isaac  Miller,  12s.,  and  there  were 
four  others  less  than  £2  each.  Unmistakable  is  the  inference  from 
this  comparison  of  the  two  almost  contemporary  lists,  namely,  that 
the  majority  of  the  people  of  Williamstown  at  the  close  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  though  poor,  were  liberal  up  to  their  means  and 
beyond  their  means  as  toward  the  house  of  God. 

And  what  of  their  politics?  Here  again  the  diary  of  Thomas 
Eobbins  lets  in  several  streaks  of  welcome  light.  Under  different 
dates  during  April,  1796,  occur  the  following  significant  entries. 
"  A  great  deal  of  electioneering  in  the  papers  for  a  Governor  of  this 
State."  "Freemen's  Meeting,  full  and  disorderly."  "Almost  all 
voted  for  the  old  Governor."  "Great  noise  about  the  President  of 


276  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

the  U.  S.  refusing  to  give  up  the  papers  respecting  the  treaty  with 
Great  Britain."  "Political  difficulties  run  high."  The  Governor, 
for  whom  "almost  all  voted,"  was  Samuel  Adams,  a  cousin  of  John 
Adams,  and  four  years  older.  The  two  virtually  framed  the  first 
Constitution  of  Massachusetts,  that  of  1780,  and  also  the  address 
of  the  issuing  Convention  to  the  people  called  on  to  ratify  and  adopt 
their  work.  He  was  lieutenant-governor  of  the  State,  1789-94, 
and  governor  1794-97.  At  the  election  in  April,  1796,  the  can- 
didate being  then  seventy-four  years  old,  some  thought  a  younger 
man  should  be  chosen,  and  one  more  favorable  to  the  political  privi- 
leges of  the  leading  classes  in  Massachusetts.  Neither  of  these 
reasons  appealed  with  much  force  to  the  citizens  of  Williamstown. 
"Almost  all  voted  for  the  old  Governor."  Samuel  Adams  was  not 
only  a  personal  friend  of  Jefferson,  who  attributed  to  him  a  greater 
share  than  any  other  member  of  the  old  revolutionary  Congress  in 
devising  and  directing  its  measures  in  the  Northern  Department, 
but  also  the  two  men  agreed  in  their  radical  political  principles,  and 
in  the  general  interpretation  of  the  new  national  Constitution.  The 
two  were  alike  jealous  of  all  delegated  power,  even  in  the  hands  of 
a  Washington.  The  fundamental  Jeffersonian  principle  in  our 
national  politics,  which  has  continued  from  that  day  to  this  to  be 
the  ever-recurring  and  dividing  line  for  the  most  part  as  between 
our  so-called  great  national  parties,  is  the  principle  of  construing 
as  strictly  as  may  be  possible  to  the  language  employed  in  the  Con- 
stitution and  its  Amendments,  the  clauses  both  granting  to  and 
withholding  from  the  three  great  departments  of  the  national  Gov- 
ernment the  powers  ultimately  residing  in  the  people  themselves, 
and  by  much  the  larger  part  of  which  they  have  intrusted  to  their 
more  immediate  agents  in  the  State  governments  through  their  State 
Constitutions. 

Closely  allied  with  this  first  political  principle  of  the  country, 
and  this  criterion  of  two  great  parties  ever  since,  was  another  and 
one  usually  inseparable  from  the  defence  of  the  first  in  practice, 
namely,  that  Government  exists  for  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest 
number,  who  support  it  in  peace  and  fight  for  it  in  war-time.  A 
strong  temptation  and  opportunity  has  always  existed,  and  perhaps 
always  will  exist  in  some  degree,  for  those  intrusted  by  the  Consti- 
tution and  laws  with  powers  to  use  for  the  general  good  only,  to 
actually  use  a  portion  of  those  powers  for  the  special  good  of  a  few 
at  the  cost  and  expense  of  the  masses  of  the  people.  Colonial 
Massachusetts  had  a  considerable  number  of  special  privileges  for 
the  few  and  well-to-do,  partly  social  and  partly  ecclesiastical,  which 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE    TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       277 

were  against  the  rational  and  republican  liberty  of  the  many.  The 
Common  Law,  for  one  thing,  was  partial  and  aristocratic  in  its  appli- 
cation through  the  courts  of  the  colony  to  the  common  people.  As 
we  have  seen  already  on  a  preceding  page,  the  famous  "Shays's 
Eebellion  "  of  1787  was  specifically  directed  to  breaking  up  the  ses- 
sions of  the  courts  in  the  western  counties,  because  there  was  a 
popular  conviction,  with  which  the  rioters  were  willing  to  take  the 
risks,  that  the  laws  were  discriminating  and  unjust  as  toward  the 
less  privileged  classes  of  the  people.  We  know  there  were  many 
Shays  men  in  Williamstown;  and  when,  ten  years  later,  the  lines 
came  to  be  drawn  between  the  Federalists  and  Republicans  (as  the 
later  Democrats  were  then  called,  Alexander  Hamilton  being  even 
then  regarded  as  the  leader  of  the  former  and  Thomas  Jefferson  the 
leader  of  the  latter),  a  large  majority  of  the  Williamstown  people 
ranged  themselves  decidedly  among  the  Jeffersonians,  not  only  for 
the  election  of  Samuel  Adams  as  Governor  of  Massachusetts  in  1796, 
but  also  steadily  thereafter  to  both  elections  of  Jefferson  as  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States.  Their  local  leader  was  the  carpenter 
and  builder,  T.  J.  Skinner,  who  became  extremely  popular  in  the 
county  and  the  State,  and  whom  his  varied  constituents  carried 
through  almost  every  civil  office  within  their  gift  up  to  the  Treas- 
urership  of  the  State  of  Massachusetts  in  1806  and  1807.  He  is  said 
to  have  held  more  grades  of  civil  office  in  Massachusetts  than  any 
other  citizen  of  the  State  has  ever  done  since. 

When  the  Federalist  party  began  to  show  its  hand  in  the  first 
Congress  of  the  United  States  under  the  Constitution,  Fisher  Ames 
of  Massachusetts  and  one  Hartley  of  Pennsylvania  were  the  very 
first  members  to  lift  up  their  voices,  while  the  first  tariff  bill  was 
being  slowly  constructed  for  revenue  to  the  new  Government,  in 
favor  of  any  other  end  than  revenue  to  be  reached  through  the  taxes 
then  being  laid  on  the  people.  This  was  significant  of  after  times, 
when  these  two  States  became  the  leading  champions  of  what  was 
long  fondly  called  for  deception's  sake  "Protection."  "Protection," 
in  every  degree  of  it  and  in  every  phase  of  it  everywhere,  is  Privi- 
lege to  the  few  and  Plunder  to  the  many.  The  Federalist  party, 
while  it  performed  many  excellent  and  patriotic  duties  of  other 
sorts,  gave  itself  over  to  Privilege  contrary  to  the  equal  Eights  of 
the  masses  of  the  people,  and  so  lost  its  hold  upon  them  and  its  lease 
of  party  life.  The  election  of  Jefferson  as  President  in  1801  was 
the  death-knell  of  the  old  party  of  Privilege.  Alexander  Hamilton, 
Fisher  Ames,  and  Theodore  Sedgwick,  the  three  great  lights  of  the 
national  party,  saw  political  power  slip  out  of  their  fingers  never 


278  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

to  return,  a  good  while  before  their  respective  deaths  in  1804,  1808, 
and  1813.  The  large  Democratic  majority  in  Williainstown  con- 
tinued unbroken  until  the  defalcation  of  their  great  leader,  General 
Skinner,  as  Treasurer  of  the  Commonwealth  in  1807.  The  people 
of  the  town  were  in  no  sense  to  blame  for  this  great  blow  to  their 
party  and  its  head.  But  they  suffered  almost  the  same  as  if  they 
had  been  wholly  to  blame  for  it. 

The  president  and  the  majority  of  the  trustees  of  the  College 
were  strong  Federalists,  which  was  a  matter  of  personal  tempera- 
ment and  training  more  than  of  unbiased  judgment  on  broad  grounds 
of  political  principle  and  tendency.  In  a  certain  sense  the  College 
stood  over  against  the  town  politically,  and  thought  itself  wiser, 
when,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  was  only  narrower  and  more  selfish. 
The  pastors  and  the  churches  in  New  England  at  the  close  of  the 
eighteenth  century  were  overwhelmingly  Federalist,  and  were  at 
once  bigoted  and  self-righteous  in  their  federalism  as  well  as  in 
their  Calvinism.  Seth  Swift,  who  was  the  pastor  here  from  1779 
till  1807,  was  somewhat  separated  from  his  people  all  the  time  and 
considerably  separated  some  of  the  time  on  grounds  of  his  federal- 
ism, which  was  in  substance  Partiality  and  Privilege.  President 
D  wight  of  Yale  College,  in  the  second  volume  of  his  "Travels," 
giving  an  account  of  a  visit  made  in  Williamstown  in  September, 
1806,  has  these  interesting  words  to  offer  on  a  subject  about  which 
he  could  not  have  been  very  well  informed :  — 

The  inhabitants  of  Williamstown  have  been  injured  heretofore  by  political 
contentions.  Their  minister,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Swift,  a  gentleman  highly  respectable 
for  his  good  sense  and  piety,  who  died  February,  1807,  labored  long,  and  faith- 
fully, here,  under  many  discouragements,  both  for  the  want  of  a  sufficient  sup- 
port for  his  family,  and  from  a  disheartening  insensibility  of  his  hearers  to  the 
requisitions  of  the  Gospel.  But  towards  the  close  of  his  life  he  had  the  peculiar 
satisfaction'  to  see  an  extensive  revival  of  Religion  in  his  congregation,  and  a 
very  interesting  change  wrought  in  their  character." 

From  an  annual  average  admission  to  the  church  of  eight  per- 
sons in  the  five  years  1800-4,  there  passed  to  an  annual  average 
admission  of  forty-seven  in  the  three  years,  1805-7.  The 
"  political  contentions  "  referred  to  by  President  Dwight  were  not 
by  any  means  altogether  to  the  credit  of  the  pastor  and  the  particular 
families  of  his  flock  who,  with  him,  emphasized  Federalist  politics. 
Politics  were  carried  into  social  life,  and  became  bitter  and  divisive 
in  church  and  town  in  proportion  as  they  were  superficially  and 
socially  conceived  of.  President  Fitch  demonstrated  his  own  in- 
capacity for  political  discussion,  or  even  comprehension,  by  the 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE    TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       279 

wretched  caricatures  of  Jefferson  that  he  believed  in  and  socially 
circulated.  Seth  Swift  was  much  such  a  sort  of  man  as  Ebenezer 
Fitch.  It  may  be  asserted  with  confidence  that  neither  of  them  ever 
preached  from,  or  meditated  long  on,  or  was  capable  of  expounding, 
such  a  text  as  St  Paul's  "Honor  all  men"  With  these  two  heads  of 
families,  with  their  proper  official  precedence,  were  associated  as 
the  heads  of  the  Federalist  party  in  town  Samuel  Sloan,  David 
Noble,  Daniel  Dewey,  Levi  Smedley,  Nehemiah  Woodcock,  and 
Asa  Burbank.  On  the  other  hand,  both  of  the  Skinner  brothers, 
the  General  and  the  Deacon,  were  leading  Democrats,  as  were  also 
William  Towner,  a  celebrated  physician,  William  Young,  a  chief 
man  at  the  South  Part,  and  Keyes  Danforth,  the  elder,  equally 
prominent  at  the  North  Part.  So  strong  was  the  social  prejudice 
against  Democrats,  both  professionally  and -otherwise,  in  town  and 
College,  that  it  was  deemed  best  to  make  a  special  effort  to  bring  in 
a  Federalist  doctor  to  make  headway  against  the  extensive  practice 
of  Dr.  William  Towner.  Under  precisely  these  auspictes,  as  is  said, 
came  over  the  mountain  from  Northampton  Dr.  Remembrance 
Sheldon.  He  married  Olive,  the  eldest  daughter  of  Samuel  Sloan, 
and  was  thus  happily  introduced  into  Federalist  circles.  It  is  also 
said  that  when  members  of  Federalist  families  were  very  sick 
indeed,  Dr.  Towner  was  apt  to  be  called  in  to  them  after  all. 
Towner  was  surgeon's  mate  in  Colonel  Simonds's  regiment  in  1781. 
He  had  certain  exterior  advantages,  which  rarely  fail  to  tell  pro- 
fessionally, when  the  solid  basis  of  purely  professional  merit  is 
present.  He  was  a  large  and  well-proportioned  man,  of  pleasing 
manners,  fond  of  society,  readily  lending  his  attention  to  subjects 
outside  his  profession,  especially  to  politics,  —  an  all-engrossing 
concern  of  those  times.  He  was  strictly  temperate,  even  totally 
abstinent,  at  a  day  when  physicians  were  expected  (whenever  called) 
to  help  themselves  from  the  decanters  of  the  sideboard.  He  was 
found  to  be  a  hard  man  to' be  run  out  by  Federalist  doctors  as  such. 
Indeed,  all  the  evidence  points  to  his  remarkably  successful  medical 
career.  He  practised  as  far  as  Troy  on  the  west,  and  to  Pittsfield 
on  the  south.  What  was  strange  in  those  days,  he  never  bled  his 
fever  patients,  and  he  had  other  specialties  of  his  own,  particularly 
a  cure  for  the  "mad-dog  bite,"  which  never  transpired  to  his  fellow- 
practitioners.  He  died  in  Pownal  in  January,  1813,  exhausted  by 
his  incessant  labors  in  a  local  epidemic  of  pneumonia  during  the 
years  1812-14. 

His  son-in-law,  Dr.  Samuel  Smith,  who  had  been  practising  with 
him  only  a  short  time,  reached  his  bedside  there  in  time  to  be 


280  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

charged  on  no  account  to  bleed  him  as  it  would  be  his  death ;  but  in 
the  absence  of  Dr.  Smith,  Dr.  Porter,  his  contemporary  in  Williams- 
towri,  called  on  him  in  a  friendly  way,  and  although  his  symptoms 
were  already  more  favorable,  insisted  on  bleeding  him,  after  which 
he  failed  rapidly,  and  died  at  the  age  of  fifty-eight.  He  came  into  this 
region  from  New  Fairfield,  Connecticut,  and  settled  at  Stafford's  Hill, 
where  he  was  the  first  physician.  When  he  first  moved  to  Williams- 
town,  he  lived  in  the  "  pine-tree  house  "  on  Green  Eiver,  in  which  he 
was  preceded  by  Eev.  Seth  Swift.  Afterward  till  the  time  of  his 
death  he  lived  in  the  oldest  house  on  Water  Street,  still  standing 
opposite  the  Green  River  Mills.  He  had  reached  such  a  rank  in  the 
militia,  that  his  commission  as  brigadier-general  arrived  only  a  few 
days  after  his  death.  He  was  also  high  up  in  Freemasonry,  and  was 
buried  under  ceremonies-  of  both  Masonic  and  military  orders.  But 
no  man  knoweth  of  his  sepulchre  unto  this  day.  Although  the 
Masons  procured  for  him  a  monument,  it  was  never  erected ;  and  by 
a  shameful  nqfclect  the  place  of  his  grave  was  not  marked  and  is  now 
unknown.  Dr.  Towner  is  known  to  have  been  strenuous  in  his 
efforts  to  forward  the  interests  of  the  Free  School  on  its  opening  in 
October,  1791 ;  and  not  to  have  intermitted  such  efforts  when  the 
school  became  a  college  two  years  later.  We  may  have  noticed  a  few 
pages  back,  that  he  made  a  liberal  subscription  to  the  new  meeting- 
house of  £15;  but  he  was  a  churchman  by  preference,  and  as  often 
as  possible  attended  service  at  Lanesboro,  then  the  nearest  place  of 
Episcopal  worship ;  and  he  was  a  warm  admirer  of  President  Nott  of 
Schenectady,  who  occasionally  preached  in  Williamstown  in  times 
of  religious  interest.  In  the  house-tax  assessment  of  1798,  Dr. 
Towner's  house  was  put  down  at  $287.50  in  value;  but  he  died 
insolvent,  having  been  one  of  the  bondsmen  of  General  Skinner, 
who  defaulted  as  Treasurer  of  the  State  in  1807,  and  carried  down  .a 
number  of  his  bondsmen  with  himself.  The  late  Dr.  James  Smedley 
remembered  as  a  boy  seeing  Dr.  and  General  Towner  well  mounted 
on  the  parade  ground, —  "a  splendid  looking  man  in  regimentals." 
The  same  boy  witnessed  the  complex  military  and  Masonic  cere- 
monies at  the  funeral.  Deacon  Benjamin  Skinner  was  the  Masonic 
chaplain  on  that  occasion,  and  carried  the  open  Bible  in  the  proces- 
sion, that  was  still  impressive,  notwithstanding  the  strong  reaction 
that  had  taken  place  in  town  against  Democrats  and  Freemasons  in 
consequence  of  the  terrible  fall  of  General  Skinner,  and  of  the 
signal  troubles  of  his  bondsmen. 

The    two    eldest    sons    of    Dr.    Towner    were    already    enlisted 
soldiers  in  the  War  of  1812,  when  the  father  died;   and  it  was 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       281 

supposed  by  his  family,  that,  had  his  general's  commission  but 
found  him  alive  and  in  fair  health,  he  would  have  taken  the  field 
at  once  under  General  Dearborn,  who  had  himself  also  been  a  physi- 
cian before  he  became  soldier.  One  of  Towner's  sons,  whose  name 
was  Charles  Fox,  was  killed  by  a  cannon-ball  in  the  battle  of  Bridge- 
water.  Another,  whose  name  was  William  Cullen,  lived  to  return 
home  to  Williamstown  from  the  war,  but  never  to  distinguish  him- 
self in  any  way.  The  father  gave  names  to  his  boys,  that  later  stood 
in  stark  contrast  with  their  own  achievements.  One  of  them,  Harry 
Brown  by  name,  after  the  popular  sheriff  of  the  county,  peddled 
candy  in  college.  Other  sons  in  succession  were  Thomas  Jefferson, 
James  Madison,  John  Hancock,  and  Erasmus  Darwin.  The  last 
became  a  respectable  Baptist  minister,  in  whose  family  lived  the 
youngest  sister,  Mary.  Another  sister,  Sophia,  spent  her  life  un- 
married in  the  family  of  her  brother-in-law,  Dr.  Samuel  Smith,  who 
married  Betsey  Towner  when  he  was  eighteen  years  old,  a  black- 
smith, and  had  six  children  when,  at  twenty-nine,  he  entered  into 
partnership  in  the  practice  of  medicine  with  Dr.  Towner  in  1809. 
Louisa  Towner  married  Nathaniel  Kellogg,  Jr.,  Sally  married  Civil 
Boardman  and  spent  her  life  here,  and  Fanny  married  a  Mr.  Mc- 
Millen.  Dr.  Towner  was  in  succession  a  representative  and  a 
senator  in  the  General  Court  at  Boston,  and  was  an  active  Justice 
of  the  Peace  here.  He  was  in  the  House  of  Representatives  in 
1790,  1791,  1796,  1797,  1798,  1801,  1807,  1808,  and  1809 ;  and  in  the 
State  Senate,  in  the  years  1811  and  1812.  In  the  time  of  Shays's 
Rebellion  he  took  up  strong  ground  in  behalf  of  the  State,  notwith- 
standing his  personal  sympathies  and  political  predilections  with 
those  wronged  under  the  law,  as  it  then  stood ;  and  as  a  result  he 
became  very  obnoxious  to  his  own  neighbors  who  were  also  Shays's 
adherents,  the  most  prominent  of  whom  was  James  Meacham,  and 
was  on  one  occasion  shot  at  by  them,  some  of  their  buck  shot  lodging 
in  his  boot.  Remembrance  Sheldon  and  Asa  Burbank,  who  had  been 
his  comparatively  harmless  Federalist  rivals  in  medicine  throughout 
the  town  and  county,  were  no  longer  encountered  as  such  in  his 
later  years,  because  Sheldon  died  in  1809,  and  Burbank,  who  had 
been  one  of  his  own  medical  students  and  afterward  attended  medi- 
cal lectures  in  New  York,  moved  to  Lanesboro  near  the  beginning  of 
the  new  century. 

Neither  records  nor  traditions  yield  to  posterity  much  matter  in 
relation  to  the  politics  of  Dr.  Samuel  Porter,  who  became  famous 
here  on  other  grounds,  though  contemporary  with  both  Sheldon  and 
Towner,  and  survived  them  both,  dying  in  1822,  aged  sixty-six. 


282  WILLTAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

Like  Sheldon,  he  came  from  Northampton,  being  a  native  there, 
son  to  Dr.  Hezekiah  and  Hannah  Porter,  born  in  1756,  and  coming 
here  in  or  near  1780,  since  his  mother  died  here  in  1781,  and  is 
buried  at  the  South  Part,  as  are  also  three  of  the  doctor's  own 
wives,  and  an  unusual  number  of  children  dying  young.  While 
tradition  is  silent  as  to  Dr.  Porter's  politics,  it  is  verbose  enough 
about  him  as  a  "bone-setter"  and  a  fast  driver.  He  devoted  him- 
self especially  to  surgery,  while  his  compeers  practised  much  medi- 
cine and  some  politics.  He  was  certainly  fearless  and  probably 
reckless,  both  in  his  clinical  operations  and  in  his  Jehu-like  driving. 
When  asked  why  he  never  put  breeching  on  his  horses,  he  replied, 
using  an  epithet  somewhat  out  of  fashion  in  polite  society,  "that 
he  didn't  want  any  horses  that  couldn't  keep  out  of  the  way  of  his 
sulky!"  Reducing  dislocated  joints  was  pastime  to  him.  Ordinary 
doctors  in  those  days  shunned  that  kind  of  practice  as  beyond  their 
skill;  and  this  usage  brought  grist  from  far  and  near  to  Dr.  Porter's 
bone-mill.  In  his  college  lectures  on  anatomy  the  late  Mark  Hop- 
kins used  to  show  his  class  just  how  this  skilled  manipulator  tricked 
back  into  its  place  in  an  instant  one  of  the  bones  of  his  brother 
Albert's  fore-arm,  whom  his  father  had  brought  to  Williamstown 
all  the  way  from  Stockbridge  in  his  wagon,  because  there  was  nobody 
down  the  county  who  could  be  trusted  to  set  it  back  right!  There 
have  been  a  plenty  of  apocryphal  stories  afloat  about  Dr.  Porter's 
skill  in  surgery,  but  this  is  well  known,  that  he  once  went  to  New 
York  City  to  reduce  a  hip  dislocation  which  had  baffled  the  efforts 
of  the  faculty  there,  and  was  successful.  This  patient  was  a  lady. 
The  doctors  called  in  had  failed  to  replace  the  bone,  and  Porter  was 
sent  for.  He  started  in  his  sulky,  and  went  down.  The  city  doc- 
tors were  in  the  house  when  he  arrived.  "I  will  see  the  patient," 
said  he,  "but  these  doctors  cannot  be  present."  In  a  very  short 
time  the  bone  went  into  its  place  with  a  snap  heard  by  the  brethren 
in  the  outer  room.  "What  shall  I  pay  you?"  asked  the  gratified 
husband.  "  Fifty  dollars !  "  And  the  country  surgeon  returned  as 
he  went.  A  case  more  locally  famous  was  that  of  the  patroon  of  the 
Rensselaer  Manor,  whom  he  so  treated  surgically  as  to  extend  his 
own  fame  to  long  distances  on  the  upper  Hudson.  There  are  four 
natural  passes  over  the  Taconics  into  that  valley  from  Williams- 
town,  and  a  rude  public  road  over  each  pass ;  and  it  is  certain  that 
the  southernmost  of  these  roads,  the  one  over  the  "Johnson 
pass,"  so-called,  owed  construction  in  1813  largely  to  the  de- 
mand for  Dr.  Porter's  services  in  the  region  between  the  Taconics 
and  the  North  Kiver.  The  writer  himself  has  heard  this  from  the 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       283 

lips  of  one  who  was  personally  concerned  in  the  building  of  that 
road. 

Dr.  Porter  does  not  seem  to  have  subscribed  to  the  new  meeting- 
house in  1796.  Two  years  later,  his  own  house,  then  on  Stone  Hill, 
was  assessed  at  $460.  He  moved  a  number  of  times  during  his 
professional  life  here;  but  his  last  home,  the  one  in  which  he  died 
in  1822,  stood  on  Main  Street,  near  the  Square,  a  little  to  the  west 
of  the  present  A.  D.  Phi  house.  Subsequently,  several  doctors, 
among  them  Dr.  Eli  Adams  (Porter's  son-in-law),  Dr.  Lyndon 
A.  Smith  (who  married  Louisa  Griffin),  Dr.  H.  L.  Sabin,  and  Dr. 
C.  L.  Hubbel  lived  for  longer  or  shorter  times  in  the  same  house. 
It  was  later  kept  for  many  years  as  a  public  house,  usually  called 
the  "Kellogg  House."  It  was  said  of  Dr.  Porter  by  an  intelligent 
contemporary,  that  he  died  "  after  a  long  and  severe  illness,  which 
he  bore  with  great  patience  and  resignation.  He  was  an  active  and 
useful  man,  and  esteemed  for  his  benevolent  and  social  qualities." 
His  activity  as  a  surgeon  at  the  battle  of  Bennington  is  proven  by 
his  receipt,  given  the  next  day,  for  an  additional  case  of  amputating 
instruments,  quoted  at  length  in  the  preceding  chapter.  Alonson, 
Samuel,  and  James  were  sons  of  Dr.  Samuel  Porter,  and  the  two 
former  certainly  were  trained  by  him  as  physicians  and  surgeons. 
Alonson  practised  at  the  South  Part,  and  built  and  occupied  there 
the  brick  house  still  standing  on  a  part  of  the  original  estate  of 
William  Young,  confiscated  for  a  time  by  the  State  of  Massachu- 
setts, the  house  and  lot  now  owned  and  occupied  by  the  heirs  of 
Justin  Torrey.  Dr.  Alonson  Porter  survived  his  father  only  four 
years.  He  was  a  skilful  physician  but  an  intemperate  man,  and 
died  when  but  forty-eight.  Julius  Porter,  a  son  of  Dr.  Alonson, 
married  a  daughter  of  Nehemiah  Woodcock,  and  kept  a  store  at  the 
South  Part  for  many  years,  and  left  posterity  there.  Dr.  Samuel 
Porter,  Jr.,  made  his  home  at  Skaneateles,  New  York,  where  was 
born  in  1812  his  son  Mortimer  Porter,  Williams  College,  1831,  long 
a  diligent  and  successful  lawyer  in  New  York  City. 

If  we  turn  back  now  for  a  little  to  the  state  of  the  College  during 
the  very  last  years  of  the  century,  and  to  the  classes  graduated  in 
those  years,  we  may  be  able  to  glean  something  worth  while  to  those 
that  read  one  hundred  years  later.  It  has  already  been  noted  that 
the  class  of  1798  numbered  ten  more  than  the  aggregate  of  the  three 
preceding  classes,  that  is  to  say,  fifty  per  cent  more  than  the  entire 
body  of  graduates  from  the  beginning.  It  held  also  two  men  who 
early  became  trustees  of  the  College,  Levi  Glezen  (1813-26)  and 
William  P.  Walker  (1824-46).  Glezen  was  a  Scotch-Irish  bee 


284  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

out  of  the  Worcester  hive  of  1718.  He  was  a  fine  linguist  for  those 
times,  became  the  first  preceptor  of  Lenox  Academy,  and  continued 
the  same  relation  to  a  similar  institution  in  Kinderhook.  As  a 
trustee  he  distinguished  himself  by  firm  and  judicious  efforts  in  with- 
standing the  persistent  attempts  to  remove  the  College  to  Northamp- 
ton. Walker,  a  native  of  Lenox,  succeeded  his  father  in  1824  as 
the  Judge  of  Probate  for  Berkshire  County,  and  the  two  alike 
illumined  and  exalted  the  position  from  1795  till  1848.  The  son 
served  at  once  his  Alma  Mater  and  his  generation  with  distinguished 
ability  and  painstaking  fidelity. 

There  is  adequate  evidence  that  the  students  during  the  first 
decade  of  the  College,  speaking  generally,  chose  subjects  for  their 
discussions  and  books  for  their  reading  and  jaunts  for  their  vaca- 
tions which  became  intelligent  and  earnest  young  men  looking  for- 
ward toward  playing  significant  parts  in  Church  and  State.  The 
times  were  every  way  inspiring.  The  new  national  Government 
had  just  gone  into  operation,  amid  many  hopes  and  many  fears. 
The  States  were  jealous  of  the  nation,  and  the  nation  hardly  yet 
strong  enough  in  its  new  powers  to  go  on  alone.  Washington  died 
in  1799.  Jefferson  became  President  in  1801.  The  existence  of 
slavery  in  many  of  the  States  was  already  clearly  seen  by  the 
students  here  to  be  a  menace  and  a  contradiction.  The  class  of 
1796,  in  the  middle  of  their  Senior  year,  "disputed  the  necessity  of 
the  immediate  manumission  of  our  slaves;  settled  affirmatively.^ 
Members  of  that  class  are  known  to  have  been  reading  diligently 
during  that  year  such  books  as  Montesquieu's  "Spirit  of  Laws," 
and  Miller's  "Histories,"  alongside  of  their  regular  text-books,  like 
Yattel  and  Paley.  Fisher  Ames's  great  speech  in  Congress  of  that 
year  on  the  British  Treaty  was  sharply  handled  pro  and  con  on  this 
college  ground.  This  knowledge  we  owe  to  Thomas  Robbins's 
diary.  Paine's  "  Age  of  Reason  "  was  first  published  in  1793,  hav- 
ing been  written  in  a  French  prison.  In  less  than  three  years  there- 
after, its  influence  over  the  people  of  Vermont,  as  well  as  its  intrinsic 
character,  was  popularly  discussed  by  the  students  here.  Though 
foreign  and  domestic  news  came  late  and  zigzag,  for  there  was  no 
post-office  here  till  1798,  it  was  eagerly  devoured  and  thoroughly 
digested,  and  had  no  small  influence  in  gauging  opinions  and  con- 
duct. The  students  were  by  no  means  obsequious  to  the  judgment 
of  their  teachers.  Most  of  them  had  opportunity  in  their  vacations 
for  converse  and  association  with  other  prominent  men  and  minis- 
ters, by  whom  in  many  cases  they  had  been  fitted  for  college,  and 
whom  in  turn  they  were  able  to  serve  in  one  way  or  another.  The 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       285 

relations  between  Williamstown  and  New  Haven  were  varied  and 
constant  and  intimate.  The  newer  and  smaller  college  seems  to 
have  been  then  regarded  as  on  a  practically  equal  footing  with  the 
older  and  larger  one.  Both  had  the  inevitable  frictions  and  con- 
flicts of  their  times  and  positions. 

The  diary  of  President  Fitch  throws  more  or  less  light  on  the 
state  of  things  in  college  for  several  years.  We  quote  a  number  of 
entries  entire.  They  give  the  truth,  but  of  course  not  the  whole 
truth.  Certain  modifications  and  some  amplifications  will  be  pre- 
sented on  a  later  page. 

"January,  1799.  Things  go  well  in  our  infant  seminary.  Our  number  is 
hardly  as  large  as  it  was  last  year.  The  scarcity  of  money  is  one  cause  of  this 
decrease.  Some  leave  us  through  mere  poverty.  But  our  ambition  is  to  make 
good  scholars,  rather  than  to  add  to  our  numbers ;  and  in  this  we  mean  not  to 
be  outdone  by  any  college  in  New  England.  Perseverance  in  the  system  we 
have  adopted  will  eventually  give  reputation  to  this  institution  in  the  view  of  all 
who  prefer  the  useful  to  the  showy." 

"Dec.  1799.  The  college  is  in  a  prosperous  state.  The  students  continue 
to  be  diligent  and  orderly.  We  admitted  twenty-four  freshmen,  and  have  in  all 
eighty-one  members  of  college." 

"June,  1801.  Our  college  is  prospering.  We  have  admitted  forty-five  fresh- 
men and  nine  sophomores  this  year,  and  expect  to  make  the  number  up  to  sixty 
before  commencement." 

"January,  1802.  Our  freshman  class  this  year  is  not  as  large  as  usual,  but 
we  expect  it  will  increase  to  twenty-five  or  more.  A  larger  number  of  them 
than  usual  are  professors  of  religion ;  and  I  hope  will  make  pious  and  useful 
ministers.  Notwithstanding  the  cruel  and  malicious  slanders  thrown  so  pro- 
fusely of  late  on  the  clergy,  serious  young  men,  who  have  the  ministry  in  view, 
appear  not  to  be  disheartened.  The  great  Head  of  the  church  will  still,  I  trust, 
continue  a  succession  of  learned  and  evangelical  ministers  in  his  churches  in  this 
land.  He  appears  to  be  interposing  remarkably  for  the  increase  and  encourage- 
ment of  his  church  in  one  place  and  another ;  and  for  the  support  of  the  great 
cause  of  truth  and  piety.  Amidst  all  the  present  dark  and  threatening  appear- 
ances, some  light  shines  to  console  and  animate  the  friends  of  order,  govern- 
ment, and  religion.  The  clergy  are  now  experiencing  the  trial  of  '  cruel 
mocking ; '  and  it  will  not  be  surprising  if  '  scourgings,  bonds,  imprisonments  ' 
and  other  persecutions  should  follow,  for  the  trial  of  their  faith  and  patience. 
It  has  been  usual  for  God  to  suffer  his  church  to  sink  very  low  before  he  appears 
to  deliver  and  enlarge  it.  This  will  probably  be  eminently  the  case  previously  to 
its  last  great  deliverance  and  enlargement.  I  trust  that  ministers  and  Christians 
in  general  will  have  grace  and  strength  in  proportion  to  their  trials ;  and  have 
no  doubt  that  true  religion  will  ultimately  triumph." 

"  April,  1802.  We  have  lately  had  trouble  in  college.  The  judgments  which 
we  drew  up  and  published  to  the  classes  respecting  their  examination  in  March, 
gave  offence.  Three  classes  in  succession  were  in  a  state  of  insurrection  against 
government.  For  ten  days  we  had  a  good  deal  of  difficulty.  But  the  govern- 


286  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

ment  stood  firm,  and  determined  to  give  up  no  right.  At  last,  without  the  loss 
of  a  member,  we  reduced  all  to  due  obedience  and  subordination.  Never  before 
had  I  occasion  for  so  much  prudence  and  firmness  ;  not  even  in  the  grand  rebel- 
lion of  1782  at  Yale.  Most  of  the  students  are  now  very  much  ashamed  of  their 
late  conduct.  The  present  generation  of  them  will  not,  I  apprehend,  burn  their 
fingers  again.  They  have  found  that  we  will  support  our  authority." 

"March,  1803.  We  have  both  of  our  college  buildings  full  of  students. 
Nearly  thirty  of  them  are  serious  professors ;  and  many  more  of  them  are  such 
amiable  and  moral  young  men  that  we  have  strong  hopes  that  they  will  become 
truly  pious,  and  make  useful  and  devoted  ministers  of  the  gospel.  This  is  truly 
encouraging,  though  there  is  at  present  no  special  attention  to  religion  among  us." 

The  class  of  1799  had  but  just  half  the  numbers  of  the  class 
graduating  the  year  before,  only  fifteen  in  all;  but  it  held  one  name, 
that  practically  counted  ten  in  the  work  of  life,  and  in  work  for  the 
College.  This  name  was  that  of  Amos  Eaton,  who  came  to  have 
such  a  radical  influence  upon  the  early  curriculum  of  the  College, 
and  also  upon  the  popular  studies  of  all  New  England  and  New  York 
that  a  full  account  must  here  be  given  of  the  man,  and  of  the  means, 
by  which  such  great  and  lasting  changes  were  wrought, —  not  indeed 
by  him  alone,  but  by  him  as  the  leader  in  cooperation  and  conjunc- 
tion with  able  and  successful  coadjutors  during  the  opening  years 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  Williams  College  was  greatly  distin- 
guished by  successively  pushing  into  prominence  beyond  its  college 
compeers  at  the  time  in  New  England,  three  classes  of  studies,  each 
class  of  which  in  turn  maintaining  some  preeminence  for  about  its 
third  of  a  century,  both  over  the  other  studies  at  home  and  also  as 
well  over  even  the  corresponding  studies  at  the  other  colleges. 
The  first  class  of  these  studies  to  take  and  maintain  the  lead  at 
Williams  were  the  natural  sciences.  Amos  Eaton,  Chester  Dewey, 
and  Ebenezer  Emmons,  all  graduates  of  the  College,  and  all  long- 
time teaches  in  her  halls,  were  the  "  first  three  "  in  this  impulse 
and  progress. 

"So  far  as  it  may  be  convenient,"  runs  the  original  Law  of  the 
College,  adopted  by  the  trustees  in  respect  to  the  curriculum :  "  In 
the  first  year,  —  the  English,  Latin,  Greek,  and  French  languages. 
In  the  second, —  the  several  languages  in  part,  Arithmetic,  Geog- 
raphy, Algebra,  Geometry,  Mensurations,  Conic  Sections,  Rhetoric, 
and  Logic.  In  the  third, —  Trigonometry,  Navigation,  Surveying, 
Natural  Philosophy,  Astronomy,  and  Chemistry.  In  the  fourth 
year, —  Metaphysics,  Ethics,  History,  National  Law,  Civil  Polity, 
and  Theology."  We  have  already  learned  the  peculiar  circumstances 
under  which  French  slipped  out  of  the  course  in  1799.  Geography 
was  formally  dropped  out  by  vote  of  the  trustees  in  1831,  Arithmetic 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       287 

in  1837,  and  English  Grammar  in  1839.  It  is  not  by  any  means  to 
be  supposed  that  all  the  rest  of  these  two  dozen  branches  of  study 
originally  enumerated  had  any  adequate  presentation  to  the  students 
at  first,  if  ever.  The  original  trustees  were  most  of  them  well-educated 
men.  Eight  of  the  thirteen  were  graduates  of  Yale.  It  was  their  in- 
tention from  the  first  to  have  here  a  college  of  a  high  order,  one  that 
should  keep  step  with  Yale  itself  to  the  music  of  a  thorough  and 
comprehensive  education.  But  their  pecuniary  means  were  scanty. 
The  numbers  of  their  teachers  were  necessarily  few,  and  for  the  most 
part  tutors  untrained  except  by  the  discipline  gained  in  their  own 
limited  college  course.  The  library  was  very  small,  the  text-books 
wretchedly  inadequate,  and  the  apparatus  for  illustration  almost  nil. 
Each  teacher  taught  many  subjects,  so  far  as  they  were  taught  at  all. 
The  students  in  general  had  small  preparation  for  college,  and  their 
work  on  the  ground  was  much  interrupted  by  the  necessity  they  were 
under  of  doing  teaching  or  other  labor  in  term  time  in  order  to  help 
themselves  along.  For  nearly  twenty  years  no  one  class  of  studies, 
whether  languages  or  mathematics  or  natural  sciences  or  mental  and 
moral  sciences,  seem  to  have  taken  precedence  in  interest  over  any 
other  class  of  subjects  taught.  But  it  was  written,  and  it  came  to 
pass,  that  the  natural  sciences,  particularly  Botany  and  Geology 
and  Mineralogy  and  Chemistry,  through  the  living  agency  of  Eaton 
and  Dewey  and  Emmons  and  others,  got  the  first  strong  grip  on  the 
College  students,  and  held  it  for  their  appointed  time. 

In  May,  1776,  was  born  in  Chatham,  Amos  Eaton,  the  son  of  a 
highly  respected  farmer  there,  who  was  also  a  deacon  of  the  church. 
The  boy  was  gifted  and  precocious  and  ambitious.  During  his  whole 
life  he  possessed  a  remarkable  power  of  fluent  and  agreeable  speech. 
In  1790,  when  he  was  but  fourteen  years  old,  he  was  selected  to 
deliver  a  public  oration  on  the  4th  of  July,  which  was  said  to  be  a 
creditable  performance  in  every  point  of  view,  and  very  surprising 
in  a  boy  but  just  entered  on  his  teens.  A  year  or  two  later,  having 
carried  the  chain  for  a  local  surveyor  in  plotting  some  land  parcel, 
he  resolved  to  become  a  surveyor  himself.  But  how  was  he  to 
obtain  a  set  of  surveyor's  instruments.  He  must  have  an  accurate 
chain,  a  good  working  needle,  and  a  compass-case  properly  graduated. 
The  chain  came  first  in  his  mind.  He  soon  interested  a  skilful  black- 
smith of  the  neighborhood  in  his  plan,  who  agreed  to  work  for  the 
boy  by  night  if  he  would  "  blow  and  strike  "  for  him  by  day.  This 
circumstance  is  probably  the  only  basis  for  the  remark  made  in 
Silliman's  Journal,  that  young  Eaton  was  in  1791  apprenticed  to  a 
blacksmith.  A  needle  was  next  constructed,  and  magnetized  after 


288  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

a  primitive  method  from  a  pair  of  kitchen  tongs.  A  pretty  fair 
compass-case  was  then  made  from  the  flat  bottom  of  an  old  pewter 
plate,  smoothed  and  polished  and  graduated  in  an  exterior  circle. 
Sixteen  years  old,  and  thus  armed  and  equipped,  Eaton  was  soon  in 
the  field  doing  little  jobs  of  surveying  for  the  farmers  in  the  neigh- 
borhood. But  he  was  not  satisfied.  He  wanted  a  better  education. 
Encouraged  by  his  parents,  and  also  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  David  Porter, 
then  of  Spencertown,  later  of  Catskill,  the  boy  fitted  for  college,  and 
was  graduated  at  Williams  in  1799,  with  a  good  reputation  for  his 
scientific  attainments,  but  he  had  no  glimmer  at  that  time  of  what 
his  future  career  in  life  would  be. 

He  studied  law,  first  in  Spencertown,  and  afterward  in  New  York, 
in  the  office  of  Alexander  Hamilton,  where  accidentally  and  for- 
tunately he  fell  under  the  scientific  instruction  of  David  Hosack  and 
Samuel  L.  Mitchill,  and  became,  almost  unknown  to  himself,  con- 
siderably interested  in  the  study  of  Botany  and  some  of  the  other 
natural  sciences.  In  1802  he  borrowed  a  copy  of  Kirwan's  "  Miner- 
alogy," then  a  scarce  book,  and  made  a  manuscript  copy  of  the  book 
from  preface  to  finis.  Soon  after  he  settled  in  Catskill  as  a  lawyer 
and  land  agent,  where  he  remained  for  several  years,  and  where 
occurred  a  combination  of  circumstances  connected  with  his  pro- 
fession, not  altogether  creditable  to  him,  which  in  their  result 
diminished  his  practical  devotion  to  his  calling  and  led  to  its  aban- 
donment, and  to  the  adoption  in  its  place  of  the  now  more  congenial 
pursuits  of  the  natural  sciences.  He  had  already,  in  May,  1810,  in 
Catskill,  made  what  is  believed  to  have  been  the  first  attempt  in 
this  country  at  a  popular  course  of  lectures  on  Botany,  compiling 
for  this  purpose  for  the  use  of  his  class  a  small  elementary  treatise. 
On  this  he  was  highly  complimented  by  his  former  teacher,  Dr. 
Hosack,  who  pronounced  him  the  "first  in  the  field,"  adding,  "You 
have  adopted  the  true  system  of  education,  and  very  properly  address 
yourself  to  the  senses  and  the  memory."  Under  this  and  other 
similar  encouragement,  Eaton  resolved  to  prepare  himself  to  become 
an  efficient  promoter  of  the  sciences  after  a  natural  method. 

Accordingly,  in  1815,  he  went  to  New  Haven  to  put  himself  under 
the  instruction  of  Professor  Silliman  in  particular,  and  others,  if  he 
should  find  them  available  and  competent  instructors.  He  found  a 
warm  welcome  from  Silliman,  who  threw  open  to  him  his  lectures 
on  Geology,  Mineralogy,  and  Chemistry,  his  library  also,  and  the 
then  small  cabinet  belonging  to  Yale  College.  The  Professor  of 
Botany  and  Materia  Medica  in  the  medical  department  of  the  Col- 
lege, Dr.  Eli  Ives,  was  a  good  botanist  and  had  a  good  library,  and 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       289 

gave  every  facility  in  his  power  to  Amos  Eaton,  who  already  prom- 
ised to  become  a  new  force  in  science.  Grateful  to  Yale  for  helping 
him  forward  toward  his  now  distinct  goal,  namely,  to  take  the  field 
as  an  explorer  and  the  desk  as  a  teacher,  Eaton  in  March,  1817, 
turned  his  face  toward  his  Alma  Mater,  desiring  her  indorsement  of 
himself  as  a  competent  teacher  before  he  went  forth  into  the  world 
in  such  a  capacity.  He  was  welcomed  on  the  ground  by  the  faculty 
of  the  College,  and  particularly  by  Professor  Chester  Dewey,  then 
and  for  long  the  most  influential  member  of  the  faculty.  Eaton 
was  at  once  invited  to  give  courses  of  lectures  on  Botany,  Mineral- 
ogy, and  Geology  to  volunteer  classes  of  the  students.  His  influ- 
ence in  the  College  was  immediate,  and  became  remarkable.  He 
awakened  a  lively  interest  in  the  natural  sciences,  which  held  on, 
and  increased,  and  became  a  characteristic  of  the  College,  the  lead- 
ing educational  interest  here,  certainly  until  after  the  Semi-cen- 
tennial of  1843. 

The  students  took  hold  of  this  matter  with  all  the  more  vigor,  be- 
cause it  was  voluntary  with  themselves,  and  in  no  sense  prescribed 
by  college  authority.  The  following  letter  addressed  to  "The 
Author  of  Richard's  'Botanical  Dictionary,7  "  dated  "Williams  Col- 
lege, 8th  April,  1817,"  with  its  signatures  as  well  as  contents,  is  in 
several  respects  the  most  notable  document  that  the  history  of  the 
College  during  its  first  century  presents  to  the  careful  historical 
inquirer. 

DEAR  SIR 

We  consider  ourselves  happy  in  having  an  opportunity  to  express  our 
gratitude  for  the  assiduity  and  care,  which  you  have  manifested  for  our  im- 
provement in  Natural  Science.  As  the  course  of  lectures  on  Mineralogy,  which 
you  have  conducted  so  entirely  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  Faculty  of  this  College, 
and  so  much  to  the  benefit  of  your  class,  is  nearly  completed,  we  are  gratified 
with  the  prospect  of  attending  your  course  of  Lectures  on  Botany,  knowing  that 
our  improvement  in  that  branch  of  Natural  Science  would  be  greatly  facilitated 
"by  a  systematic  description  of  vegetables,  and  being  destitute  of  such  a  system, 
we  render  you  our  thanks  for  the  one,  which  you  have  been  pleased,  gratuitously, 
to  present  to  us  for  publication. 

Accept,  dear  Sir, 

The  assurances  of  our  respect  and  esteem. 
H.  Walker  Bishop  Luther  Hamilton 

Dorus  L.  Clark  Lyman  James 

William  Eastman  Medad  Pomeroy 

Emory  C.  Washburn  Charles  Dillingham 

Selah  R.  Arms  William  A.  Hallock 

Daniel  Barnard  Gerard  H.  Hallock 

Homer  Bartlett  Anson  T.  Hooker 


290  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

Chandler  Bates  Cyrus  M.  Lazell 

Lucas  Morgan  Joseph  P.  Mosher 

William  Richards  Hervey  Smith 

Thomas  Spring  B.  Horace  Starkweather 

Lemuel  P.  Bates  George  W.  Benedict 

Daniel  I.  Betts  David  L.  Coe 

Joshua  N.  Danforth  Parker  L.  Hall 

Ebenezer  Emmons  Gardner  Haydon 

Joseph  H.  Estabrook  Leicester  Lloyd 

Charles  Fitch  Thomas  Peck 

William  A.  Porter  William  Wells 

John  B.  Skinner  John  Whiton 

Royal  W.  Smith  Samuel  Dickenson 

John  C.  Brigham  Alvan  Alvord 

Nelson  Brown  Charles  Baker 

Elijah  H.  Burrit  Johnson  Baldwin 

Dwight  Baldwin  Benjamin  F.  Clark 

Andrew  Burrham  Jonathan  Ely 

Gardiner  Dorrance  Abner  Forbes 

Simon  C.  Ewers  William  Gildersleeve 

Mason  Fussell  William  W.  Hunt 

Edward  Hooker  William  C.  Kittredge 

Royal  Joy  Elijah  Thayer 

John  C.  Morgan  Alvan  Wheeler 
Isaac  Oakes 

This  "Manual  of  Botany,"  so-called  in  its  first  edition,  which 
numbered  about  500  copies,  was  printed  in  Albany  by  "  Websters 
and  Skinners,"  bearing  the  date  "  1817 ; "  and  just  above  this  on  the 
title-page  is  the  following  :  — 

"By  the  Members  of  the  Botanical  Class 

in  Williams  College,  (Mass.) 

From  a  Manuscript  System 

Compiled  by  the  Author  of 

Richard's  Botanical  Dictionary." 

The  first  name  of  the  sixty-three  appended  to  this  notable  letter 
to  Professor  Eaton  is  that  of  Henry  W.  Bishop,  who,  then  a  Senior 
in  college,  probably  composed  the  letter,  who  was  born  in  Williams- 
town  in  1796  in  a  house  standing  on  the  site  of  the  old  West  Hoosac 
fort,  who  spent  a  long  life  as  a  lawyer  and  a  judge  in  Lenox,  who 
was  a  valued  trustee  of  the  College,  as  was  also  his  father  before 
him,  and  who  was  in  1854  Democratic  candidate  for  Governor  of 
Massachusetts  against  another  signer  of  this  letter  of  1817,  Emory  C. 
Washburn,  a  classmate  and  lifelong  friend  of  Bishop's.  Washburn 
became  the  governor.  Bishop  carried  a  light  heart  into  his  seventy- 
sixth  year.  A  Williamstown  girl,  Sarah  Bulkley,  became  Bishop's 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL    THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       291 

wife  in  1822.  Washburn  was  disappointed  in  love  with  another 
Williamstown  girl,  who  became  successively  Mrs.  Porter  and  Mrs. 
Stoddard.  Governor  Washburn  made  no  bones  of  talking  about 
this  with  his  friends  in  later  life,  and  why  should  we  in  making  up 
the  record? 

Besides  these  two  most  prominent  names  among  the  sixty-three, 
an  uncommonly  large  proportion  of  the  rest  became  useful  and  dis- 
tinguished men,  such  as  Daniel  D.  Barnard,  the  two  Hallock 
brothers,  Ebenezer  Emmons,  William  Eichards,  Joshua  N.  Dan- 
forth,  William  A.  Porter,  John  B.  Skinner,  and  John  C.  Brigham. 
The  last-named  presented  a  copy  of  this  "Manual  of  Botany,"  with 
his  autograph  on  the  title-page,  to  the  "  Mineralogical  Society," 
which  is  the  only  evidence  in  existence  known  to  the  writer  that 
such  a  society  ever  existed  in  the  College.  It  antedated  the  Linnsean 
Society,  and  this  in  turn  was  merged  into  the  Natural  History 
Society;  and  this  particular  volume  (doubtless  with  others)  passed 
over  into  the  library  of  the  more  comprehensive  and  long-lived 
organization  last  named,  whence  it  came  at  length  into  the  College 
Library,  where  it  will  always  remain,  as  it  is  one  of  the  most  inter- 
esting and  historically  valuable  books  in  that  constantly  augmenting 
collection.  The  work  itself,  improved  by  frequent  additions  and 
revisions,  became  in  the  eighth  edition,  published  in  1840,  an  octavo 
volume  of  625  pages,  entitled  "North  American  Botany,"  and  con- 
tained a  description  of  5267  species  of  plants.  This  "Manual  of 
Botany,"  widely  circulated  as  it  became,  and  the  first  popular  text- 
book on  the  subject  published  in  the  United  States,  brought  its 
author  much  honor,  though  but  little  money;  still,  he  loved  science 
for  its  own  sake,  and  he  introduced  into  all  the  editions  from  the 
fifth  as  a  motto  on  the  title-page  the  following  sentence  from  Lin- 
naeus, That  existence  is  surely  contemptible  which  regards  only  the  grati- 
fication of  instinctive  wants  and  the  preservation  of  a  body  made  to 
perish. 

Amos  Eaton  and  Ebenezer  Emmons  began  and  carried  on  their 
practical  studies  in  Geology  through  field-work  and  stratification, 
at  the  very  time  when  Jonathan  Otley  and  Professor  Sedgwick  were 
doing  the  same  things  among  the  rocks  of  Cumberland  in  the  English 
Lake  district.1  In  1818,  in  compliance  with  a  special  invitation  from 
DeWitt  Clinton,  then  Governor  of  New  York,  Eaton  went  to  Albany, 
and  there  gave  a  course  of  lectures  before  the  members  of  the  State 
Legislature,  emphasizing  Geology  in  its  application  to  agriculture, 
and  then  and  there  put  in  train  the  causes  that  led  up  to  "The 
1  See  Rawnsley's  English  Lakes,  pp.  123  et  seq.  of  Vol.  I. 


292  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

Natural  History  of  New  York,"  in  the  Introduction  to  which  great 
work  Governor  Seward  said  of  Eaton's  geological  survey  of  the 
region  through  which  the  Erie  Canal  afterward  passed,  and  which 
was  published  with  a  profile  section  of  rock  formations  from  the 
Atlantic  Ocean  across  the  States  of  Massachusetts  and  New  York  to 
Lake  Erie  in  1824:  "This  publication  marked  an  era  in  the  progress 
of  Geology  in  this  country.  It  is  in  some  respects,  inaccurate,  but 
it  must  be  remembered  that  its  talented  and  indefatigable  author 
was  without  a  guide  in  exploring  the  older  formations,  and  that  he 
described  rocks  which  no  geologist  had,  at  that  time,  attempted  to 
classify.  Bocks  were  then  classified  chiefly  by  their  mineralogical 
characters  and  the  aid  which  the  science  has  since  learned  to  derive 
from  fossils  in  determining  the  chronology  and  classification  of  rocks 
was  scarcely  known  here,  and  had  only  just  begun  to  be  appreciated 
in  Europe.  We  are  indebted,  nevertheless,  to  Professor  Eaton  for 
the  commencement  of  that  independence  of  European  classification 
which  has  been  found  indispensable  in  describing  the  New  York 
system.  After  examining  our  rocks  with  as  much  care  and  accuracy 
as  I  am  capable  of  doing,  I  venture  to  say  that  we  .have  at  least  five 
distinct  and  continuous  strata,  neither  of  which  can  with  propriety 
take  any  name  hitherto  given  and  defined  in  any  European  treatise 
which  has  reached  this  country.  Professor  Eaton  enumerated  nearly 
all  the  rocks  in  western  New  York  in  their  order  of  succession,  and 
his  enumeration  has,  with  one  or  two  exceptions,  proved  correct. 
It  is  a  matter  of  surprise  that  he  recognized,  at  so  early  a  period, 
the  old  red  sandstone  on  the  Catskill  Mountains,  a  discovery  the 
reality  of  which  has  since  been  proved  by  fossil  tests." 

Eaton  had  nearly  the  same  priority  of  service  in  scientific  Geology 
as  in  scientific  Botany,  so  far  forth  as  this  country  is  concerned.  In 
1818  he  published  the  first  edition  of  his  "  Index  to  the  Geology  of 
the  Northern  States,"  which  a  competent  authority  pronounced  "the 
first  attempt  at  a  general  arrangement  of  the  geological  strata  in 
North  America."  The  same  year  he  put  out  the  second  edition  of 
the  "Manual  of  Botany,"  and  inscribed  it  to  the  president  and  pro- 
fessors of  Williams  College,  saying  in  the  inscription,  "  The  science 
of  Botany  is  indebted  to  you  for  its  first  introduction  into  the  interior 
of  the  United  States;  and  I  am  indebted  to  you  for  a  passport  into 
the  scientific  world."  Professor  Silliman  in  his  Journal  remarked 
of  Eaton's  Agricultural  Survey  of  Albany  and  Kensselaer  counties, 
undertaken  in  1820  under  the  patronage  and  expense  of  General  Van 
Eensselaer,  "  The  attempt  is  novel  in  this  country;  we  are  not  aware 
of  any  attempt  on  so  extensive  and  systematic  a  scale  to  make  such 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       293 

surveys  subservient  to  the  important  interests  of  agriculture."  In 
the  same  year,  1820,  Eaton  was  appointed  Professor  of  Natural 
History  in  the  medical  college  at  Castleton,  Vermont,  where  he 
delivered  several  courses  of  lectures;  and  when  in  1824  General 
Van  Rensselaer  established  his  famous  School  of  Science  in  Troy, 
he  caused  Amos  Eaton  to  be  appointed  "Senior  Professor,"  a  place 
which  he  filled  with  usefulness  and  reputation,  both  as  author  and 
lecturer  so  long  as  he  lived.  He  died  in  1842,  aged  sixty-six  years. 
He  was  the  first  alumnus  of  Williams  College  to  achieve  a  lasting 
personal  distinction  in  science.  He  was  the  first  to  give  a  great 
and  permanent  impulse  in  his  Alma  Mater  to  the  always  Important 
studies  of  Natural  History.  He  was  also  the  first  teacher  in  the 
College  to  gain  and  hold  the  warm  admiration  of  his  pupils.  To 
Professor  Chester  Dewey,  who  continued  and  intensified  in  the  in- 
stitution the  influences  and  impulses  but  just  referred  to,  Eaton  was 
warmly  attached,  and  the  two  regarded  each  other  as  fellow-laborers 
and  earnest  cooperators  in  science,  and  held  one  another  in  the 
highest  esteem  as  friends. 

Major  A.  B.  Eaton,  who  was  graduated  at  West  Point  in  1826, 
and  who  spent  a  reputable  life  in  the  army  of  the  United  States, 
was  a  son  of  Amos  Eaton.  The  late  Professor  Daniel  Cady  Eaton, 
of  Yale,  was  a  son  of  Major  Eaton,  and  very  distinguished  for  his 
attainments  and  impartations  in  that  great  department  of  science 
which  gave  name  and  fame  to  his  grandfather. 

The  stream  runs  easily  away  from  its  source.  Yet  the  explorer 
has  need  ever  and  anon  for  purposes  of  description  to  go  back  to  its 
head-spring,  or  at  least  to  some  upper  stretch  of  his  stream,  to  get  a 
new  point  of  view,  and  in  a  sense  to  begin  over  again.  We  were 
looking  a  little  while  ago  to  the  tax  list  of  the  United  States  as 
levied  on  the  men  of  Williamstown  in  1798.  But  it  was  never  col- 
lected, because  a  successful  diplomacy  instituted  by  bluff  John  Adams 
staved  off  an  impending  war  with  France,  to  help  pay  for  the  expenses 
of  which  the  tax  was  imposed.  But  the  people  of  Williamstown 
got  very  late  news'  in  those  days  of  the  events  of  war  and  peace  at 
home  and  abroad.  The  town  is  naturally  extremely  isolated.  High 
Hoosacs  on  the  east  with  no  tunnel  under  them,  high  Taconics  on 
the  west  with  only  four  pretty  high  passes  over  them,  lofty  tumbles 
of  Vermont  hills  on  the  north  dropping  off  into  a  narrow  valley  just 
wide  enough  for  the  exit  of  the  river,  and  from  the  south  nothing 
but  two  gorges  between  high  hills  uniting  in  the  little  opening  of 
South  Williamstown,  permitted  only  difficult  access  from  any  direc- 
tion to  our  larger  and  more  beautiful  opening  at  the  north  village. 


294  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

No  post-office  was  established  here  until  1798.  William  Stark- 
weather was  the  first  postmaster,  appointed  Jan.  1,  1798.  Till  then 
letters  were  only  brought  and  sent  casually.  The  population  in  1790 
by  the  first  national  census  was  1769,  and  in  1800  by  the  second  was 
2086.  The  people  were  numerous  enough  to  be  earlier  entitled  to 
postal  accommodations.  But  they  were  unaccessible.  They  were  off 
from  any  through  route  in  any  direction.  It  is  to  be  presumed  that 
the  first  mails  came  into  Williamstown  horseback-wise  over  the 
Hoosac  Mountain  by  the  old  Mohawk  trail  from  Greenfield.  It  is 
possible,  since  Albany  was  at  the  beginning  a  prominent  distributing 
point,  and'has  always  continued  such,  that  a  weekly  mail  came  up  the 
Hoosac  from  the  North  River  so  far  as  Williamstown.  At  any  rate, 
there  was  an  early  postal  route  from  Albany  through  Hancock  to 
Williamstown;  and  Captain  Caleb  Gardner,  or  rather  one  of  his  sons, 
kept  a  tavern  in  Hancock  partly  for  its  accommodation,  which  was 
called  the  "  Gardner  tavern."  About  1812,  old  Mr.  Green,  who  lived 
in  Lanesboro,  used  to  bring  from  Stockbridge  to  Williamstown  once 
a  week  the  two  newspapers  of  the  county,  namely,  the  Western  Star 
and  the  Pittsfield  Sun.  He  took  in  subscriptions  for  the  papers  as- 
well  as  delivered  them.  He  circulated  also  "  Wild's  Almanac  "  in. 
its  yearly  season.  His  whipstock  was  a  tin  horn  covered  with 
leather,  to  which  the  lash  was  attached,  and  on  which  he  blew  a 
sound  blast  at  every  house  where  either  of  his  papers  was  taken. 
The  main  route  for  letters  certainly  continued  to  be  the  weekly 
horseback  service  over  the  mountain  to  and  from  Greenfield.  The 
Smedleys  used  to  send  open,  that  is,  unsealed,  letters  by  this  postal 
rider  to  their  friends  and  relatives,  the  Hawks  families,  in  Charle- 
mont.  Postage  was  very  high  in  those  days,  but  the  law  allowed 
the  postman  to  carry  unsealed  letters  on  any  terms  he  chose  ta 
impose.  Within  certain  prescribed  circuits  the  legal  postal  rates 
increased  as  the  distance  increased  within  the  country  itself.  When 
a  boy  in  New  Hampshire  the  writer  well  remembers  that  his  mother 
had  to  pay  twenty-five  cents  each  on  letters  to  or  from  her  brother 
in  Ohio.  About  1820,  however,  much  rejoicing  was  felt  and  ex- 
pressed here,  when  a  new  mail  route  was  opened  through  Williams- 
town  from  Greenfield  to  Troy,  a  hack  service  to  run  twice  a  week, 
good  for  passengers  also.  A  turnpike  had  in  the  meantime  been 
built  over  the  Hoosac  Mountain,  following  so  far  as  possible  the 
line  of  the  Indian  trail.  This  route  continued  substantially  un- 
changed till  the  opening  of  the  Troy  and  Boston  Railroad  in  1853. 
Very  early  in  the  present  century  a  turnpike  had  been  carried  over 
the  Taconics  also  by  the  Berlin  pass  to  Troy;  and  old  Mr.  Whelden 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       295 

drove  a  stage  thither  for  passengers  and  bundles  every  other  week-day 
for  many  years.  Of  course  the  railroad  put  a  stop  to  that  convey- 
ance also.  Lasting  much  longer,  indeed  until  about  1890,  was  a 
stage  route  for  both  passengers  and  mail  from  Williamstown  over 
the  southern  watershed  through  Lanesboro  to  Pittsfield. 

But  what  about  our  first  postmaster,  William  Starkweather?  He 
served  from  January,  1798,  till  July,  1803.  He  was  not  among  the 
early  comers  hither,  but  he  married  the  daughter,  Polly  Sloan,  of 
one  of  the  very  early  comers,  Samuel  Sloan.  Because  he  was  a 
Justice  of  the  Peace,  and  tried  petty  local  causes,  as  did  also  his 
son  Augustus  in  the  same  place  a  generation  later,  he  was  commonly 
called  "  Squire  "  Starkweather,  and  appears  to  have  been  the  first 
citizen  of  the  town  to  carry  that  coveted  prefix  to  his  name,  unless 
David  Noble  may  have  popularly  preceded  him  in  this.  The  mili- 
tary origin  and  subsequent  circumstances  of  Williamstown  made  the 
military  titles  to  be  much  desired  and  very  common.  Starkweather's 
father-in-law  was  General  Sloan.  General  Skinner  was  a  contem- 
porary. Colonels  were  thick,  and  majors  still  more  so.  Captains 
and  lieutenants  were  so  numerous  as  to  have  but  little  distinction 
on  account  of  their  titles.  Scarce  is  ever  costly.  But  Squire  Stark- 
weather, though  he  bore  a  coveted  civil  title,  and  became  the  first 
postmaster  (doubtless  more  through  General  Sloan's  influence  than 
his  own),  did  not  bear  a  very  good  reputation,  and  neither  did  his 
petty  court  of  justice.  Two  very  old  ladies  of  the  village,  both 
natives,  and  both  of  sound  mind  and  memory,  concur  in  this  state- 
ment.1 Particulars  of  the  transgressions,  whether  personal  or  civil, 
have  not  come  down  from  that,  the  first  decade  of  the  century,  to 
this  the  last.  Still  it  is  worth  noting  that  priority  in  a  recognized 
title  of  honor,  and  in  the  possession  of  an  important  public  office, 
confers  no  exemption  from  the  operation  of  a  universal  moral  law. 
As  a  man  soweth  so  shall  he  also  reap. 

Two  of  Squire  Starkweather's  sons  became  alumni  of  the  College, 
William  in  1809  and  Henry  in  1825.  Both  of  these  young  men. 
studied  law,  and  the  older  of  them  practised  at  times  before  his 
father  as  a  justice;  and  as  Kobbins  Bulkley,  the  elder,  sometimes 
appeared  there  as  a  deputy  sheriff  of  the  county,  and  Erastus  Noble 
as  a  constable,  the  court  was  shadowed  by  the  shadowy  reputation 
of  its  officials,  and  the  epithet  "  den  of  thieves  "  is  known  to  have 
been  sometimes  popularly  applied  to  it.  What  has  chiefly  caused 
the  Starkweather  family  to  be  remembered  and  honored  is  the  mar- 

1  Mrs.  Mary  Talmadge  Hosford  in  her  ninety-second,  and  Mrs.  Lucy  Bridges 
Smedley  in  her  eighty-eighth  year. 


296  W1LLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

riage  of  three  of  the  daughters  to  three  of  the  graduates  of  the  Col- 
lege, each  of  them  all  remarkable  men  and  women.  Homer  Bartlett 
of  the  class  of  1818,  and  one  of  the  signers  of  the  already  quoted 
letter  to  Amos  Eaton,  and  later  for  eleven  years  one  of  the  faithful 
trustees  of  the  College,  married  Mary  Starkweather  in  1823.  Tn 
the  town  record  of  births,  Sept.  11,  1794,  her  Christian  name,  as 
well  as  that  of  her  mother,  Feb.  12,  1766,  is  put  down  as  " Polly," 
showing  that  while  Mary  and  Polly  were  regarded  as  identical  names, 
the  latter  was  often  used  by  preference  of  the  parents  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  child's  life.  Parsons  Cooke  of  the  class  of  1822,  doctor 
of  divinity,  preacher,  and  editor,  "defender  of  the  faith"  in  both 
capacities,  married  Hannah  Sloan  Starkweather,  whose  birth  is 
recorded  March  18,  1800.  She  was  exactly  one  month  younger  than 
her  husband,  and  was  named  from  her  grandmother,  Hannah  Doug- 
las Sloan.  A  classmate  of  Cooke's,  and  later  for  ten  years  joint 
editor  with  him  of  the  New  England  Puritan,  was  J.  E.  Woodbridge, 
a  grandson  of  Jonathan  Edwards,  after  whom  he  was  named,  and 
upon  whom  in  some  sense  his  mantle  was  supposed  to  have  rested, 
though  there  was  certainly  a  vast  difference  between  the  two  men;  he 
married  Catherine  Starkweather  in  1834.  Augustus  Starkweather, 
born  in  1796,  continued  to  a  good  old  age  as  the  sole  representative 
of  his  family  in  town. 

Squire  Starkweather  was  well-to-do  in  this  world's  goods,  and  he 
owed  much  of  his  position  to  this  circumstance.  He  subscribed  £20 
to  the  new  meeting-house  in  1796,  though  he  was  never  a  member 
of  the  church,  nor  did  his  wife  become  such  till  1801.  His  house 
was  assessed  by  the  United  States  in  1798  as  worth  $1840,  nor  was 
there  any  other  private  dwelling  valued  then  at  so  high  a  figure. 
The  Mansion  House,  built  and  kept  as  a  tavern,  alone  surpassed  it 
in  estimation  on  that  list,  fortunately  preserved,  namely,  $3220. 
Daniel  Day's  house  at  the  foot  of  Consumption  Hill,  comes  next 
below  Starkweather's,  namely,  $1495.  Both  of  these  houses  are 
still  standing,  considerably  transformed,  and  the  Starkweather  one 
slightly  transferred  in  place;  but  it  is  plain  that  the  Day  house  was 
finer,  and  much  more  ornamented  externally;  why,  then,  should  it 
have  been  taxed  at  a  smaller  sum?  Obviously  because  at  that  time 
a  situation  on  or  near  the  "  Square  "  enhanced  values  very  much  in 
comparison  with  one  on  the  lower  and  alluvial  level  at  the  east  end 
of  the  village.  The  Square  was  designed  to  be  the  centre  of  life  and 
business  and  worship  from  the  original  survey  of  the  town  in  the 
spring  of  1750;  because  the  broad  Main  Street  at  its  rectangular 
bisection  by  the  North  and  South  streets  at  once  constituted  and 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       297 

was  named  the  "  Square  " ;  because  also  the  original  house-lots  were 
numbered  from  this  bisection,  and  the  lots  reserved  to  the  ministry 
and  school  were  located  there;  and  because,  further,  without  any 
real  or  lasting  dispute,  the  first  meeting-house  of  1766  was  placed 
there.  The  four  corners  thus  constituted,  with  their  natural  exten- 
sions in  both  directions,  continued  to  be  the  practical  centre  of 
things  in  the  village  till  the  second  meeting-house  burned  down  in 
1866;  and,  consequently,  land-parcels  in  that  neighborhood  tended 
to  bear  a  higher  price  than  corresponding  lots  in  other  parts  of  the 
village.  All  this  was  changed  by  the  erection  of  the  third  meeting- 


"DAY   HOUSE";    THEN    DEWEY   HOUSE;    NOW    "  D.    U."    HOUSE. 

house  in  the  intervale  between  the  first  and  second  village  eminences, 
as  those  are  -reckoned  from  the  east. 

William  Starkweather  built  his  house  on  House-lot  No.  2,  near 
the  junction  of  North  Street  with  Main,  and  built  his  store  of  two 
stories  nearly  in  line  with  his  house  a  few  rods  nearer  the  Square, 
that  is,  to  the  south  of  the  house.  Both  house  and  store  fronted 
the  east,  and  stood  directly  opposite  the  Mansion  House  across 
North  Street.  The  house  was  a  large  two-story  one,  double,  with 
a  hall  running  through  the  middle  east  and  west,  and  the  two  tene- 
ments quite  distinct  both  below  and  above.  It  was  a  handsome 
house  when  built,  painted  white,  with  immensely  strong  white  oak 
timbers,  and  perhaps  relatively  deserved  its  tax  of  1798 ;  but,  situ- 


298  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

ated  on  the  clay,  for  which  the  entire  house-lot  was  famous,  the 
walls  gradually  fell  out  of  plumb,  the  exterior  became  weather- 
beaten  and  wood-colored,  and  the  two  tenements  were  rented  at  low 
rates  to  relatively  poor  families.  Henry  Starkweather,  the  young- 
est son,  settled  in  mercantile  business  in  New  York,  where  his 
daughter  married  John  T.  Hoffman,  afterward  mayor  of  the  city 
and  Governor  of  the  State.  These  political  successes  of  the  son-in- 
law  indirectly  enriched  the  father-in-law,  and  the  latter  purchased 
the  homestead,  moved  the  house  several  rods  nearer  to  the  store, 
turned  it  round  endwise  to  the  street,  and  fitted  it  up  in  its  present 
location.  A  fire  in  1853  made  considerable  changes  necessary  in 
the  rear  part  of  the  building;  Morton  Gavitt  made  further  changes 
and  additions  while  he  owned  the  premises;  and  the  Kappa  Alpha 
Society  now  own  and  occupy  it,  as  shown  in  the  wood-cut,  as  an 
annex  to  their  own  fine  establishment. 

The  old  store  was  moved  away  to  the  west  on  Main  Street  many 
years  ago,  to  become  for  a  time  the  home  of  Rev.  H.  E.  Hoisington, 
an  alumnus  of  Williams  in  1828,  a  returned  missionary  from  Ceylon, 
and  later  the  home  of  "  Uncle  Jerry  "  Hosford  of  delightful  memory, 
and  of  his  wife,  still  living  with  her  two  daughters  in  the  neighbor- 
hood. When  it  became  necessary  to  take  down  in  1892  this  old 
store  and  dwelling,  in  order  to  make  room  for  Mr.  Proctor's  palatial 
residence,  its  timbers  were  so  sound  as  to  make  it  worth  while  to 
carry  them  a  mile  or  more  to  the  north,  and  to  put  them  partly  into 
a  new  barn  and  partly  into  a  new  house  near  the  Hoosac  Eiver, 
owned  and  occupied  by  Mr.  Russell.  Besides  this  House-lot  No.  2, 
on  the  northern  end  of  which  was  the  bed  of  clay  that  yielded  the 
bricks  for  both  the  West  College  and  the  (original)  East  College, 
burned  down  in  1841,  Starkweather  and  his  heirs  owned  a  good 
farm  adjoining  the  Prindle  place,  and  not  far  from  the  Petersburg 
Pass,  both  of  which  farms  have  lately  passed  into  one,  and  are  now 
under  the  skilful  tillage  of  their  owner,  George  Brookman.  • 

William  Starkweather  kept  the  post-office  in  his  store  on  the 
corner  so  long  as  he  was  postmaster,  that  is,  till  July  1,  1803,  when 
Ezekiel  Bacon,  son  of  Judge  John  Bacon  of  Stockbridge,  became 
our  second  postmaster.  John  Bacon,  a  graduate  of  Princeton  Col- 
lege in  1765,  was  pastor  of  the  Old  South  church  in  Boston  from 
1771  to  1775,  where  his  son,  Ezekiel  Bacon,  was  born  in  1776,  and 
the  family  moved  that  year  to  Stockbridge.  The  father  entered 
upon  civil  life,  both  legislative  and  judicial,  though  he  still  occa- 
sionally preached,  and  became  very  prominent  and  influential.  The 
son  was  graduated  at  Yale  in  1794,  and  commenced  the  practice  of 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       299 

law  in  1798  in  Williamstown,  but  moved  to  Pittsfield  in  1806.  In 
that  year  he  was  chosen  State  Senator  from  Berkshire,  as  his  father 
had  been  before  him;  and  like  his  father  also,  a  few  years  earlier, 
in  1807  he  was  elected  a  member  of  Congress,  receiving,  it  is  said, 
every  vote  in  Pittsfield  and  nearly  every  vote  in  the  congressional 
district.  He  was  a  firm  Democrat  in  contradistinction  from  the 
contemporary  Federalist,  and  continued  in  Congress  for  four  terms, 
serving  on  the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means,  and  becoming  its 
chairman  in  the  trying  times  of  1812-13.  He  will  long  be  remem- 
bered for  his  eminent  service  in  securing  through  his  controlling 
influence  with  the  President  the  appointment  of  Judge  Story  to  the 
Supreme  Bench  of  the  United  States,  before  that  afterward  renowned 


CHAPTER-HOUSE   OF    KAPPA   ALPHA. 
Part  of  Starkweather's  house  in  extreme  right,  old  Store  extreme  left. 

jurist  knew  that  he  was  a  candidate.  Bacon  had  a  poetic  tempera- 
ment, and  near  the  close  of  a  remarkably  useful  life,  that  is,  in  1842, 
he  published  a  volume  of.  poems,  dedicated  to  his  old  friend,  Judge 
Story,  and  entitled  "Kecreations  in  a  Sick-room."  We  shall  learn 
more  about  Ezekiel  Bacon's  remarkable  probity  in  the  account  soon 
to  follow  this  of  General  Skinner's  defalcation  as  Treasurer  of  the 
State.  His  name  was  on  Skinner's  bond,  and  he  ceased  to  be  post- 
master in  April,  1807,  which  was  the  last  year  of  Skinner's  service; 
and  his  retirement  was  very  likely  in  some  connection  with  the 
developments  in  Skinner's  financial  affairs,  then  beginning  to  be 


300  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

made.  It  is  almost  certain  that  Bacon  kept  the  post-office  where 
Starkweather  had  kept  it,  that  is,  in  the  store  on  the  corner,  and 
where  Bacon's  successor  is  known  to  have  kept  it. 

Henry  Clinton  Brown,  commonly  called  Major  Brown,  because  he 
was  once  tendered  a  major's  commission  in  the  United  States  Army, 
was  the  son  of  Colonel  John  Brown,  of  very  distinguished  and 
patriotic  memory,  who  was  killed  in  the  Revolutionary  battle  of 
Stone  Arabia,  in  1780,  when  Henry  C.  was  only  five  months  old. 
The  father  was  an  alumnus  of  Yale,  1761,  a  lawyer  in  Pittsfield, 
the  most  active  patriot  in  Berkshire  County,  of  which  he  was  a 
native  in  1744.  Mrs.  Brown,  intending  to  rear  her  son  to  his  father's 
profession,  put  him  into  the  Free  School  at  Williamstown  when  he 
was  about  a  dozen  years  old.  Impaired  health  finally  compelled  him 
to  relinquish  the  purpose  of  becoming  a  lawyer,  and  he  was  trained 
a  merchant,  establishing  himself  in  business  at  Williamstown,  and 
becoming  the  third  postmaster  here  in  April,  1807.  August  12, 
1804,  he  married  here  Tryphosa  Sutton,  a  daughter  of  Burrall  Sut- 
ton,  who  was  also  a  merchant  on  the  Square,  perhaps  in  company 
with  his  son-in-law,  the  postmaster.  Both,  at  any  rate,  occupied 
parts  of  the  Starkweather  store.  This  connection  brings  into  notice 
again  for  a  little  the  opposite  corner  of  the  Square,  the  house  on 
House-lot  No.  1,  then  owned  and  occupied  by  Sutton,  which  was 
assessed  for  taxing  purposes  in  1798  at  $402.50.  This  was  the  old 
Smedley  corner.  The  then  gambrel-roofed  house  enclosed  in  its  L 
the  old  "regulation  house"  built  by  Nehemiah  Smedley  not  far 
from  1753,  and  occupied  by  him  for  nearly  twenty  years,  when  he 
purchased  the  farm  on  Green  River  at  the  east  side  of  the  village, 
and  built  the  large  farmhouse  now  standing  there.  Burrall  Sutton 
had  not  been  resident  here  long,  and  very  little  is  known  about  him 
or  his  family,  except  his  two  daughters,  Mrs.  Brown  and  Mrs.  Drake 
Mills.  One  day  the  town  was  shocked  by  the  news  that  Burrall 
Sutton  had  committed  suicide  in  his  store  in  broad  daylight.  The 
body  was  immediately  carried  across  the  Square  into  his  own  house, 
where  Mrs.  Esther  Bulkley  Sabin  happened,  as  a  neighbor,  to  be  at 
the  time,  and  the  late  Dr.  H.  L.  Sabin,  her  son,  has  told  the  writer 
of  the  consternation  produced,  not  only  in  the  home  but  also  through- 
out the  town,  by  the  catastrophe.  There  is  no  intimation  by 
tradition  or  record  of  any  earlier  suicide  in  Williamstown.  The 
circumstances  of  his  family  gave  point  to  the  universal  surprise  and 
sorrow.  Mrs.  Sutton  gave  birth  about  three  months  afterward  to  a 
daughter,  named  Abby,  who,  as  the  wife  and  widow  of  Mr.  Drake 
Mills,  a  merchant  of  New  York,  had  a  strange  career,  suggesting 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE    TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       301 

insanity  in  her  own  case  and  in  that  of  her  father  also.  A  daughter 
of  Mr.  Mills  married  Fernando  Wood,  twice  mayor  of  New  York. 
The  following  from  a  New  York  newspaper  gives  the  ending  of  per- 
haps the  strangest  and  saddest  story  furnished  by  the  annals  of 
Williamstown. 

Fernando  Wood's  last  wife  is  still  living,  but  is  hopelessly  insane.  Her 
mother,  Mrs  Drake  Mills,  was,  if  not  insane,  at  least  very  eccentric.  She  was 
very  rich,  and  during  the  latter  years  of  her  life  lived  in  a  small  room  on  the  top 
floor  of  a  second-class  hotel.  She  took  great  delight  in  annoying  Mr.  Wood  and 
his  wife,  with  whom  she  was  not  on  good  terms.  She  had  the  finest  diamonds 
in  Washington,  and  her  victoria,  drawn  by  a  magnificent  pair  of  banged  chest- 
•nut  horses  imported  from  England  and  driven  by  an  old  coachman  of  Lord 
Napier,  was  a  swell  affair.  She  was  very  fat  and  common  looking,  but  when 
she  drove  out  she  was  dressed  in  the  gayest  colors  and  her  lap  was  covered  with 
a  robe  of  ostrich  plumes.  She  fell  out  of  the  window  one  night  while  under  the 
influence  of  liquor  and  was  found  in  the  area  of  the  hotel  in  the  morning.  She 
left  a  will,  in  which  she  bequeathed  Mr.  Wood  a  dollar  gold-piece  "  to  remember 
me  by,"  she  said. 

Henry  C.  Brown  represented  Williamstown  in  the  General  Court 
for  the  years  1810-11,  and  the  following  year  was  appointed  high 
sheriff  of  the  county  of  Berkshire,  and  removed  to  Pittsfield,  where 
he  continued  to  hold  this  office  acceptably  to  the  people  for  twenty- 
seven  years,  till  his  death  in  1838,  that  is,  from  the  age  of  thirty- 
two  till  that  of  fifty-nine.  The  vacancy  he  was  called  to  fill  in  1812 
was  caused  by  the  appointment  of  Sheriff  Larned  to  the  colonelcy 
of  the  Ninth  Regiment  of  the  United  States  army.  Mrs.  Tryphosa 
Sutton  Brown  died  in  1814,  in  her  thirty-fourth  year.  The  distin- 
guishing characteristic  of  Sheriff  Brown  was  a  genuine  courtesy, 
exhibited  alike  in  his  intercourse  with  his  equals  and  with  those 
in  the  lower  walks  of  life.  He  is  said  to  have  been  active  in  all 
benevolent  undertakings,  and  a  supporter  of  everything  that  tended 
to  the  elevation  of  morals.  He  left  behind  him  daughters,  who 
came  to  fill  unusually  high  places  in  society.  It  is  perhaps  proper 
in  this  connection  to  append  a  list  of  the  high  sheriffs  of  Berkshire 
from  the  time  of  the  organization  of  the  county  in  1761  to  the 
present. 

Elijah  Williams  Stockbridge 

Israel  Dickinson  Sheffield 

John  Fellows  Sheffield 

Caleb  Hyde  Lenox 

Tompson  J.  Skinner  Williamstown 

Simon  Larned  Pittsfield 

Henry  C.  Brown  Pittsfield 


302  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

Thomas  Twining  Sandisfield 

Edward  F.  Ensign  Sheffield 

George  S.  Willis  Pittsfield 

Graham  A.  Root  Sheffield 

H.  B.  Wellington  Pittsfield 

John  Crosby  Pittsfield 

A.  F.  Fuller  North  Adams 

In  the  meantime,  while  these  events  were  transpiring  in  the  town 
and  the  county,  the  thread  of  the  College  affairs  was  being  obscurely 
but  continuously  and  strongly  spun.  The  loss  of  Professor  Mackay 
was  severely  felt,  but  there  was  no  one  then  fitted  to  take  his  place, 
and  tutors  continued  to  carry  on  the  bulk  of  the  instruction  till  1806. 
Among  these  tutors  was  Gamaliel  Smith  Olds,  an  alumnus  of  1801, 
a  scholar  and  teacher  able  to  bear  comparison  in  almost  all  points 
with  Amos  Eaton.  He  was  a  tutor  from  1803  to  1805,  and  was  then 
appointed  Professor  of  Mathematics  and  Natural  Philosophy,  the 
duties  of  which  department  he  performed  with  great  acceptance  for 
two  years,  when  in  consequence  of  a  disagreement  with  the  presi- 
dent, equally  sorry  to  them  both,  he  resigned  his  position.  He  was 
only  the  second  professor  the  College  had  had.  President  Fitch  had 
been  dealing  with  temporary  tutors  from  the  beginning,  with  the 
sole  exception  of  Professor  Mackay,  1795-99.  It  is  only  too  plain 
from  the  copious  account  given  of  the  causes  of  this  resignation  by 
Professor  Chester  Dewey,  who  succeeded  Professor  Olds  in  1808, 
that  the  president  was  chiefly  to  blame  for  the  troubles  which  came 
upon  the  College  in  that  year,  and  which  proved  as  untoward  to  the 
institution  as  to  both  of  the  chief  participators  in  them.  This  story  is 
instructive,  and  it  must  here  be  clearly  brought  out  in  all  its  aspects, 
because  it  was  the  first  decided  manifestation  on  Williams  ground 
of  a  tendency  on  the  part  of  a  president  to  assume  authoritative 
functions  never  conferred  on  him,  never  designed  by  charter  or 
trustees  to  be  exercised  by  him,  and  never  actually  put  in  practice 
by  any  president  then  or  since  without  a  deadening  moral  effect 
upon  all  parts  of  the  institution  itself. 

The  signification  of  the  term  "college,"  both  etymologically  and 
customarily  has  frequently  been  mistaken  by  college  officials  to  the 
detriment  of  all  parties  concerned.  The  word  means,  and  always 
meant,  "a  body  of  colleagues,"  and  can  have  no  other  meaning. 
The  Act  of  the  Legislature  of  Massachusetts  in  1793,  quoted  entire 
in  a  previous  chapter,  created  twelve  men  expressed  by  name,  "  to- 
gether with  the  president  of  the  said  college  for  the  time  being,"  a 
body  politic  and  corporate  by  the  name  of  the  "President  and  Trus- 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE    TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       303 

tees  of  Williams  College."  One  of  the  twelve  men  thus  mentioned, 
Tompson  J.  Skinner,  was  empowered  in  the  Act  itself  to  call  a  first 
meeting  of  the  body,  when  the  twelve  chose  Ebenezer  Fitch  "presi- 
dent of  the  college  for  the  time  being,"  and  thus  a  colleague  with 
themselves.  At  the  same  meeting  they  chose  one  of  their  number 
vice-president,  Stephen  West,  who  continued  in  that  position  for 
nineteen  years.  At  the  same  meeting,  also,  they  passed  a  vote 
"that  Messrs.  Skinner,  Swift,  and  Noble  be  a  committee  to  counsel 
with  the  president."  They  established  also  the  specific  conditions 
of  entrance  to  be  met  on  the  part  of  all  students ;  elected  one  of 
their  own  number,  Sedgwick,  Professor  of  Law  and  Civil  Polity 
(although  he  never  entered  upon  his  duties  as  such),  and  two 
tutors;  and  furthermore  enacted  a  code  of  laws  "not  differing 
materially,"  says  Dr.  Durfee,  "from  those  now  in  use." 

This  code  of  laws  created  another  body  of  colleagues,  subordinate 
in  certain  particulars  never  very  exactly  defined  theoretically,  to 
the  body  corporate  created  by  the  State,  but  still  expressly  empow- 
ered by  the  latter  to  act  independently  and  fully  within  the  spheres 
of  instruction  and  practical  administration.  This  in  some  sense 
subordinate,  but  in  other  senses  primary  and  substantial,  body  of 
colleagues  is  the  president  and  faculty,  consisting  of  all  the  officers 
of  instruction,  as  well  the  tutors  as  the  professors.  The  peculiarity 
and  the  safety  of  the  president's  position  is  that  he  alone  is  a 
member  of  both  bodies  alike,  a  colleague  of  the  trustees  and  a  col- 
league of  the  faculty.  It  results  from  this,  and  the  inference  is  of 
importance  practically,  that  the  president  represents  the  trustees 
in  the  board  of  the  faculty,  and  equally  the  faculty  in  the  board  of 
the  trustees;  but  he  is  in  no  sense  whatever  the  embodiment  of  the 
one  board  or  of  the  other.  He  is  president  of  both  boards,  but  the 
boards  themselves  are  entities  independent  of  him  except  in  this 
one  particular. 

Besides  these  two,  there  is  a  third  and  a  very  much  looser  "body 
of  colleagues,"  connected  with  and  covered  by  the  word  "college." 
Webster's  Dictionary  gives  the  following  definition:  ""A  society 
of  scholars  incorporated  for  purposes  of  study  or  instruction ;  as,  the 
•College  of  the  Sorbonne."  This  use  of  the  word  is  more  ecclesi- 
astical than  secular,  more  European  than  American,  more  suited 
perhaps  to  past  times  than  to  the  present ;  still,  the  students  under 
process  of  collegiate  instruction  in  New  England  have  always  been 
assumed  in  common  language  to  be  a  part  of  "the  college";  it  has 
always  been  felt,  even  if  not  asserted,  that  the  students  had  certain 
rights  and  privileges  in  connection  with  the  governing  and  instruc- 


304  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND   WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

ting  boards,  over  and  above  all  that  is  involved  in  the  commercial 
contract,  namely,  to  receive  and  to  pay  for  instruction,  and  to  be 
obedient  to  proper  rules  on  the  one  hand  as  well  as  to  receive  cour- 
teous and  kindly  treatment  on  the  other.  In  short,  although  all 
this  has  been  and  is  still  in  cloud-land,  it  has  been  assumed  and 
acted  upon  that  current  students,  and  even  the  graduates  as  a  body, 
were  in  some  sense  a  substantial  part  of  the  institution  proper; 
that  they  were  colleagues  to  a  certain  extent  and  for  certain  pur- 
poses associated  for  the  time  being  with  the  other  and  more  dis- 
tinctly denned  boards.  As  early  as  1821,  at  one  of  the  most 
depressed  times  in  the  history  of  Williams  College,  there  was 
formed  here  at  Commencement  a  "Society  of  Alumni,"  for  the 
express  purpose  of  cooperating  with  the  other  two  boards  in  pro- 
moting the  general  interests  of  the  institution.  This  society  still 
exists.  Its  organization  was  first  suggested  by  Emory  Washburn 
of  the  class  of  1817,  afterward  Governor  of  the  Commonwealth.  It 
has  been  extremely  useful  in  furthering  the  ends  of  its  formation, 
whenever  its  legitimate  work  has  not  been  meddled  with  and 
poisoned  through  the  jealousy  of  certain  members  of  one  or  other 
of  the  more  distinctly  governing  boards.  It  was  a  decided  step  in 
the  way  of  recognition  of  this  real  relation  of  the  body  of  graduates 
to  these  other  boards,  when,  in  1868,  the  privilege  was  accorded  to 
the  Society  of  Alumni  of  choosing  by  ballot  at  prescribed  intervals, 
and  for  a  limited  time  of  service,  five  out  of  the  seventeen  members 
of  the  Board  of  Trustees,  in  order  that  they  might  have  as  a  body  a 
distinct  representation  of  their  own  in  the  chief  governing  board. 
This  was  to  be,  and  in  general  has  proven  to  be,  a  bonafide  election 
by  the  alumni  of  one  of  their  own  number,  each  to  serve  for  five 
years,  into  a  board,  twelve  of  whom  hold  a  life-tenure  received 
from  the  board  itself. 

It  is  greatly  to  the  credit  of  Amherst  College,  which  at  its  begin- 
ning came  out  of  the  loins  of  Williams,  that,  first  of  the  colleges, 
it  gave  a  formal  and  substantial  recognition  to  the  undergraduate- 
body  as  a  part  of  the  governing  force  of  the  institution.  The  cor- 
porate idea  can  no  further  go.  The  alumni  as  a  body  have  had 
nothing  like  the  practical  scope  and  sway  at  Amherst  that  they 
have  had  at  Williams;  on  the  other  hand,  the  student  body  as  such 
have  had  as  yet  no  such  influence  at  Williams  as  they  have  been 
allowed  to  take  and  carry  at  Amherst.  It  would  be  very  wrong,  of 
course,  to  apply  to  President  Fitch  in  the  first  decade  of  the 
century  standards  of  estimation  that  prevail  in  all  the  colleges  in 
the  last  decade  of  the  same;  but  it  was  necessary  to  say  as  much  as. 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL,       305 

this,  in  order  properly  to  convey  to  the  reader  certain  causes  and 
effects  within  this  college  at  the  earlier  period. 

We  have  no  information,  except  in  an  entry  of  President  Fitch's 
Journal,  bearing  date  April,  1802,  of  what  may  properly  be  called 
the  first  college  rebellion.  Though  we  have  already  quoted  this 
entry  entire  on  a  previous  page  and  in  another  connection,  it  is  so 
significant  in  its  bearing  on  what  may  be  called  the  second  college 
rebellion  in  1808,  that  we  give  it  again  here.  "  We  have  lately  had 
trouble  in  college.  The  judgments  we  drew  up  and  published  to 
the  classes  respecting  their  examinations  in  March  gave  offence. 
Three  classes  in  succession  were  in  a  state  of  insurrection  against 
the  government  of  the  College.  '  For  ten  days  we  had  a  good  deal 
of  difficulty,  but  the  Faculty  stood  firm  and  determined  to  give  up 
no  right.  At  last,  without  the  loss  of  a  single  member,  we  reduced 
all  to  due  obedience  and  subordination.  Never  had  I  occasion  for 
so  much  firmness  and  prudence,  not  even  in  the  great  rebellion  of 
1782  at  Yale.  Most  of  the  students  are  now  much  ashamed  of  their 
conduct.  The  present  generation,  I  trust,  will  never  burn  their 
fingers  again.  They  have  found  that  we  will  support  our  author- 
ity." The  "faculty"  at  that  time  consisted  only  of  the  president 
and  three  or  four  tutors.  All  of  the  latter  became  in  after  life 
unusually  prominent  men.  It  is  creditable  to  the  president  that, 
in  his  private  Journal,  he  should  ascribe  the  firmness  and  the  suc- 
cess to  the  "faculty."  The  hopefulness,  not  to  say  exhilaration, 
of  the  latter  part  of  this  entry,  was  destined  to  be  pretty  soon 
clouded  over.  Indeed,  the  sky  of  the  College  never  afterward 
became  wholly  clear  and  bright  so  far  as  the  president  himself 
was  concerned.  Happily,  we  possess  a  candid  and  copious  account 
of  the  College  troubles  of  1808  from  the  pen  of  Chester  Dewey,  a 
graduate  of  1806,  a  tutor  for  two  years,  1808-10,  and  then  a  dis- 
tinguished professor  for  seventeen  years  more. 

In  the  spring  and  summer  of  1808,  there  was  an  attempt  of  the  Sophomore 
class  to  prevent  the  continuance  of  some  of  the  officers  of  College  after  the  Com- 
mencement. The  students  supposed  the  tutors  to  be  elected  annually,  and  that, 
by  a  petition  to  the  Trustees  against  a  re-election,  the  desired  end  would  be 
secured.  To  effect  this  object  they  enlisted  the  interest  of  two  members  of  the 
Senior  class,  then  about  to  graduate.  So  much  was  said  and  done  by  these  two 
Seniors,  that  the  Faculty  obliged  them  to  make  some  acknowledgment  of  the 
impropriety  of  any  such  interference  on  their  part,  before  they  could  be  per- 
mitted to  perform  their  parts  at  Commencement,  and  receive  their  degrees. 
Though  the  Seniors  believed  a  change  of  Tutors  to  be  important,  they  were 
sensible  that  it  was  not  their  part  to  meddle  with  such  a  matter,  and  the  affair 
was  settled  with  them.  The  Commencement  passed  off  pleasantly,  and  as  the 
x 


306  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

tutors  remained  in  their  office,  it  was  supposed  the  whole  matter  was  settled ; 
and  the  students  returned  after  vacation,  with  the  intention,  as  they  said,  of 
going  on  in  peace  and  good  will. 

Professor  Olds  had  felt  that  the  students  were  too  much  disposed  to  present 
petitions  on  subjects  over  which  they  had  no  control,  and  in  which  their  inter- 
ference was  entirely  improper.  This  practice  he  wished  to  have  broken  up,  and 
this  he  designed  to  effect.  He  felt  that  the  Tutors  had  been  injured  by  the 
course  of  the  students,  and  that  the  Faculty  were  abused  by  it.  He  had  led  the 
Seniors,  by  direction  of  the  Faculty  to  make  their  acknowledgment  in  the  case, 
and  he  expected  to  bring  the  class  more  particularly  concerned  in  the  petition 
to  do  the  same.  The  Faculty  agreed  on  the  course  to  be  pursued,  and  the  Presi- 
dent and  Professor  Olds  presented  the  subject  to  members  of  the  offending  class, 
which  was  now  under  the  care  of  the  Professor.  When  the  acknowledgment  of 
the  wrong  and  the  renunciation  of  the  practice  were  proposed,  each  individual 
refused  to  put  his  name  to  the  paper.  The  Junior  class  was  now,  therefore,  in 
direct  opposition  to  a  measure  resolved  on  by  the  Faculty.  Kecitations  were 
suspended  in  that  class,  and  the  whole  College  was  in  a  state  of  high  excitement 
The  expulsion  of  some  of  those  most  deeply  implicated  was  feared. 

When  the  state  of  things  was  reported  to  the  Faculty,  the  President,  with  the 
advice  of  one  of  the  Trustees,  refused  to  sustain  the  officers  in  the  attempt, 
[which  was  quite  as  much  his  attempt  as  theirs]  and  disclosed,  that  he  had  been 
mistaken  in  the  facts,  or  he  should  not  have  consented  to  require  the  Juniors  to 
make  the  proposed  acknowledgment.  He  took  a  stand  in  favor  of  the  students, 
and  against  the  Professor  and  Tutors.  He  said  the  matter  had  been  managed 
by  Professor  Olds,  in  whom  great  confidence  had  been  placed,  and  who  had 
great  influence  with  the  Faculty  and  students;  and  that  Professor  Olds  had 
come  to  conclusions,  and  had  led  them  to  adopt  measures,  which  the  true  state 
of  the  facts,  and  the  feelings  and  intentions  of  the  students,  did  not  authorize. 
He  therefore  told  the  Professor  that  the  proposed  measure  was  not  proper  or 
called  for,  and  must  be  given  up.  Professor  Olds  felt  that  his  honor  was  com- 
promitted,  that  he  could  not  hold  a  respectable  standing  in  the  eyes  of  the 
students,  and  that  he  must  be  sustained,  or  leave  the  College.  In  a  few  hours 
the  resignation  of  the  Tutors  was  sent  to  the  President,  and  soon  after  that  of 
Professor  Olds. 

The  college  was  then  without  any  officer  except  the  President ;  and  as  the 
vacancies  could  not  be  supplied  immediately,  a  recess  of  four  weeks  was  given 
to  the  students,  and  they  returned  to  their  homes. 

A  few  were  disgusted  by  the  procedure,  and  took  dismission  from  the  College. 
At  the  end  of  the  recess  most  returned,  and  Chester  Dewey,  John  Nelson,  and 
James  W.  Bobbins,  having  been  called  to  the  tutorships,  the  remainder  of  the  year 
was  employed  in  quiet  and  profitable  study.  For  two  years  the  students  pursued 
an  unexceptionable  course  in  all  things.  Order,  peace,  and  good  feelings  ruled. 

Professor  Olds  felt  that  he  was  greatly  injured  by  the  decision  of  the  Presi- 
dent, and  his  failing  to  sustain  him  when  the  trial  came.  The  President,  whom 
the  Trustees  judged  to  have  decided  correctly,  felt  that  he  had  been  led  into  a 
mistake  by  the  representations  of  Professor  Olds,  not  as  intending  any  error, 
but  carried  beyond  the  facts  of  the  case  by  the  influence  and  strong  feelings 
of  the  Professor.  He  regretted  that  he  had  not  earlier  scrutinized  the  case, 
but  believed  he  had  now  taken  the  only  wise  because  the  only  right  course. 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE    TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       807 

Professor  Olds  doubtless  misjudged  on  the  dishonor  of  his  situation.  So  high 
was  the  estimation  of  his  talents  by  the  students,  and  so  great  his  influence  with 
them,  and  so  strong  their  attachment  to  him,  that  they  uniformly  declared 
many  times  in  the  year  or  two  following,  that  they  should  have  entertained  all 
respect  and  regard  for  the  Professor,  as  they  believed  he  had  erred  honestly,  and 
with  the  best  intentions.  By  resigning  and  leaving  the  college,  he  lost  much  of 
their  respect,  as  it  seemed  to  charge  them  with  a  criminal  intention,  which  they 
disowned.  There  was  another  apology  for  Professor  Olds,  to  be  found  in  the  fact 
that  he  had  labored  to  support  the  Tutors  ;  and  as  they  could  not  consistently 
remain,  he  was  bound  to  share  with  them  the  results. 

To  any  one  well  experienced  with  the  men  and  the  ways  of  a  New 
England  college,  the  above  account  written  many  years  after  the 
events  by  Professor  Chester  Dewey,  who  became  Olds's  immediate 
successor  here,  will  seem  remarkably  balanced  and  candid.  To  any 
such  one  also,  it  will  seem  as  clear  as  daylight  that  a  morally  great 
and  magnanimous  man  would  have  taken  a  different  course  from 
that  pursued  by  President  Fitch.  Instead  of  throwing  the  entire 
onus  of  the  difficulty  upon  Olds  and  leaving  him  in  the  lurch,  he 
should  have  taken  the  main  part  of  it  upon  himself,  inasmuch  as 
Olds  had  done  nothing  and  said  nothing  officially  without  his  con- 
currence and  open  participation.  If  he  had  said  frankly  to  the 
students,  —  "  we  have  all  acted  in  this  matter  under  misapprehensions 
to  which  all  men  are  not  only  liable  but  prone  also,  —  we  on  our  part 
unanimously  as  you  unanimously  on  yours,  —  now,  as  the  new  year  has 
already  begun  prosperously,  we  take  back  the  requirement  of  acknowl- 
edgments on  your  part,  for  we  are  now  convinced  that  you  acted  in 
good  faith,  and  you  must  cease  (as  probably  you  have  ceased)  all  oppo- 
sition of  any  kind  to  the  tutors,  who  are  in  their  place  for  the  second 
year  by  legitimate  authority,  and  from  under  whose  instruction  (ivhether 
good  or  not)  you  as  a  class  have  wholly  passed;"  —  one  thousand  to 
one  the  difficulty  could  have  been  removed  in  ten  minutes.  But 
Ebenezer  Fitch  was  not  a  man  of  sufficient  moral  largeness  to  see 
the  best  way  out  in  such  a  case.  Indeed,  there  is  only  one  way  out 
in  such  a  case.  And  that  is,  for  a  man  to  acknowledge  his  own 
fault,  when  calling  upon  students  to  acknowledge  and  abate  their 
own  faults.  Students  are  reasonable  when  they  are  dealt  with 
reasonably  by  their  teachers.  The  writer  has  seen  this  demon- 
strated a  hundred  times  in  his  own  limited  experience.  Nothing 
offends  college  students  more  or  more  justly  than  the  assumption 
of  infallibility  of  judgment  and  conduct  on  the  part  of  their 
teachers. 

For  Fitch  to  express  his  "  regret  that  he  had  not  earlier  scruti- 
nized the  case,"  when  he  had  himself  in  connection  with  Olds  pre- 


308  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

sented  the  paper  to  the  Junior  class  for  their  signatures  and  been 
a  personal  witness  to  their  unanimous  refusal,  and  when  he  had 
himself  presided  in  the  faculty  meetings  in  which  every  step  in  the 
whole  process  had  been  matured,  was  to  perform  what  at  this  end 
of  the  century  is  well  named  "  a  craivl,"  however  it  may  have  been 
denominated  at  that  end.  We  may  be  sure,  that  the  students  had 
then  some  appropriate  name  for  it,  as  they  always  have  some  word 
for  such  things. 

The  names  of  the  two  tutors,  who  were  thus  put  by  the  act  of  the 
president  into  a  wholly  untenable  place,  were  William  Fitch  Backus 
and  Oliver  Chapin.  Backus  had  been  graduated  in  1802,  and 
Chapin  in  1805.  The  former  was  a  nephew  of  the  president's  wife, 
and  a  brother  of  Gurdon  Huntington  Backus  of  the  class  of  1806, 
who  will  come  before  us  in  remarkably  pleasant  relations  before  we 
have  done  with  the  president.  It  may  be,  that  the  latter  was 
swayed  in  a  wrong  direction  against  the  tutors,  for  fear  he  might 
be  thought  to  be  swayed  in  their  favor  because  one  of  them  was  a 
near  relative.  Nothing  is  known  of  the  after  life  of  this  Backus, 
except  that  he  studied  law,  and  that  he  died  in  1818.  Chapin,  on 
the  other  hand,  lived  to  a  good  old  age  in  his  native  town  in  Con- 
necticut, and  died  highly  respected  in  1853. 

Professor  Dewey's  account  of  the  troubles  of  1808  does  not  omit 
to  mention,  that  the  president  in  the  thick  of  them  counselled  with 
one  of  the  trustees,  and  that  the  whole  body  ultimately  approved  of 
his  action  in  the  premises.  Who  the  individual  trustee  was,  does 
not  appear,  though  it  is  more  likely  to  have  been  Israel  Jones  than 
any  one  else;  for  of  the  three  local  trustees  appointed  by  the  body 
in  1793  "  to  counsel  with  the  president,"  two,  Noble  and  Swift,  were 
already  dead,  and  the  third,  Skinner,  was  at  this  time  under  extreme 
personal  difficulties  in  Boston,  if  not  in  actual  durance  there.  As 
this  is,  however,  the  first  recorded  instance  of  any  trustees  being 
called  in  to  advise  on  a  current  difficulty  in  the  internal  administra- 
tion of  the  College,  and  as  the  advice  given  in  this  instance  was  just 
about  as  bad  as  it  could  be,  it  is  proper  here  to  note  how  ill-qualified 
in  general  our  trustees  have  been  from  the  beginning  until  now  to 
give  the  right  kind  of  counsel  either  individually  or  collectively  to 
the  executive  officers  of  the  College  in  such  cases ;  and  also  to  affirm 
in  general  on  the  best  evidence  attainable,  that  advice  from  that 
source,  whether  called  for  or  proffered,  has  not  proven  itself  in  the 
later  instances  to  be  any  better  than  it  was  in  that  instance.  College 
trustees  have  a  vastly  important  sphere  of  their  own,  and  within 
that  sphere  they  have  usually  shown  themselves  to  be  both  compe- 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       309 

tent  and  faithful ;  but  when  they  have  undertaken  to  adjudge  penal- 
ties for  college  offences,  or  to  determine  whether  given  actions  were 
under  the  circumstances  offences  or  not,  they  have  almost  invariably 
made  a  botch  of  it.  One  or  two  detailed  instances  of  this  will  be 
given  further  on  in  our  story. 

The  effect  on  Professor  Olds  himself  of  this  Parthian  blow  on  the 
part  of  the  president  was  presently  and  permanently  unhappy.  He 
was  a  fine  scholar  in  college,  and  a  good  speaker,  at  a  time  when 
very  little  attention  was  paid  to  any  phase  of/elocutionary  work. 
His  two  years  as  a  tutor  were  distinguished,  ^  were  also  his  two 
years  as  Professor  of  Mathematics  and  Natural  Philosophy.  He  him- 
self had  successfully  adjusted  the  difficulty  with  the  two  Seniors, 
who  had  strongly  supported  the  Sophomores  in  their  zeal  against  the 
reappointment  of  the  two  tutors.  He  was  probably  somewhat  elated 
by  this  success,  and  by  his  unquestioned  popularity  throughout  the 
College.  There  is  no  record  of  any  note  of  contrast  struck  by  the 
students  as  between  him  and  the  president,  —  Olds  in  his  prime  at 
thirty  and  Fitch  at  his  opening  decline  at  fifty-two ;  Olds  quick  in 
mind  and  speech  and  Fitch  slow-moulded  in  all  things  and  ill-ex- 
pressed in  words,  —  but  it  is  almost  certain  that  such  contrasts  were 
drawn,  and  may  have  affected  the  professor  to  elate  him  somewhat 
and  made  the  president  more  willing  to  give  the  other  on  occasion  a 
pullback.  The  only  fault  that  can  be  detected  at  this  distance  of 
time  in  the  professor's  action  in  the  matter,  is  something  pretty 
nearly  universal  in  young  and  successful  college  teachers,  namely,  a 
propensity  to  cross  the  bridges  before  one  fairly  comes  to  them,  to 
gain  securities  for  the  future  as  well  as  indemnities  for  the  past. 
Now,  guarantees  for  the  future  in  any  matter  of  college  discipline 
are  always  hard  to  get  and  practically  worthless  when  obtained, 
for  this  chief  reason  among  others,  that  the  college  population  is 
continually  in  flux,  the  verbal  promissors  of  this  year  are  not  the 
tempted  ones  of  next  year.  No  college  class  can  bind  its  successors 
in  anything.  Professor  Olds  had  already  gained  in  the  way  of  dis- 
cipline all  that  was  possible  to  be  gained  under  the  circumstances. 
The  Seniors  had  made  acknowledgment  of  their  fault,  and  had  been 
graduated :  the  Sophomores  had  quietly  become  Juniors,  had  come 
out  from  under  the  instruction  of  obnoxious  tutors,  and  had  appar- 
ently ceased  their  agitation  against  them.  Unluckily,  but  not 
altogether  fruitlessly,  since  the  example  displays  a  principle,  Olds, 
like  scores  of  others,  wanted  to  make 

Assurance  double  sure 
And  take  a  bond  of  Fate. 


310  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

When  the  crisis  came,  Olds  withdrew  from  teaching,  and  studied 
theology,  at  first  with  Dr.  West  at  Stockbridge,  then  the  vice-presi- 
dent of  the  College,  and  afterwards  at  the  newly  established  semi- 
nary at  Andover,  and  was  ordained  at  Greenfield  in  1813,  and 
preached  there  some  three  years,  when  the  old  teaching  impulse 
recurred,  and  he  was  solicited  to  take  a  professorship  in  Middlebury 
College.  For  certain  reasons  now  very  imperfectly  understood, 
though  they  gave  rise  at  the  time  to  some  public  controversy,  he 
never  assumed  the  duties  of  that  professorship,  but  of  another  one 
at  the  University  of  Vermont,  which  he  held  for  two  years,  till  the 
establishment  of  Amherst  College  in  1821,  where  he  taught  for  four 
years.  Of  course  the  old  sores  found  no  tendency  towards  healing 
so  long  as  he  was  teaching  in  the  strangely  rival  institution  at  Am- 
herst. Later  on  in  life  he  went  to  Georgia,  and  taught  a  few  years 
in  a  college  in  that  State.  Returning  north,  he  devoted  himself  to 
preaching,  —  for  some  years  at  Saratoga,  and  then  at  Circleville, 
Ohio,  where  he  died  in  harness  in  1848.  Dr.  Durfee  in  his  "History 
of  Williams  College  "  applies  to  Professor  Olds  the  following  appro- 
priate language :  "  His  mind  was  of  a  high  order.  He  was  a  fine 
linguist;  and  the  whole  system  of  mathematics  taught  in  our  col- 
leges he  had  perfectly  at  his  command.  But  his  keen  sensitiveness 
led  him  to  terminate  his  connection  with  institutions  in  such  a  sud- 
den manner,  that  many  years  of  his  life  were  sadly  embittered. 
But  his  last  years  were  spent  in  the  service  of  the  Church;  and 
when  he  died,  honorable  testimony  was  borne  to  his  character, 
fidelity,  and  usefulness." 

The  effect  on  the  president  of  this  decided  disagreement  with  his 
only  professor,  and  the  latter's  consequent  retirement  from  the 
College,  may  perhaps  best  be  seen  in  its  effects  on  the  College  itself. 
On  this  point  we  fortunately  possess  testimony  of  the  highest  credi- 
bility. "From  this  shock,"  wrote  Dr.  Griffin  in  1828,  "increased 
by  exaggerated  reports  respecting  the  extent  of  the  disorders  which 
prevailed,  the  College  did  not  recover  during  the  administration  of 
Dr.  Fitch.  The  institution  was  then  at  its  height.  The  rooms  in 
both  buildings  were  nearly  full,  and  the  four  classes  then  on  the 
ground  produced  more  graduates  than  any  four  successive  classes 
have  done  up  to  this  time,  to  wit,  115.  The  next  largest  number 
was  113,  and  consisted  of  the  classes  that  were  in  college  in  the 
summer  of  1808,  when  the  difficulty  began.  The  class  that  entered 
the  fall  after  the  rupture  produced  but  20 ;  and  the  four  classes  that 
entered  next  after  that  event  produced  but  89.  Other  colleges  had 
sprung  up  to  increase  the  effect." 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       311 

But  it  would  not  be  fair  at  all  to  refer  the  gradual  decline  of  the 
College,  commencing  in  1808,  wholly  to  the  causes  within  the  insti- 
tution itself  which  we  have  now  been  considering.  President  Fitch 
did  not  indeed  show  off  well  in  these  exigences  ;  and  it  cannot  be 
that  he  cherished  a  thorough  self-respect  in  connection  with  them. 
There  is  something  also  of  naturalness  and  probable  truth  in  the 
imputation  that  has  always  been  cast  upon  Professor  Olds  and  his 
special  friends,  that  their  influence  adverse  to  the  College  was 
exhibited  in  its  declining  numbers  and  reputation.  Greenfield, 
where  Olds  was  pastor,  is  a  sort  of  gate  to  the  College  on  the  east; 
Amherst,  after  its  foundation  in  1821,  in  which  Olds  was  four  years 
professor  from  the  start,  could  not  but  feel  itself  at  first  in  antago- 
nism with  Williams,  and  certainly  drew  students  from  the  central 
region  of  the  Connecticut  River,  where  the  latter  had  always  found 
its  best  recruiting-ground;  and  Vermont  also,  which  had  always  been 
tributary  to  Williams,  especially  from  the  western  slopes  of  the 
Green  Mountains,  was  now  trying  hard  to  establish  colleges  both 
at  Middlebury  and  Burlington,  with  both  of  which  the  connection 
of  Professor  Olds  must  have  been  more  or  less  prejudicial  to  the 
older  institution  on  the  Hoosac. 

But  all  of  these  concurring  causes  do  not  serve  of  themselves  to 
account  fully  for  the  sharp  decline  of  the  College,  emphasizing  itself 
in  1808,  and  thereafter  continuing  pretty  steady  for  many  years. 
Although  this  connection  has  never  been  noticed  before  by  any  one, 
so  far  as  the  present  writer  is  aware,  yet  he  is  perfectly  confident 
that  the  defalcation  of  General  Skinner  as  Treasurer  of  the  Common- 
wealth, which  came  fully  to  light  in  June,  1808,  at  the  very  time 
when  these  troubles  within  the  College  were  brewing  to  an  over- 
flow, had,  in  conjunction  with  the  rest,  more  to  answer  for  than  all 
the  rest  put  together.  Skinner  was  at  the  same  time  the  treasurer 
of  the  College,  and  had  been  from  the  beginning  of  the  Free  School. 
He  was  an  original  trustee  of  both.  He  had  been  responsible  for 
the  erection  of  the  two  college  buildings,  West  College  and  East 
College.  He  was  the  chairman  of  the  committee  that  constructed 
the  meeting-house  of  1798.  He  and  his  brother  in  company  had 
built  and  then  owned  the  Mansion  House.  He  had  become  by  all 
odds  the  most  prominent  citizen  in  the  town  in  a  business  way,  in 
a  political  way,  and  in  a  social  way.  He  was  almost  constantly  in 
one  branch  or  the  other  of  the  General  Court  at  Boston.  He  had 
twice  been  chosen  to  Congress  from  the  Berkshire  district  before 
the  old  century  went  out.  He  had  come  to  be  tiptop  in  the  militia, 
tiptop  in  Freemasonry,  sheriff  of  the  county,  and  judge  in  the 


312  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

Court  of  Common  Pleas.  He  was  also  at  one  time  United  States 
Marshal  for  the  district  of  Massachusetts.  In  1806  he  was  chosen 
by  the  two  branches  of  the  Legislature  (such  was  then  the  custom) 
Treasurer  and  Receiver-General  of  the  Commonwealth  of  Massachu- 
setts. He  had  no  trouble  apparently  in  obtaining  sureties  in  the 
sum  of  $100,000.  The  names  of  his  bondsmen  follow,  all  but  one 
of  them  citizens  of  Berkshire.  The  bond  is  dated  the  18th  of  June, 
1806,  and  his  term  of  service  commenced  then. 

• 

Timothy  Childs,  Pittsfield 

Azariah  Egleston,  Lenox 

Daniel  Brown,  Cheshire 

Samuel  H.  Wheeler,  Lanesboro 

William  Young,  Williamstown 

Ezekiel  Bacon,  Williamstown 

John  Chamberlin,  Jr.,  Dalton 

John  Pickit,  Sandisfield 

Joseph  Willson,  Tyringham 

James  Baldwin,  Egremont 

Albert  Smith,  Hanover,  "  Co.  Plymouth. " 

There  were  eleven  seals  to  this  bond.  William  Dennison  and 
Jonathan  Allen  signed  it  as  witnesses.  One  of  the  conditions  of 
this  bond  was  that  "  within  the  year  "  the  Legislature  should  by  a 
committee  examine  and  report  upon  the  accounts  of  the  Treasurer. 
By  its  own  adjournment  the  Legislature  did  not  pass  upon  these 
accounts  within  the  year,  though  their  committee  examined  them, 
and  reported  that  they  were  correct.  It  was  expressly  stipulated 
in  the  bond,  that  unless  the  Legislature  performed  this  duty,  the 
individiial  sureties  should  be  exempted  from  all  pecuniary  liabilities 
under  it.  Ezekiel  Bacon,  lawyer  and  postmaster  at  Williamstown, 
was  by  much  the  ablest  man  among  these  eleven  signers,  and  he  had 
occasion  afterwards  to  make  an  unanswerable  plea  in  equity  against 
his  own  and  fellow-signers'  liability  to  the  State.  This  plea  was 
incorporated  in  a  "  Memorial  of  the  Sureties  of  T.  J.  Skinner,  late 
Treasurer  of  the  Commonwealth,  together  with  a  view  of  their  case, 
and  the  grounds  on  which  they  claim  to  be  exonerated  from  their 
liability  for  his  defalcations."  This  Memorial  was  printed  at  Pitts- 
field  by  Phinehas  Allen,  and  was  signed  by  Ezekiel  Bacon,  Albert 
Smith,  Timothy  Childs,  and  John  Chamberlin. 

Ezekiel  Bacon  did  not  sign  the  second  bond  of  Treasurer  Skinner, 
who  was  duly  elected  by  "  the  Honorable  the  Senate  and  House  of 
Representatives  of  the  Commonwealth  for  one  year  commencing  the 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       313 

1st  day  of  June  instant."     This  second  bond  is  dated  June  11,  1807. 
The  names  and  seals  to  it  are  twelve  in  number,  as  follows :  — 

Timothy  Childs  Pittsfield 

Azariah  Egleston  Lenox 

Daniel  Brown  Cheshire 

Samuel  H.  Wheeler  Lanesboro 

William  Young  Williamstown 

William  Towner  Williamstown 

John  Pickit  Sandisfield 

Joseph  Willson  Tyringham 

James  Baldwin  Egremont 

John  Nichols  Gt.  Barrington 

John  Churchill  Pittsfield 

John  Chandler  Monmouth. 

John  Kead  and  William  Smith  sign  as  witnesses.  The  sum  was 
as  before,  $  100,000.  This  time  Skinner  calls  himself  of  "Boston, 
County  of  Suffolk."  Six  names  were  common  to  the  two  bonds; 
four  are  found  on  the  first  bond  only;  six  on  the  second  bond  only; 
and  there  are  sixteen  signers  in  all. 

As  the  second  year  of  Skinner's  treasurership  wore  on  and  drew 
toward  its  close,  it  became  evident  to  a  gradually  widening  circle  in 
Boston  that  something  was  the  matter  at  the  State  treasury ;  but  it 
was  also  evident  to  the  same  parties  that  the  Treasurer  had  hopes 
day  by  day, —  and  even  strong  hopes, —  if  a  little  delay  were  con- 
ceded him,  that  his  accounts  -with  the  State  could  be  honestly 
adjusted.  And  it  shows  the  strength  of  the  confidence  reposed  in 
him  by  leading  members  of  the  Legislature  and  other  leading  men 
in  Boston,  men  who  had  known  him  long  and  intimately,  that  these 
delays  were  secured  to  him  and  all  proper  indulgence  shown  him. 
But  the  crisis  marched  on  like  a  warrior  in  arms.  His  last  hope  of 
being  able  to  cover  disappeared  from  the  heart  of  the  Treasurer. 
It  was  publicly  announced  by  a  committee  of  the  Legislature  that 
the  treasury  was  in  apparent  default  to  the  sum  of  about  $70,000. 
Skinner's  visible  property,  and  that  of  his  sixteen  bondsmen,  was 
immediately  put  under  legal  attachment  in  behalf  of  the  Common- 
wealth. 

The  excitement  soon  became  intense  throughout  the  State.  Berk- 
shire County  was  in  such  a  ferment  as  it  had  never  been  in  before, 
and  as  it  has  never  been  in  since.  The  sheriff  and  his  posse  visited 
nearly  every  important  town  in  the  county.  The  defalcation,  though 
strictly  personal,  was  given  at  once  a  political  color,  and  became  a 
hot  ball  tossed  back  and  forth  as  between  Federalists  and  Democrats. 


314  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

Skinner  was  a  Democrat,  and  so  were  all  his  bondsmen,  and  so  were 
a  large  majority  of  the  citizens  of  Berkshire.  But  Federalism  in  its 
partisan  sense  was  still  strong  in  Massachusetts,  and  particularly  so 
in  Boston.  Caleb  Strong,  a  Federalist,  was  Governor,  1800-07; 
James  Sullivan,  a  Democrat,  became  Governor  in  1807,  and  was 
reflected  in  1808;  the  Legislature  had  been  Democrat  in  both  the 
years  when  Skinner  had  been  chosen  Treasurer;  but,  after  a  very 
vehement  struggle,  the  Federalists  in  1808  obtained  a  small  majority 
in  both  branches.  The  Columbian  Sentinel,  a  Federalist  newspaper 
in  Boston,  published  the  following  editorials  on  the  defalcation,  the 
first  on  July  13,  and  the  second  three  days  later.  The  partisan  bias 
is  visible  enough  in  both.  On  the  whole,  however,  these  are  the 
best  contemporary  comments  obtainable ;  and,  as  such,  the  readers 
of  this  book  are  entitled  to  them  in  full. 

THE  TREASURY  !  ! 

It  is  a  duty  which  we  shall  never  neglect,  however  painful  in  performance,  to 
hold  those  up  to  censure,  who  have  violated  a  public  trust.  It  deters  others 
from  enterprises,  which  equally  involve  their  character  and  the  public  credit ; 
and  inculcates  011  the  people  the  necessity  of  withholding  their  confidence  from 
men,  who  have  no  better  claim  to  it  than  confessions  of  their  political  faith. 

"We  do  therefore  declare  Tompson  J.  Skinner  Esq.,  late  Treasurer  of  the 
Commonwealth,  a  Public  Defaulter.  We  are  authorized  that  the  Committee 
appointed  by  the  General  Court  to  examine  his  accounts  and  report  thereon  to 
the  Governor  and  Council,  have  reported,  that  there  is  a  balance  due  and  owing 
to  the  Commonwealth  of  more  than  SEVENTY  THOUSAND  DOLLARS. 

Whether  Mr.  Skinner  from  the  contributions  of  bondsmen,  or  the  successful  is- 
sue of  his  speculations,  will  discharge  this  debt  is  as  yet  uncertain.  But  the  meas- 
ure of  his  disgrace  does  not  depend  on  the  amount  of  the  national  loss.  The 
public  money  was  confided  to  his  care  to  be  appropriated  only  to  the  public  use. 
He  has  violated  his  trust  by  converting  it  to  his  own  private  use.  He  was  to  hold 
it  to  provide  for  the  public  safety,  — has  employed  it  to  make  his  own  fortune. 

The  Constitution  of  the  Commonwealth  declares,  that  no  money  shall  be 
issued  out  of  the  Treasury  but  by  warrant  under  the  hand  of  the  Governor,  and 
with  the  advice  and  consent  of  the  Council,  for  the  defence,  support,  and  pro- 
tection of  the  people  ;  and  Mr.  Skinner,  in  his  oath  of  office,  pledged  himself  to 
conform  to  the  regulation  of  the  Constitution.  Where,  then,  we  ask  him,  is  the 
Sacred  Deposit,  which  was  appropriated  by  the  people  to  the  defence  of  their 
altars  and  firesides,  to  the  support  of  their  peace  and  government?  Has  the 
Governor  and  Council  by  warrant  ordered  our  revenue  invested  in  mercantile 
speculations,  or  in  sharp  bargains  on  the  Exchange?  Or  have  the  taxes  which  are 
raised  in  this  moment  of  public  disaster  and  private  embarrassment  with  so  much 
difficulty,  been  wasted  by  the  Treasurer  in  the  schemes  of  his  broker,  and  in  the 
attempt  to  fill  his  own  pocket  out  of  the  profits  gained  from  the  national  capital? 

The  party  who  elected  Mr.  Skinner  in  the  room  of  a  man,  whose  virtues  and 
talents  are  objects  of  much  esteem  and  respect,  ought  to  be  responsible  for  the 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       315 

injury  as  they  are  sharers  of  the  disgrace.  With  the  spirit  of  proscription  they 
hurried  an  honest  federalist  from  office,  and  in  the  rage  of  faction  they  betrayed 
the  public  money  to  a  man,  who  has  wasted  it  in  his  own  speculations. 

We  can  not  repress  our  joy  that  the  triumph  of  federalism  has  put  an  end  to 
a  system  in  our  Treasury  so  destructive  of  public  credit,  and  so  threatening  to 
the  public  safety.  We  congratulate  our  fellow  citizens  that  the  revenue  of  the 
Commonwealth  is  again  committed  to  the  care  of  those  [the  Legislature  had 
then  a  very  small  majority  of  Federalists,  though  the  Governor  was  still  a  Demo- 
crat] who  have  held  it  as  a  sacred  deposit ;  that  it  will  be  no  longer  confided  to 
brokers  or  those  employed  in  trade  ;  but  will  ever  be  safe  in  our  Treasury,  to 
afford  us  defence  and  protection  on  any  and  every  emergency. 

The  patriotic  hope  of  this  Federalist  editor  that  the  treasury  of 
Massachusetts  "will  ever  be  safe,"  has  been  indeed  justified  so  far 
as  the  past  ninety  years  go,  and  the  hope  may  be  here  reiterated  as 
reenforced  by  this  long  experience;  but  his  basing  of  this  hope  on 
the  coming  back  to  power  and  perpetuity  of  the  Federalist  party  was 
building  on  the  sand;  for  the  party  waned  in  Massachusetts  and 
elsewhere  for  seven  years,  and  went  out  forever  under  the  reverbera- 
tions of  General  Jackson's  guns  at  New  Orleans.  Three  days  after 
this  editorial  effusion  in  the  Sentinel,  that  is  to  say,  July  16,  1808, 
the  same  writer  resumed  his  pen  in  the  same  paper,  and  gave  to  his 
contemporaries  and  to  posterity  the  following: 

THE  TREASURY  AGAIN. 

The  sad  catastrophe,  which  has  ensued  from  the  temporary  triumph  of 
Democracy,  in  our  fiscal  concerns,  ought  to  warn  the  people  of  the  danger  of 
confiding  in  the  leaders  of  the  party.  A  few  considerations  will  show  the  mad- 
ness of  trusting  the  interest  of  the  people  to  those  pretended  friends  of  the 
people. 

Mr.  Jackson  at  the  time  of  his  removal  from  the  Treasury,  was  entitled  to  a 
reelection,  if  he  had  faithfully  performed  the  duties  of  his  office.  The  constitu- 
tion permits  a  man  to  be  eligible  five  years  successively.  There  is  an  advantage 
in  continuing  for  some  time  in  office  the  same  person,  who  is  thereby  able  to  go 
through  the  details  of  business  with  the  greatest  facility.  It  was  proper  how- 
ever to  guard  against  so  long  a  continuance,  as  might  enable  a  man  to  devise 
schemes  for  using  the  public  money  without  fear  of  detection.  Hence  such  a 
period  was  fixed  as  promised  security  from  fraud,  and  at  the  same  time  induce 
men  of  talents  to  take  so  responsible  an  office  without  hazard  of  pecuniary  loss 
by  relinquishing  private  pursuits  for  public  service. 

Mr.  Jackson's  removal  therefore  was  as  contrary  to  the  spirit  of  the  constitu- 
tion as  it  has  proven  injurious  to  the  credit  and  character  of  the  Treasury.  If  it 
was  not  an  infringement  of  his  legal  claims,  it  was  a  violation  of  his  moral  rights. 
It  was  a  measure  dictated  by  the  Sylla  of  his  party,  and  for  which  he  and  his 
coadjutors  must  answer. 

The  appointment  of  Mr.  Skinner  was  as  bad  as  the  removal  of  Mr.  Jackson. 
No  one  pretended  he  had  any  knowledge,  which  rendered  him  competent  to 


316  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

manage  with  accuracy  or  method  the  complicated  concerns  of  the  Treasury.  It 
was  not  his  crime  so  much  as  his  misfortune.  But  it  was  a  substantial  reason 
for  refusing  such  a  substitute  for  a  man  perfectly  conversant  with  the  duties  of 
the  office. 

It  was  also  known  by  the  leaders  of  the  democrats  that  Mr.  Skinner  had  not 
shown  such  prudence  or  method  in  his  own  concerns  as  to  recommend  him  to 
the  management  of  the  State  Treasury.  Such  were  his  pecuniary  embarrass- 
ments, that  probably  not  one  of  those  who  made  him  the  Cashier  of  the  State 
would  have  loaned  him  money  to  discharge  his  private  debts.  The  temptation 
to  use  any  man's  money  in  one's  hand,  when  a  sheriff  is  at  our  heels,  is  so 
strong,  that  it  was  criminal  to  deposit  with  such  a  man,  however  respectable, 
the  public  revenue. 

The  democratic  leaders  are  therefore  directly  responsible  to  the  people  for  all 
the  injury  our  revenue  or  credit  may  receive  from  the  defalcation  of  Mr.  Skinner. 
His  appointment  also  should  be  considered  as  full  proof  of  all  their  struggles,, 
and  all  their  clamor. 

Their  politics  form  only  a  branch  of  trade,  and  the  acquisition  of  the  govern- 
ment, they  call  a  successful  adventure.  They  then  sit  to  divide  places  of  profit 
and  honor  among  themselves,  on  the  same  principles  and  with  the  same  feel- 
ings as  joint  merchants  share  the  proceeds  of  a  voyage.  In  this  way,  Mr. 
Skinner  had  the  Treasury  for  his  part,  and  in  full  for  the  capital  stock  he  had. 
advanced.  , 

Those  therefore  who  gave  him  his  place,  deserve  most  of  the  disgrace  that 
attached  to  his  conduct.  He  has  fallen  a  victim  to  his  own  wants  and  weakness.. 
But  their  support  of  him  was  the  huckstering  barter  of  a  faction. 

The  attempt  to  reelect  Mr.  Skinner  for  the  present  year  was  still  worse  than 
his  original  appointment.  The  leaders  of  his  party  all  knew  the  suspicions  that 
were  abroad.  They  knew  who  were  said  to  be  his  brothers  —  they  knew  the 
debt  of  some  thousands  of  dollars  he  had  paid  in  Berkshire  —  they  had  heard 
surmises  of  his  bargains  on  the  Exchange,  and  they  understood  how  far  his 
private  funds  were  adequate  to  all  these  enterprises.  They  had  heard  too,  that 
men  of  fortune  had  offered  to  pay  the  State  five  thousand  dollars  annually  for 
the  Treasury,  without  a  salary,  with  the  same  privileges  Mr.  Skinner  had 
assumed.  But  the  leaders  of  the  democrats  still  continued  him  their  candidate, 
and  used  their  influence,  and  gave  their  votes,  to  secure  his  reelection.  Nothing 
but  the  principle  and  perseverance  of  their  opponents  rescued  our  revenue  from 
wider  havoc. 

The  well-disposed  and  honest  democrats  who  have  followed  the  cunningly 
davised  fables  of  unprincipled  demagogues,  are  now  called  upon  to  consider,  if 
they  have  not  been  deceived.  They  will  think  if  the  pretended  love  of  the 
people  of  which  they  hear  and  read  so  much,  is  not  the  mere  hocus-pocus  dialect 
of  political  jugglers.  By  some  legerdemain  their  revenue  has  flew  out  of  sight,. 
and  we  fear  whether  they  will  find  any  trick  to  get  it  back.  They  must  feel  too- 
that  the  ruinous  policy  of  the  federal  government  [Jefferson's  administrations] 
has  stripped  them  of  their  ready  cash,  while  a  baleful  policy  at  home  will 
oppress  them  with  unprecedented  taxes,  which  they  have  no  means  of  paying. 
Surely  they  will  feel  that  this  is  Egyptian  Slavery,  and  they  will  rescue  them- 
selves from  bondage  and  disgrace,  by  restoring  their  confidence  to  men,  who  led 
them  on  to  fame  and  fortune. 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       317 

This  editorial  writer,  while  he  does  not  exaggerate  the  wrong-doing 
of  General  Skinner  as  Treasurer  of  the  State,  uses  a  mess  of  bad 
logic  in  these  articles  by  trying  to  make  it  appear  that  Skinner's 
party  was  responsible  for  his  personal  default;  that  his  predecessor 
in  the  treasury,  Jackson,  was  removed  from  office  in  order  to  make 
room  for  his  peculations;  that  Skinner  was  a  bad  man  when  he 
was  elected  by  the  Legislature  to  the  treasury,  and  that  his  fellow- 
partisans  were  worse  men  than  he ;  in  short,  that  a  trick  had  been 
played  upon  the  Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts.  Nothing  can  be 
farther  from  the  truth  than  that.  Skinner  was  a  criminal  in  act 
while  Treasurer,  but  not  at  all  in  purpose  or  premeditation.  He 
was  caught  in  speculations  and  consequent  losses,  which  began  ten 
years  before  he  became  Treasurer,  and  of  which  he  became  at  last 
with  others  a  victim,  while  dealing  in  perfect  good  faith  in  lands 
offered  for  sale  in  Northern  markets  under  an  unquestioned  Act  of 
the  State  of  Georgia,  which  act  was  ostensibly  repealed  by  a  subse- 
quent Legislature  of  that  State,  after  the  formal  and  legal  rights  in 
said  lands  had  passed  by  sale  into  the  hands  of  third  parties.  The 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  had  gone  into  practical  operation 
in  1789.  That  instrument  unambiguously  declares :  "  No  State  shall 
pass  any  law  impairing  the  obligation  of  Contracts."  But  the 
Supreme  Court  had  not  then  adjudicated  upon  any  case  arising 
under  this  clause.  The  famous  Dartmouth  College  case  came  before 
it  much  later  in  point  of  time.  A  brief  account  of  the  speculations 
in  these  Georgia  lands,  so  called,  seems  to  be  required  in  these  pages 
in  order  to  exhibit  the  only  possible,  and  at  best  but  partial,  exon- 
eration of  General  Skinner. 

The  diary  of  Thomas  Eobbins,  under  date  of  March  8,  1796,  has 
this  entry :  "  Gen.  Skinner  arrived  from  Boston.  Great  loss  there 
from  speculation  in  Georgia  lands."  Bobbins  was  then  a  Senior  in 
College  here,  and  had  just  engaged  himself  to  Alice  Skinner,  a  niece 
of  the  general.  It  would  be  incredible  that  Bobbins  should  make 
such  an  entry  as  this  in  his  journal,  unless  he  himself  had  heard 
General  Skinner  expatiate  on  these  speculations  and  losses;  and 
equally  incredible  that  Skinner  should  thus  expatiate  on  them  in 
his  family  unless  he  himself  were  specially  interested  in  them.  It 
may  be,  therefore,  taken  for  granted,  that  Skinner,  then  and  always 
much  in  Boston,  had  begun  to  dabble  in  Georgia  lands  as  early  as 
the  spring  of  1796. 

But  what  were  these  lands?  How  came  they  to  be  offered  for 
sale  in  Boston?  What  was  the  cause  of  the  great  excitement  there 
in  March,  1796?  The  following  extracts  from  Hildreth's  "History 


318  WILLTAMSTOWN   AND  WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

of  the  United  States,"  second  series,  will  answer  these  questions 
quickly  and  satisfactorily.  Vol.  I.,  pp.  227  et  seq.,  under  date 
1789:  — 

The  migration  from  the  older  districts  to  new  lands,  which  prevailing  pecuni- 
ary embarrassments  had  occasioned,  had  given  rise  throughout  the  United  States 
to  a  great  spirit  of  land  speculation.  The  very  first  Legislature  of  Georgia, 
which  met  under  the  new  Constitution,  undertook  to  sell  out,  to  three  private 
Companies,  the  preemption  right  to  tracts  of  land  beyond  the  Chattahoochee,  — 
five  millions  of  acres  to  the  South  Carolina  Yazoo  Company  for  the  sum  of 
$66,964,  seven  millions  of  acres  to  the  Virginia  Yazoo  Company  for  $93,742,  and 
three  millions  and  a  half  of  acres  for  $46,875,  to  the  Tennessee  Yazoo  Company. 
It  was  one  of  the  conditions  of  the  sale  that  the  money  should  be  paid  within 
two  years ;  but,  as  the  companies  insisted  upon  paying,  not  in  cash,  but  in  the 
depreciated  Georgia  paper,  a  succeeding  Legislature  took  advantage  of  that  cir- 
cumstance to  declare  the  bargain  at  an  end.  All  the  purchasers  did  not  assent 
to  this  view  ;  but  the  controversy  upon  this  subject  was  quite  overshadowed  by 
another,  which  sprang  up  a  few  years  later,  growing  out  of  another  sale  of  these 
same  lands  to  other  companies,  and  giving  rise  to  the  more  famous  Yazoo  claims, 
of  which  we  shall  have  occasion  hereafter  to  speak. 

These  lands  west  of  the  Chattahoochee,  which  the  Georgians 
claimed  in  sovereignty,  with  the  exclusive  right  of  preemption  from 
the  Indians,  were  the  district  out  of  which  the  two  States  of  Ala- 
bama and  Mississippi  have  since  been  constituted.  In  the  latter 
part  of  1795,  and  in  the  first  two  months  of  1796,  as  is  related  by 
Hildreth,  Vol.  I.,  pp.  582  and  642,  these  events  happened. 

The  speculators  had  turned  their  attention  to  the  lands  claimed  by  Georgia 
west  of  the  Chattahoochee  and  between  that  river  and  the  Mississippi.  These 
lands,  it  is  true,  were  occupied  at  present  by  the  Creeks,  Choctaws,  and  Chicka- 
saws,  numerous  and  powerful  Indian  tribes.  The  title  of  Georgia  to  these  lands 
was  also  very  questionable,  especially  to  that  part  of  them  below  the  33d  degree 
of  north  latitude,  all  the  lands  below  that  parallel  being  claimed  by  the  United 
States,  as  formerly  a  part  of  the  British  province  of  West  Florida.  But  this  had 
not  prevented  the  formation  of  four  companies,  including  some  very  eminent 
citizens  in  various  parts  of  the  Union,  to  which  the  Legislature  of  Georgia, 
during  the  preceding  winter,  had  sold  the  preemption  right  to  a  vast  portion  of 
the  tract  above  described.  Those  speculators  had  proceeded  to  sell  out,  at  a  great 
advance,  to  individuals  and  companies  in  the  Middle  States  and  New  England. 

At  the  present  moment,  attention  in  Georgia  was  chiefly  engrossed,  and  the 
feeling  against  New  England  greatly  excited,  by  the  speculative  purchases, 
already  alluded  to,  of  the  preemption  right  to  the  lands  west  of  the  Chatta- 
hoochee. Jackson,  the  Georgia  senator,  had  resigned  his  seat,  and  procured 
himself  to  be  elected  a  member  of  the  State  Legislature,  for  the  very  purpose 
of  nullifying  those  sales,  a  business  into  which  he  entered  with  characteristic 
energy.  The  lands  had  been  sold  for  the  sum  of  $500,000  to  four  separate  com- 
panies, the  Georgia,  the  Georgia  Mississippi,  the  Upper  Mississippi,  and  the 
Tennessee.  The  right  to  become  interested  in  these  purchases  to  the  extent  of 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       319 

two  million,  on  the  same  terms  as  the  original  members,  was  reserved  by  the  act 
to  the  citizens  of  Georgia  ;  and  it  appeared  that  of  the  members  of  the  Legisla- 
ture who  voted  for  the  bill,  all  but  one  did,  in  fact,  become  interested,  under  this 
provision,  in  one  or  more  of  the  companies.  Upon  this  state  of  facts,  together 
with  other  general  allegations  of  corruption  and  of  the  inadequacy  of  the  sum 
paid,  the  Legislature  of  the  present  year  passed  a  new  act  [February],  revoking 
the  sale  as  unconstitutional  and  void,  and  directing  the  repayment  to  the  com- 
panies of  their  respective  amounts  of  the  purchase  money,  if  called  for  within 
eight  months ;  the  several  amounts  uncalled  for  at  the  end  of  that  period  to  be 
adjudged  "derelict  and  forfeit  to  the  State." 

As  an  additional  evidence  of  the  indignation  of  the  Legislature,  and  a  means, 
too,  of  destroying  all  proof  of  the  existence  of  the  grant,  the  original  act  author- 
izing the  sale  was  ordered  to  be  burned,  and  all  the  records  relating  to  it  to  be 
expunged.  The  burning  was  executed  with  great  formality.  The  two  houses, 
moving  in  procession  for  that  purpose,  were  preceded  by  a  committee  bearing 
the  obnoxious  parchments.  A  fire  having  been  kindled  in  front  of  the  State 
House,  the  committee  handed  the  documents  to  the  President  of  the  Senate,  he 
to  the  Speaker  of  the  House,  he  to  the  clerk,  and  the  clerk  to  the  door-keeper, 
by  whose  hands  they  were  committed  to  the  flames. 

The  news  of  all  these  actions  on  the  part  of  the  Georgia  Legisla- 
ture in  February  reached  Boston  in  the  first  days  of  March,  and 
Skinner  brought  them  to  Williamstown  in  time  for  Robbins's  record 
in  his  diary  on  the  8th  of  March.  There  had  been  no  time  for  con- 
ference on  the  part  of  the  holders  of  these  purchased  rights  in  New 
England,  and  no  plan  for  concerted  action.  These  came  later.  For 
the  present,  there  was  a  plenty  of  indignation  and  clamor.  The 
last  extract  from  Hildreth  will  tell  us  all  we  want  to  know  more. 

Previous  to  this  attempt  to  nullify  the  sale,  the  original  purchasers,  among 
whom  were  Patrick  Henry,  Judge  Wilson,  and  other  distinguished  citizens,  had 
already  transferred  their  rights  to  others.  These  transfers  had  been  made  partly 
in  South  Carolina  and  the  Middle  States,  but  principally  in  New  England  at  a 
large  advance  on  the  original  purchase  money.  Nor  were  these  new  purchasers 
at  all  disposed  to  concede  the  right  of  the  Georgia  Legislature  to  nullify  the  con- 
tracts of  their  predecessors,  especially  in  a  case  like  the  present,  where  the  inter- 
ests of  third  parties  were  concerned.  Hence  loud  complaints  of  unconstitutional 
breach  of  faith  on  the  one  side,  and  of  corruption  and  fraud  on  the  other.  When 
these  same  lands  were  subsequently  sold  by  Georgia  to  the  United  States,  Con- 
gress, as  we  shall  see,  was  loudly  called  upon  for  an  indemnity  to  the  claimants 
under  the  Georgia  grants ;  but  this  claim  was  very  vigorously  contested,  and 
near  twenty  years  elapsed  before  the  matter  was  brought  to  a  final  settlement. 

There  can  be  no  solid  question  (1)  that  these  New  England  pur- 
chasers of  Georgia  land  rights  were  foully  treated  by  the  legislative 
repudiation  of  1796  on  the  part  of  Georgia;  (2)  that  this  repudiation 
was  contrary  to  the  letter  and  spirit  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United 


320  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

States,  although  at  that  time  there  had  been  no  judicial  determina- 
tion of  the  force  of  the  "  contract "  clause  of  that  instrument ;  and 
(3)  that  these  innocent  third  parties  had  both  a  legal  and  certainly 
an  equitable  claim  on  Congress  as  a  legislative  body,  so  far  forth  as 
the  United  States  came  into  possession  of  any  part  of  these  lands, 
either  by  purchase  from  the  State  of  Georgia  or  by  enforcing  their 
own  original  claim  to  the  lands  lying  south  of  the  thirty-third 
parallel.  There  can  be  doubt  that  Skinner  and  his  fellow-losers  in 
Boston  and  the  other  parts  of  New  England,  during  the  ten  years 
from  1796  to  1806,  the  time  of  his  election  as  Treasurer  of  Massa- 
chusetts, nourished  rational  hopes  of  reimbursement  in  some  form 
and  to  some  extent  from  the  United  States  government.  His 
accounts  with  the  State  at  the  close  of  his  first  year  as  Treasurer, 
namely,  June,  1807,  were  all  correct,  according  to  the  report  of  a 
committee  of  the  Legislature  appointed  for  that  purpose,  which 
report,  however,  was  not  passed  upon  and  approved  by  the  Legisla- 
ture itself,  and  thereby  made  legal  and  certain.  It  is  altogether 
probable,  nevertheless,  that  Skinner  did  not  tamper  at  all  with  the 
funds  of  the  State  until  the  second  year  of  his  treasurership.  How 
he  then  dealt  with  them  so  as  to  become  a  defaulter  at  its  close,  we 
do  not  know,  nor  is  it  a  matter  of  any  importance.  What  we  do 
know  is,  that  his  fall  came  about  in  connection  with  these  land 
speculations,  entered  upon  in  good  faith  years  before  he  became 
Treasurer,  and  that  at  the  last  he  had  in  Boston  advisers  and  fellow- 
sufferers,  and  possibly  confederates,  in  his  troubles,  whose  losses 
had  come  from  the  same  general  sources. 

How  would  the  doubtless  exaggerated  reports  of  the  downfall  of 
General  Skinner  have  naturally  affected  the  fortunes  of  Williams 
College  under  all  the  circumstances?  He  was  the  treasurer  of  the 
College,  and  had  been  from  the  very  beginning.  It  was  immedi- 
ately and  widely  announced  that  no  penny  of  the  College  funds  had 
been  compromised  in  any  way  by  the  course  of  the  treasurer.  So 
far  so  good.  But  Skinner  was  a  leading  trustee,  and  had  been  from 
the  opening  of  the  Free  School  in  1791.  His  prodigious  failure 
could  not  but  throw  some  discredit,  and  even  some  disgrace,  upon 
the  Board  of  Trustees.  Again,  he  had  been  for  twenty  years  in 
almost  all  relations  the  most  prominent  man  in  town;  Colonel 
Simonds,  Judge  Noble,  Rev.  Seth  Swift,  and  others  of  the  old  pil- 
lars had  already  recently  passed  away;  now,  might  well  reason 
young  men  in  course  of  preparation  for  Williams  College  in  the 
summer  of  1808,  instead  of  this  forceful  presence  there  in  town  and 
college,  there  will  be  a  vacuum,  nay,  a  kind  of  abyss,— we  had 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       321 

turn  our  steps  elsewhere.  It  is  well-nigh  certain  that  many 
young  men  reasoned  in  this  way,  not  during  that  summer  only,  but 
in  subsequent  summers  also.  This  reasoning  was  legitimate  and 
inevitable.  It  undoubtedly  had  its  effect  on  the  numbers  entered 
in  1808.  And  then  when,  after  that  term  had  begun,  and  the  effect 
of  the  startling  revelations  at  Boston  had  lost  their  sharpest  edge, 
the  reports  went  out  from  here  on  the  wings  of  the  wind  of  the 
trouble  over  the  tutors,  and  that  college  had  been  dismissed  for  four 
weeks  on  that  account;  and  the  scholars  carried  back  to  their  homes 
the  news  of  both  catastrophies  conjoined,  and  what  Dr.  Griffin  said 
twenty  years  afterward  about  the  "  great  shock  "  at  this  time  may 
well  be  believed. 

Aside  from  the  College,  the  sequels  in  Berkshire  of  Skinner's 
•defalcation  were  melancholy  enough.  His  sixteen  bondsmen  were 
nearly  all  pecuniarily  ruined  by  it.  Three  of  these  were  citizens  of 
Williamstown  at  the  time  of  their  signature,  namely,  William  Young 
and  William  Towner  and  Ezekiel  Bacon.  The  first  belonged  to  a 
Celtic-Irish  family  that  joined  fortunes  with  the  five  ship-loads  of 
Scotch-Irish  that  came  to  Massachusetts  from  Londonderry  in  1718. 
About  one-third  of  all  these  passed  in  the  autumn  of  that  year  from 
Boston  to  Worcester,  where  they  settled  down.  This  family  were 
very  numerous  in  that  generation  and  in  subsequent  ones.  Moses 
Young,  himself  born  in  Ireland,  moved  from  Worcester  t'o  Brimfield, 
where  he  became  constable  and  tax-collector;  and  there  remain 
among  his  papers  receipts  from  Harrison  Gray,  Treasurer  of  the 
Commonwealth,  for  moneys  thus  paid  in  by  Young  in  1764  and 
1765.  This  Moses  never  came  to  Williamstown ;  but  three  of  his 
sons  and  two  of  his  daughters  had  made  permanent  homes  here  be- 
fore the  father's  death,  which  fell  Sept.  25,  1781.  Moses,  Andrew, 
and  William  were  the  names  of  the  sons.  The  three  all  settled  at 
the  South  Part,  where  some  of  their  descendants  still  live  on  the 
ancestral  lands,  and  all  three  were  prosperous  farmers.  William, 
the  youngest,  born  in  1754,  went  to  Cambridge  as  a  minute-man  in 
1775,  as  his  powder-horn  continues  to  bear  witness;  and  he  carried 
the  same  powder-horn  into  the  battle  of  Bennington.  He  became 
prominent  later  in  town  affairs  as  a  Justice  of  the  Peace,  bearing 
the  coveted  title  of  Squire.  He  was  in  the  Legislature  from  Wil- 
liamstown in  1792,  '93,  '95,  and  1800-08,  inclusive.  He  was  on 
both  the  bonds  of  General  Skinner,  and  he  was  a  member  of  both 
the  Legislatures  that  were  concerned  in  approving  or  disapproving 
Skinner's  accounts  at  the  close  of  each  of  his  years  of  service  in  the 
Treasury.  Like  Skinner,  he  was  a  Jefferson ian  Democrat  and  a 


322  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

Free  and  Accepted  Mason.  His  house,  which  is  figured  below,  and 
which  is  still  standing  intact,  owned  and  occupied  by  his  grandson, 
George  Smith,  had  a  lodge-room  in  the  second  story  for  the  meet- 
ings of  his  fellow-Masons.  His  farm  in  the  little  village  of  South 
Williamstown  was  large  and  fine,  and  of  course  was  taken  possession 
of  by  the  State;  but  before  these  surety  matters  were  settled  for 
good  and  all,  Squire  Young  departed  this  life,  and  the  State  ulti- 
mately restored  to  his  widow  about  one-third  of  the  farm,  including 
the  house. 

William  Towner,  another  of  Skinner's  bondsmen,  who  came  to 
Williamstown  about  1790  from  Stafford's  Hill,  where  he  was  the 


WILLIAM    YOUNG'S    HOUSE. 

first  physician,  and  who  became  distinguished  here  as  a  physician 
during  the  next  twenty  years,  while  his  contemporary,  Dr.  Porter, 
became  perhaps  even  more  distinguished  as  a  surgeon,  entered  like- 
wise eagerly  into  politics,  "  at  that  time  the  all-engrossing  concern 
of  the  day."  He  too  was  a  Democrat  and  Freemason,  a  represen- 
tative and  senator  at  Boston,  a  general  in  the  Militia,  and  a  Justice 
of  the  Peace.  He  was  the  first  resident  of  Williamstown  known  to 
be  an  Episcopalian,  and  as  often  as  possible  attended  divine  service  at 
Lanesboro,  then  the  nearest  point  of  that  form  of  worship.  He  was 
remarkably  esteemed  in  all  the  relations  of  life  by  his  fellow-towns- 
men and  by  the  people  of  all  the  neighboring  towns.  He  died  in 
Pownal  in  1813,  while  attending  upon  patients  there  scourged  by 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       323 

an  epidemic  of  pneumonia.  He  died  insolvent  in  consequence  of 
his  suretyship  with  his  friend,  General  Skinner.  He  was  a  total 
abstainer  from  intoxicating  drinks  at  a  time  when  the  physician 
called  or  calling  was  expected  to  help  himself  to  any  "  refreshments," 
usually  standing  upon  the  mantel.  A  few  days  after  his  death, 
there  came  to  his  address  in  Williarnstown,  signed  and  sealed,  a 
high  commission  in  the  active  army  of  the  United  States,  which, 
had  he  lived,  he  would  undoubtedly  have  accepted;  for  he  was  a 
partisan  of  the  War  of  1812,  and  a  personal  friend  of  General 
Dearborn. 

It  is  more  than  likely  that  Towner  was  recommended  for  this 
commission  by  another  of  the  bondsmen  of  General  Skinner,  at  that 
time  possessing  a  great  influence  in  Congress,  and  also  over  the 
mind  of  President  Madison,  namely,  Ezekiel  Bacon  of  Williamstown 
and  Pittsfield.  He  was  a  man  of  extraordinary  ability  and  of  un- 
usual popularity.  He  was  the  only  lawyer,  of  distinction  certainly, 
whose  name  was  on  the  first  bond.  He  believed  himself  and  his 
fellow-signers  to  be  legally  absolved  from  the  pecuniary  responsi- 
bility of  their  suretyship,  in  consequence  of  the  failure  of  the  Legis- 
lature (by  their  adjournment)  to  pass  formal  approval  on  Skinner's 
accounts  at  the  close  of  his  first  term,  which  approval  was  an  express 
condition  of  the  liability  of  his  bondsmen;  and  he  wrote  out  and 
published  a  legal  argument  to  this  effect,  entitled  "  Memorial  of  the 
Sureties  of  Tompson  J.  Skinner,  late  Treasurer  of  the  Common- 
wealth, together  with  a  view  of  their  case,  and  the  grounds  on  which 
they  claim  to  be  exonerated  from  their  liability  for  his  defalcations." 
This  memorial  made  a  strong  impression  upon  the  bench  and  the 
bar  and  the  people  of  Berkshire,  and  became  the  basis  of  the  com- 
promise ultimately  entered  into  between  the  State  and  the  bondsmen 
and  their  heirs,  by  which  a  certain  part  of  the  pecuniary  indemni- 
ties were  remitted.  The  ultimate  loss  to  the  State  by  Skinner's 
transactions  was  $22,000. 

But  while  Bacon  fully  believed  in  his  legal  exoneration,  he  did 
not  seek  to  evade  his  moral  responsibility.  He  stood  with  the 
majority  of  his  fellow-bondsmen,  though  it  took  most  of  the  earnings 
and  savings  of  his  industrial  life  up  to  that  time.  It  is  said  that 
one  or  more  of  the  sureties  forgot  to  be  honest  in  their  dilemma, 
and  tried  to  conceal  either  themselves  or  their  property;  and  it  is 
known  that  a  few  of  the  rest  were  put  on  "the  limits,"  as  it  was 
called,  the  authorities  fearing  that  they  might  be  tempted  to  do 
likewise.  One  of  these  latter  was  John  Chamberlin  of  Dalton. 
But  Bacon,  then  a  member  of  Congress  from  the  Berkshire  district, 


324  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

gained  great  credit  by  making  no  protest,  although  he  made  an  argu- 
ment, against  yielding  up  his  property  to  the  State.  The  present 
writer  has  had  the  privilege  of  conversation  and  correspondence 
with  Judge  William  J.  Bacon  of  Utica,  a  distinguished  son  of 
Ezekiel  Bacon.  Judge  Bacon  writes :  — 

I  well  remember  the  visit  of  my  father  to  the  bondsmen  of  Gen.  T.  J.  Skinner 
at  the  jail  in  Lenox,  for  I  went  with  him,  although  a  boy  of  eight  or  nine  years 
of  age.  My  father's  visit  was  one  of  sympathy  with  the  bondsmen.  He  was 
himself  one  of  the  sureties,  but  refused  "to  go  upon  the  limits,"  as  some  of 
them  chose  to  do  rather  than  surrender  their  property.  He  sacrificed  a  large 
part  of  all  he  possessed,  and  finally  effected  a  compromise,  and  was  released  by 
the  State,  after  suffering  the  loss  of  nearly  all  he  had  by  his  diligence  acquired. 
I  knew  little  about  these  matters  then,  and  wondered  why  the  men  chose  the 
jail  limits,  but  I  learned  the  reasons  long  afterwards  ;  and  have  never  ceased  to 
honor  my  father's  memory  for  the  stand  he  took  and  the  sacrifices  he  made  for 
a  man,  who  betrayed  the  confidence  of  his  sureties,  and  who  proved  to  be  a  base 
and  venal  defaulter  to  the  State. 

The  man  who  "stepped  over  the  border,"  or  in  other  words,  fled  to  Canada, 
was,  as  is  supposed,  Barnabas  Bidwell  of  Stockbridge.  He  ran  away  because 
he  was  himself  a  defaulter  as  Treasurer  of  the  County  of  Berkshire.  He  was 
the  father  of  Marshall  S.  Bidwell,  who  in  after  years  came  back  to  this  country 
and  settled  in  New  York,  where  he  rose  to  eminence  as  a  lawyer,  and  was  in  all 
respects  a  most  able  and  excellent  man. 

The  bearing  of  Bacon  throughout  all  these  transactions  was  so 
unselfish  and  honorable,  that  when  he  came  before  his  constituents 
for  reelection  to  Congress  in  1809,  he  is  said  by  Historian  Smith  of 
Pittsfield  to  have  received  every  vote  in  that  town,  and  nearly  all 
the  votes  in  the  congressional  district.  He  served  three  successive 
terms,  1807-13,  was  on  the  Ways  and  Means  Committee,  and  chair- 
man of  it  during  his  last  term,  which  was  a  time  of  war  and  national 
financial  difficulty.  His  single  influence  with  President  Madison  at 
this  time  is  said  to  have  been  sufficient  to  secure  the  appointment 
of  Joseph  Story,  another  Massachusetts  Democrat,  to  the  bench  of 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States. 

The  revelation  of  the  defalcation  of  Barnabas  Bidwell,  who  was 
also  a  Democrat,  to  the  county  of  Berkshire,  and  that  of  Skinner  to 
the  State  of  Massachusetts,  were  nearly  contemporaneous ;  and  it  was 
made  at  once  and  for  a  long  time  after  a  ground  of  reproach  to  the 
Democratic  party,  and  pushed  as  a  means  of  loosening  the  hold  of 
that  party  upon  the  Commonwealth.  This  was  perhaps  partly  suc- 
cessful for  a  little  time  in  the  interest  of  the  Federalist  party,  but 
nothing  can  permanently  secure  from  dissolution  in  a  free  country 
any  party  that  fairly  plants  itself  upon  special  legal  privileges  to 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       325 

the  few  at  the  cost  of  the  many.  The  Federalist  party,  because  it 
was  such  a  party,  was  wiggling  to  its  death  in  both  State  and  nation. 
The  reelection  of  President  Monroe  did  not  exhibit  even  the  shreds 
of  a  party  in  opposition  to  the  fundamental  political  principles, 
which  were  developed  by  Thomas  Jefferson  in  Virginia  and  by 
Parson  Allen  in  Massachusetts  at  nearly  the  same  time  and  in  nearly 
the  same  way,  namely,  No  special  privileges  under  the  law  to  any 
individual  or  class  of  individuals, —  equal  rights  and  opportunities  to 
all  men  so  far  as  governments  are  concerned. 

But  in  Massachusetts,  discussions  and  insinuations,  blasts  and 
counter-blasts,  sometimes  hot-tempered  and  sometimes  ludicrous, 
continued  for  some  years.  The  Congregational  ministers,  for  an 
obvious  reason,  were  almost  unanimously  Federalists,  and  ecclesias- 
tical privileges  had  to  take  their  turn  in  submersion  with  those  of 
the  political  class.  The  credible  story  runs,  that  in  those  days  at 
a  Fourth  of  July  celebration  in  the  Old  Colony,  where  one  at  least 
of  Skinner's  bondsmen  resided,  a  minister  by  the  name  of  Lincoln 
vented  himself  in  the  following  toast :  — 

"  If  Skinner  steals,  and  Bid  well  runs, 
And  robs  the  State  of  half  its  funds  ; 
How  many  democrats  must  follow, 
To  rob  the  Treasury  all  hollow  ?  " 

No  cause  is  lost  so  long  as  it  finds  even  an  impromptu  champion. 
A  quick-witted  Democrat  present,  not  having  the  fear  of  the  Church 
before  his  eyes,  sprang  to  his  feet  with  the  following  on  his  lips :  — 

"  It  takes  nine  tailors  to  make  a  man  ; 
Now  solve  this  riddle,  if  you  can  : 
How  many  priests  like  Parson  Lincoln, 
Would  make  a  saint  that  God  could  think  on  ! " 

Before  passing  finally  from  these  town  and  college  troubles  of 
this  first  decade  of  the  century,  we  must  advert  to  an  appeal  of  the 
College  to  the  Legislature  in  1805  for  further  assistance.  The 
original  chapel  in  the  south  end  of  West  College  was  in  some 
respects  unpleasantly  situated,  and  was  inadequate  to  its  religious 
purposes.  A  committee  of  the  Legislature  which  investigated  the 
condition  and  prospects  of  the  institution  under  this  appeal  and 
petition  made  the  following  report,  Feb.  9,  1805 :  — 

The  Committee  of  both  Houses,  to  whom  was  referred  the  petition  of  the 
President  and  Trustees  of  Williams  College,  praying  the  aid  of  government  to 
enable  them  to  build  a  chapel  for  the  performance  of  divine  service,  and  for 


326  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

keeping  the  college  library  and  apparatus,  having  examined  the  origin,  rise,  and 
progress  of  the  seminary,  from  its  institution  to  the  present  time,  together  with 
the  aid  heretofore  afforded  by  the  government,  and  the  existing  state  of  its 
funds,  beg  leave  to  observe,  That  the  funds  granted  by  the  original  donor  and 
the  government  have,  in  the  opinion  of  the  Committee,  been  judiciously  applied 
to  the  object  of  the  institution,  and  with  success  exceeding  the  most  sanguine 
expectations,  and  that  the  present  state  of  the  college  affords  a  reasonable  and 
pleasing  expectation  of  its  future  extensive  benefits  to  society,  and  that  a  chapel 
for  the  purposes  above  mentioned  would  essentially  promote  the  same  ;  and  as 
the  encouragement  and  grants  of  the  government  to  that  college  have  not  been, 
equal  to  those  made  to  other  seminaries  in  the  Commonwealth,  the  Committee 
ask  leave  to  report  the  following  Resolve : 

Resolved,  For  reasons  set  forth  in  the  petition,  that  there  be  and  hereby  is 
granted  one  township  of  land  of  the  contents  of  six  miles  square  to  be  laid  out 
and  assigned  from  any  of  the  unappropriated  lands  belonging  to  the  Common- 
wealth, in  the  District  of  Maine,  except  the  ten  townships  lately  purchased  of 
the  Penobscot  Indians. 

It  is  certain  that  this  resolve  passed  the  General  Court,  although 
no  record  of  it  has  ever  been  found.  No  chapel  at  any  rate  was 
undertaken  to  be  built  for  more  than  twenty  years  after  this ;  but  in 
1809  another  township  of  land  in  Maine  was  granted  "  for  further 
aid  in  support  of  Williams  College,  and  for  the  erecting  of  other 
buildings  for  the  convenience  of  the  institution,  and  for  sustaining 
a  professor  of  the  Oriental  languages,"  and  the  sum  of  $9500  was 
realized  from  the  sale  of  the  two  townships. 

Kecurring  now  to  the  College  and  its  fortunes,  during  the  up- 
heavals of  the  War  of  1812  and  the  political  readjustments  that 
followed  it,  we  note  that  at  the  close  of  the  four  weeks7  recess  in 
the  autumn  of  1808,  consequent  upon  the  resignation  of  Professor 
Olds  and  the  two  tutors,  College  reorganized  itself  by  bringing- 
together  three  new  tutors,  who,  with  the  president,  were  the  sole 
teachers  for  two  years,  namely,  Chester  Dewey  and  John  Nelson 
and  James  W.  Eobbins.  Each  of  the  three  was  a  graduate  of  the 
College ;  and  Bobbins,  who  was  a  younger  brother  of  Thomas  Kob- 
bins,  from  whose  diary  copious  extracts  have  been  made,  had  been 
previously  a  tutor  for  two  years,  and  came  back  at  the  earnest 
request  of  the  president  to  help  out  in  a  case  of  difficulty.  He  only 
taught,  however,  a  little  more  than  a  year,  when  his  health  failed, 
and  he  settled  down  to  an  honorable  mercantile  life  in  Lenox.  John 
Nelson  was  graduated  in  1807.  He  continued  to  teach  here  for  two 
years.  His  home  was  in  Worcester,  where  he  taught  at  intervals 
both  privately  and  in  a  select  school.  Among  his  pupils  was  George 
Bancroft,  whom  he  taught  Virgil;  but  the  precocious  boy  could 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       327 

shortly  read  Latin  better  than  his  preceptor.  The  writer  has  often 
heard  his  mother,  Lydia  Gray,  a  native  of  Worcester,  who  attended 
the  select  school,  relate  anecdotes  of  her  amiable  and  excellent 
teacher,  who  was  not  over  well  grounded  in  English  Grammar,  which 
was  her  forte  and  pride.  Nelson  taught  also  for  a  while  in  the  acad- 
emy at  Leicester,  where  he  was  settled  in  the  ministry  in  1812,  and 
continued  the  pastor  there  until  his  death  in  1871,  at  the  age  of  85 
years.  An  adopted  daughter  of  the  Nelsons  was  the  wife  of  John 
E.  Russell,  a  public  man  of  Massachusetts  justly  famous  in  his  day. 
The  third  of  the  new  tutors  in  the  stress  of  1808,  Chester  Dewey, 
became  a  far  more  notable  man  than  either  of  the  other  two.  The 
families  of  Dewey  and  Noble  are  found  planted  together  in  Westfield 
as  early  as  1666,  represented  by  Thomas  Dewey  and  Thomas  Noble. 
Branches  of  these  two  families  migrated  from  Westfield  to  Sheffield, 
Obadiah  Noble  being  the  first  settler  of  the  latter  town.  Members 
of  the  two  families  came  later  from  Sheffield  to  Williamstown,  and 
became,  perhaps,  the  two  most  prominent  families  here  for  fifty 
years.  David  Noble  came  just  before  the  outbreak  of  the  Revolution, 
and  Daniel  Dewey  just  after  its  close.  Chester  Dewey  was  born  in 
Sheffield  in  1784,  entered  college  in  1802,  pursued  the  full  course, 
and  was  graduated  with  unusual  credit  in  1806.  He  studied  theol- 
ogy with  Dr.  West  in  Stockbridge,  and  preached  in  Tyringham  about 
nine  months,  when  he  was  suddenly  called  to  the  College.  He  was 
assigned  to  carry  on  the  instruction  of  the  Junior  class,  the  class 
that  had  been  served  by  Professor  Olds,  and  that  had  come  into  the 
difficulties  with  him  and  the  president  which  have  already  been 
described.  Half  a  century  later,  Dewey  himself  gave  an  account  of 
what  transpired  at  his  first  recitation :  — 

When  the  students  reassembled,  the  instruction  of  the  refractory  Junior  class 
was  assigned  to  Mr.  Dewey  ;  thus  placing  him  in  a  most  trying  and  responsible 
position.  His  opinion,  early  formed,  was  that  it  was  not  best  for  a  teacher  to 
say  much  about  government,  but  so  to  influence  students  that  they  shall  govern 
themselves.  Accordingly,  when  he  met  the  class  for  the  first  time,  he  frankly 
confessed  to  them  his  inexperience,  reminded  them  of  the  unfavorable  reports 
which  had  gone  abroad  respecting  them,  and  assured  them  that  the  only  way  to 
counteract  these  reports,  and  do  away  their  injurious  influence,  was  by  a 
faithful  and  manly  performance  of  duty  in  future.  The  appeal  produced  the 
desired  effect.  They  felt  that  they  were  thrown  upon  their  individual  responsi- 
bility. Subordination  and  order  were  at  once  restored ;  study  was  cheerfully 
and  heartily  pursued.  Years  afterwards,  the  Hon.  Daniel  Kellogg,  one  of  the 
judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Vermont,  a  member  of  the  class,  remarked: 
"I  remember  as  if  it  were  but  yesterday,  that  first  recitation  of  Mr.  Dewey 's, 
and  his  address  to  the  class.  He  put  us  on  our  honor,  and  after  that  we  would 
not  for  all  the  world  have  done  a  rebellious  deed." 


328  WILLIAMSTOWN  AND    WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

Besides  Daniel  Kellogg,  there  were  in  the  class  at  that  time  Justin 
Edwards,  Darius  Lyman,  William  H.  Maynard,  Luther  Rice,  and 
several  others,  who  made  their  mark  in  the  world  afterward.  The 
note  of  the  pitch  thus  given  by  Chester  Dewey  in  his  first  official 
hour  was  kept  up  throughout  a  remarkably  successful  college  song 
for  nineteen  years.  He  carried  this  class  through  their  Junior  year, 
and  the  next  Junior  class  also,  as  their  sole  instructor ;  when  he  was 
elected  Professor  of  Mathematics  and  Natural  Philosophy  in  the 
place  of  Professor  Olds,  a  chair  he  held  for  seventeen  years.  He 
was  thus  constituted  the  third  in  succession  of  regular  college  pro- 
fessors,—  Mackay,  Olds,  Dewey.  He  alone  of  the  three  had  time 
and  opportunity  of  showing  what  a  college  professor  can  do  under 
the  best  auspices.  The  impulses  imparted  here  and  elsewhere  to  the 
study  of  the  natural  sciences  by  Amos  Eaton,  were  felt  in  their  best 
form  and  degree  and  exhibited  in  their  most  attractive  features  by 
Chester  Dewey.  Benjamin  Silliman  antedated  at  New  Haven  by 
about  five  years  such  lectures  on  chemistry  as  Dewey  began  in 
Williamstown,  and  continued  these  and  cognate  lectures  on  botany, 
until  both  these  departments  were  thoroughly  established.  These 
were  his  specialties ;  but,  like  Silliman,  he  considered  as  his  field  the 
whole  body  of  natural  phenomena,  not  then  as  now  subdivided  into 
many  special  sciences.  Besides  chemistry,  Silliman  took  peculiar 
possession  of  geology,  and  Dewey  of  botany;  and  the  latter  ulti- 
mately made  himself  the  authority  in  this  country  and  in  Europe 
within  the  botanical  department  of  the  Carices.  One  of  the  last 
years  of  his  life  was  much  occupied  in  classifying  and  completing 
his  then  unequalled  collection  of  Carices,  which  he  gave  by  will  to 
his  Alma  Mater. 

Visible  and  tangible  nature  was  the  chosen  field  both  for  study 
and  teaching  of  Chester  Dewey.  He  saw  that  the  field  was  wide,  and 
that  no  one  man  could  do  more  than  thoroughly  to  till  one  or  two  of 
its  subdivisions,  while  maintaining,  as  he  thought  was  needful,  a 
general  familiarity  with  all  its  departments.  He  saw  also,  that  to  do 
either  of  these  two  things  well,  there  must  be  many  coadjutors. 
Accordingly,  he  commenced  a  system  of  exchanging  specimens 
throughout  the  country,  and  a  system  of  meteorological  observations, 
and  interested  many  young  men  here  and  there  as  co workers.  He 
came  to  carry  on  a  large  correspondence  with  men  whose  scientific 
inquiries  were  similar  to  his  own,  not  only  in  America,  but  also  in 
England,  France,  Germany,  and  Norway.  Throughout  life  his  sym- 
pathies were  youthful,  his  facility  in  accomplishing  work  remark- 
able, his  vigor  of  mind  and  body  unusual,  and  his  industry 


TOWN  AND   COLLEGE   TILL  THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       329 

indefatigable.  At  the  same  time,  he  loved  to  impart  as  well  as  to 
obtain.  He  was  a  natural  teacher,  modest,  genial,  unselfish.  He 
became,  therefore,  a  leader  of  men  along  those  paths  which  he  him- 
self trod.  Unselfishness  is  the  indispensable  characteristic  of  good 
teachers  and  of  the  moral  leaders  of  men.  Self-seeking  is  a  deadly 
blight  in  the  college  as  in  the  world. 

Wrote  one  who  took  his  college  course  about  the  time  when  Dewey 
left  the  College,  that  is  to  say,  in  1827,  speaking  of  the  years  of  his 
professorship :  — 

During  this  time  he  held  a  prominent  position  in  the  management  of  the 
college,  and  during  a  portion  of  the  time  was  acting  president.  His  facility  and 
success  in  the  government  of  young  men  brought  upon  him  special  responsi- 
bilities, and  constituted  him  the  leader  in  emergencies.  In  doubt,  his  counsel 
was  essential ;  in  difficulty,  his  presence  was  indispensable  ;  in  any  difference  of 
sentiment,  his  opinion  was  final.  He  did  much  to  advance  the  standard  of 
scholarship  and  enlarge  the  course  of  study.  In  natural  science  he  was  untir- 
ing. The  departments  of  chemistry  and  botany  he  established  on  a  permanent 
basis.  In  religious  experience,  also,  he  exerted  an  admirable  influence.  The 
students  came  to  him  for  counsel,  guidance,  and  encouragement.  He  was  the 
help  of  the  inquiring  spirit ;  he  did  not  fail  to  speak  the  apt  word  to  the  impeni- 
tent ;  he  prayed  with  the  prayerful,  and  rejoiced  with  the  forgiven.  As  a 
preacher  of  the  gospel,  Dr.  Dewey  was  calm  and  gentle,  yet  earnest  and  impres- 
sive. He  loved  most  to  dwell  upon  the  benevolence  and  love  of  God  as  mani- 
fested in  the  gift  of  his  Son  to  die  for  sinners.  But  his  presentations  of  the 
gospel  were  always  copiously  illustrated  from  the  sphere  of  his  scientific  studies. 
He  seldom  wrote  sermons  ;  but  he  talked  to  the  people  out  of  a  gratefulness  of 
mind  which  could  never  be  at  a  loss,  with  wonderful  simplicity  of  language  and 
expression.  His  preaching  was  full  of  instruction  and  edification. 

This  discerning  and  beautiful  and  wholly  credible  testimony  of  a 
contemporary,  goes  to  prove  a  proposition  important  as  toward  un- 
derstanding the  life  of  a  New  England  college,  which  has  rarely, 
if  ever,  been  laid  down  in  books,  and  which  Chester  Dewey  was  the 
first  to  exemplify  at  Williams,  namely,  that  a  college  professor  in  a 
department  that  suits  him,  and  which  he  is  at  the  same  time  shaping 
to  his  own  mind  without  interference  from  any  one,  is  in  a  position 
for  gaining  and  retaining  a  stronger  moral  hold  on  the  students  than 
a  president  for  the  time  being  is  likely  to  have,  one  may  perhaps  say 
than  a  president  can  possibly  have.  All  the  reasons  for  this  can 
not  be  given  in  this  place ;  these  are  some  of  them :  the  professor 
meets  his  students  for  the  time  being  more  constantly,  more  inti- 
mately, with  a  relatively  less  aspect  of  authority  in  all  cases ;  he 
can  adapt  himself  better  in  methods  and  approaches  to  individual 
characteristics  among  the  students  in  his  own  classes;  his  circle  is 


330  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

smaller  and  can  be  in  all  senses  more  easily  compassed ;  lie  can,  if 
he  chooses,  see  the  men  in  their  rooms  in  a  sort  of  social  way,  and 
invite  them  to  his  own  room ;  unknown  to  others  he  has  opportuni- 
ties of  doing  little  kindnesses  to  individuals  —  to  a  student  who 
is  poor  in  purse  or  afflicted  or  needing  in  any  way  a  paternal  or 
fraternal  word;  he  can  make  his  classes  sure  by  all  proper  self- 
re  vealings  that  he  has  no  selfish  ends  whatever  in  his  instructions, 
or  in  any  part  of  his  conduct  toward  them ;  and  having  a  less  general 
and  a  less  wearing  supervision  and  responsibility  than  the  president 
for  the  ongoing  of  things,  he  is  able  in  a  more  genial  way  to  gain 
the  confidence  and  affection  of  those  to  whom  on  his  part  he  is  bound 
and  inclined  to  show  the  utmost  confidence  warranted  by  the  cir- 
cumstances. Unwarranted  suspicions  manifested  toward  students 
or  colleagues  is  justly  fatal  to  any  man's  influence  in  a  college. 

In  ways  like  these,  or  ways  implied  in  these,  Professor  Dewey 
came  to  wield  an  extraordinary  moral  power  in  the  College  and  in 
the  county.  He  forwarded  the  temperance,  or  rather  the  total- 
abstinence  movement,  that  began  to  sweep  over  New  England  in  the 
twenties.  He  lectured  effectively  on  this  subject  as  he  had  time 
and  opportunity.  Besides  bringing  into  full  momentum  here  that 
preeminence  of  the  natural  sciences  over  the  other  classes  of  studies, 
which,  continued  by  Albert  Hopkins  and  others,  characterized  the 
first  third  of  the  nineteenth  century,  Dewey  began  to  give  lectures 
on  botany  and  chemistry  Nto  the  Medical  College  in  Pittsfield  in  1822, 
and  later  to  the  similar  college  in  Castleton,  Vermont ;  and  for  a 
good  many  years  he  gave  about  four  months  each  year  to  such  work, 
thus  forwarding  the  practical  science  and  art  of  medicine.  Yale 
College  gave  him  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Medicine  in  1825,  Union 
College  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Divinity  in  1838,  and  Williams  the 
degree  of  Doctor  of  Laws  in  1850.  Under  peculiar  circumstances, 
which,  so  far  as  they  may  be  made  fairly  to  illustrate  permanent 
college  principles,  may  be  detailed  at  a  later  stage  of  our  story, 
Chester  Dewey  resigned  his  professorship  in  Williams  in  1827,  and 
took  charge  of  a  high  school  or  "  gymnasium  "  in  Pittsfield,  modelled 
after  the  Eound  Hill  School  at  Northampton,  established  in  1823  by 
George  Bancroft  and  J.  G.  Cogswell.  The  idea  of  both  these  schools 
was  taken  from  Germany,  as  was  also  the  name,  and  imported  a 
school  of  high  grade  for  the  training  of  boys,  and  particularly  for 
fitting  them  for  college  on  a  superior  basis  to  any  that  then  prevailed 
in  America.  Bancroft  failed  utterly  as  a  teacher,  and  Cogswell  only 
went  on  with  his  school  for  five  years  ;  but  Dewey  for  nine  years  had 
a  great  success  with  his  Pittsfield  Gymnasium.  In  1836,  however, 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       331 

he  removed  to  Rochester,  and  became  influential  in  establishing  and 
building  up  the  "University"  there.  Here  he  lived  for  thirty-one 
years,  honored  by  everybody,  dying  at  eighty-three.  His  relations 
with  Williams  continued  remarkably  pleasant  and  intimate  till  the 
day  of  his  death.  His  last  visit  here  was  at  Commencement  time  in 
1856 ;  and  the  writer  remembers  with  pleasure  all  the  circumstances 
of  meeting  him  then  in  company  with  Mark  Hopkins  on  the  outlook 
of  the  Astronomical  Observatory.  That  was  forty  years  ago. 

The  early  intimate  connection  between  Yale  and  Williams  was 
kept  up  from  time  to  time  by  various  pleasant  relations,  and  by  none 
more,  perhaps,  than  by  the  repeated  visits  to  Williamstown  of 
President  Dwight,  while  on  his  justly  famous  "  Travels."  In  the 
second  published  volume  of  these  travels,  pages  398-400,  reference  is 
made  to  two  distinct  visits  here,  and  the  impressions  received,  one 
of  which  has  already  been  quoted  in  these  pages  relating  to  Seth 
Swift,  the  first  minister,  his  discouragements  and  successes  ;  and  the 
other  reference  will  now  be  given  in  part,  which  has  been  often 
quoted  on  account  of  its  scientific  aspects,  and  which  deserves  a 
permanent  home  in  a  book  like  the  present. 

In  September,  1806,  I  passed  through  this  town  on  a  journey  to  Vermont. 
While  I  was  here,  President  Fitch  showed  me  an  insect,  about  an  inch  in  length, 
of  a  brown  color,  tinged  with  orange,  with  two  antennae,  or  feelers,  not  unlike 
a  rosebug  in  form,  but  in  every  respect  handsomer.  The  insect  came  out  of  a 
tea-table,  made  of  the  boards  of  an  apple-tree,  and  belonging  to  Mr.  [Schuyler] 
Putnam,  one  of  the  inhabitants,  and  a  son  of  the  Hon.  Major-General  Putnam, 
late  of  Brooklyn  in  Connecticut.  I  went  with  President  Fitch  to  Mr.  Putnam's 
[on  Bee  Hill],  to  examine  the  spot,  whence  the  insect  had  emerged  into  light. 
We  measured  the  cavity  ;  and  found  it  about  two  inches  in  length,  nearly  hori- 
zontal, and  inclining  very  little,  except  at  the  mouth.  Between  the  hole,  and 
the  outside  of  the  leaf  of  the  table,  there  were  forty  grains  of  the  wood.  Presi- 
dent Fitch  supposed,  with  what  I  thought  a  moderate  estimate,  that  the  saw-mill, 
and  the  cabinet-maker  had  cut  off  at  least  as  many  as  thirteen  more :  making  sixty 
in  the  whole.  The  tree  had,  therefore,  been  growing  sixty  years,  from  the  time, 
when  the  egg  was  deposited  in  it,  out  of  which  the  insect  was  produced.  How 
long  a  period  had  intervened  between  the  day,  in  which  the  apple-tree  was  cut 
down,  and  that,  in  which  the  table  was  purchased  by  Mr.  Putnam,  is  unknown. 
It  had  been  in  his  possession  twenty  years.  Of  course,  eighty  years  had  elapsed 
between  the  laying  of  the  egg,  ahd  the  birth  of  the  insect. 

After  its  birth,  it  was  placed  under  a  tumbler,  and  attempts  were  made,  by 
offering  it  for  sustenance  wood  of  the  apple-tree,  and  bread  to  prolong  its  life. 
It  ate  a  small  quantity  of  the  bread  ;  but,  either  for  want  of  more  proper  food, 
or  from  being  lodged  in  too  cold  a  temperature,  or  from  some  other  cause,  it 
died  within  a  few  days.  My  own  acquaintance  with  entomology  is  so  limited, 
that  I  know  not  whether  the  observations  which  I  am  about  to  make,  may  not 
seem  idle,  and  be  really  superfluous,  to  persons  acquainted  with  this  branch  of 


332  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

natural  history.  But,  I  confess,  the  fact  opened  to  me  a  train  of  thoughts,  in 
some  measure  interesting.  I  had  often  wondered  at  many  things,  relative  to 
this  class  of  beings ;  and  had  often  heard  men  of  a  respectable  understanding 
express  their  wonder,  and  their  doubts,  concerning  the  same  things  :  particu- 
larly, the  origin  of  many  new  new  tribes  of  insects,  which,  within  the  last  forty 
years,  had  visited  these  States  :  (tribes  unknown  even  to  the  oldest  men  living, 
and,  therefore,  styled  new;)  the  periods  intervening  between  the  appearance 
and  disappearance  of  other  tribes,  which  are  well  known  ;  for  example,  the 
locust ;  the  apparently  absolute  disappearance  of  still  other  tribes,  together  with 
several  other  things  of  a  similar  nature.  I  had  long  been  satisfied  with  the 
vivacious  nature  of  seeds.  Here  I  was  presented  with  full  proof  of  the  same 
nature  in  the  eggs  of  insects.  The  egg  from  which  this  insect  sprang,  was 
unquestionably  deposited  eighty  years  before  its  appearance  in  a  living  form. 
Sixty  of  these  years  it  existed  in  the  tree,  where  it  was  laid.  Perhaps  it  may  be 
more  unobjectionably  said,  that  eighty  years  elapsed  from  the  time,  when  the 
cause  of  its  future  animation  was  lodged  in  the  tree,  to  the  commencement  of 
that  animation.  What  is  true  of  this  insect,  is  in  all  probability  true  of  many 
other  species. 

An  interesting  phase  of  this  insect  story  either  never  caught  the 
ear  of  President  Dwight,  or  he  did  not  regard  it  as  of  sufficient 
moment  for  record.  Members  of  the  family  of  Mr.  Putnam  heard 
at  intervals  extending  over  several  days  unaccountable  sounds 
apparently  issuing  from  this  table.  They  harked  and  searched. 
The  sounds  would  cease  under  movings  of  the  table  or  parts  of  it, 
and  then  begin  again.  It  became  a  mystery  talked  about,  not  only 
at  home,  but  also  among  the  neighbors  on  the  "  hill.77  At  last,  the 
insect  opened  for  itself  the  orifice  on  the  surface  of  the  table 
described  by  Dr.  Dwight.  Out  of  utter  darkness,  it  came  forth  into 
the  light.  From  long  confinement,  it  issued  into  brief  liberty.  Its 
persistent  labor  toward  a  living  exit  ended  shortly  in  its  exit  from 
life.  Its  nature  was  indeed  "  vivacious,"  as  Dr.  Dwight  says ;  but 
several  questions  arise  here,  besides  the  one  to  which  he  and  Dr. 
Fitch  seem  to  have  confined  themselves,  that  is,  how  long  had  this 
possible  vivacity  been  in  the  tree  and  in  the  table  ?  One  might 
naturally  ask,  did  it  pay  this  particular  insect,  in  order  to  achieve 
its  transient  notoriety  or  even  what  may  be  conceded  a  sort  of 
immortality,  to  labor  so  long  and  so  hard  to  dig  itself  out  ?  What 
was  the  motive  or  impulse  that  led  it  to  gnaw  so  persistently  the 
well-seasoned  apple-tree  wood  ?  Is  not  the  question  of  its  voracity 
quite  as  interesting  as  that  of  its  vivacity?  What  influence  upon 
its  hidden  activity  (if  any)  to  emerge  into  the  full  light  of  day,  had 
the  handsomeness  of  those  colors  then  first  displayed  to  the  eyes  of 
men  ?  These  questions  are  not  put  from  the  standpoint  of  ento- 
mology, nor  scarcely  from  any  other  standpoint,  except  perhaps  the 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL    THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       333 

vague  analogy  they  suggest  with  the  painstaking  labors  of  some 
men  and  women.  Some  things  about  it  are  certain:  the  incident 
excited  the  interest  of  one  of  the  most  inquisitive  and  honest  minds 
of  the  country  at  the  opening  of  the  new  century;  it  brought 
together  again  and  repeatedly  in  pleasant  curiosity  two  presidents 
of  colleges,  in  most  respects  extremely  unlike  each  other,  who  had 
been  associated  together  at  Yale  in  their  younger  lives,  and  who 
seem  to  have  respected  each  other  so  long  as  the  older  and  abler 
man  survived;  and  it  helped  to  connect  for  a  while  in  agreeable 
relations  (soon  to  become  hostile)  the  simple  people  of  Bee  Hill  with 
the  College,  since  the  Putnams  sent  for  President  Fitch  so  soon  as 
the  insect  emerged,  and  also  presented  him  with  the  remains  when 
life  was  extinct,  and  often  thereafter  opened  their  doors  and 
exhibited  their  table  to  more  scholarly  and  distinguished  visitors 
than  had  been  accustomed  to  call  at  the  farmhouse. 

Perhaps  Schuyler  Putnam  deserves  at  our  hands  a  somewhat 
fuller  recognition  in  this  place.  He  came  to  Williamstown  in  1805 
from  Brooklyn,  Connecticut,  where  he  was  born,  and  where  his 
more  famous  father  died  in  May,  1790.  His  motive  in  moving  to 
Williamstown  was  to  avail  himself  of  the  advantages  of  the  place 
for  the  education  of  his  sons.  Three  of  these,  John  Pope,  Nathan, 
and  Schuyler,  were  graduated  here  with  credit  in  the  class  of  1809. 
The  father's  full  name  was  Peter  Schuyler  Putnam,  but  he  was 
named  after  General  Philip  Schuyler,  under  whom  and  in  connection 
with  whom  Israel  Putnam  had  served  both  in  the  last  French  and 
Indian  War  and  in  the  Eevolutionary  War,  and  for  whom  he  enter- 
tained the  highest  esteem.  Schuyler  Putnam  inherited  some  of  his 
father's  qualities;  he  was  social  and  generous  and  humane;  and, 
like  his  father,  he  was  an  enterprising  farmer.  The  son  devoted 
himself  particularly  to  cheese-making,  all  the  work  connected  with 
which  he  did  himself,  and  prided  himself  upon  its  perfection.  He 
had  a  stamp  bearing  his  own  name,  which  he  impressed  upon  his 
own  cheeses;  and  these  came  to  have  a  great  reputation  in  New 
York  City,  which  was  his  market,  and  always  bore  a  price  above  the 
common.  On  his  deathbed  he  gave  strict  orders  that  this  stamp 
should  be  destroyed  at  once,  which  lets  light  in  upon  a  highly  com- 
mendable quality  of  the  man.  Coming  down  from  Bee  Hill  to  the 
village,  he  kept  the  Mansion  House  as  a  tenant  under  the  Skinners 
for  a  number  of  years,  and  closed  a  somewhat  eccentric  career  about 
1824,  as  a  tenant  on  the  large  farm  of  Captain  Kellogg,  which  he 
contracted  to  carry  on  "  at  the  halves,"  as  the  tenure  was  then  called 
in  New  England.  His  body  was  buried  at  North  Adams. 


334  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

A  total  eclipse  of  the  sun  occurred  in  June,  1806,  which  stirred 
the  poetic  impulses  of  a  boy  in  Cummington  to  try  to  describe  it  in 
rhymed  pentameters.  This  piece  is  still  extant  in  thirty  lines,  com- 
mencing :  — 

"  How  awfully  sublime  and  grand  to  see, 
The  lamp  of  Day  wrapped  in  Obscurity." 

The  poem  is  inscribed  in  the  boy's  handwriting :  "  Written  by 
W.  C.  Bryant,  just  after  the  great  total  Eclipse  of  the  Sun,  in  the 
Summer  of  1806,  — in  his  twelfth  year."  This  boy  on  the  9th  of 
October,  1810,  was  entered  a  Sophomore  in  Williams  College.  This 
was  then  the  beginning  of  the  college  year.  About  a  month  before, 
he  had  attended  with  his  father,  Dr.  Peter  Bryant,  the  Commence- 
ment exercises  of  that  year,  when  twenty-nine  young  men,  the 
class  that  had  had  the  trouble  with  Professor  Olds  and  the  tutors, 
received  their  diplomas.  As  he  was  at  the  time  of  his  admission 
the  most  precocious  and  widest-read  boy  that  ever  entered  the 
College;  and  as  he  became  the  most  celebrated  man  and  the  one 
most  likely  to  remain  "  in  the  choir  of  ever-enduring  men,"  that  was 
ever  in  the  College  as  a  student,  though  his  residence  continued  but 
seven  months  in  all,  the  reader  will  desire  to  construe  for  himself 
line  by  line  and  in  its  entirety  the  account  of  it  written  by  Bryant 
in  his  autobiography  sixty-five  years  afterward. 

In  the  beginning  of  September,  1810,  when  the  annual  Commencement  of 
Williams  College  was  at  that  time  held,  I  went  with  my  father  to  Williamstown, 
passed  an  easy  examination,  and  was  admitted  as  a  member  of  the  Sophomore 
class.  After  the  usual  vacation  I  went  again  to  Williamstown  and  began  my 
college  life.  I  found  that  kind  of  life  on  the  whole  agreeable,  and  formed  pleas- 
ant relations  with  my  fellow  students  and  instructors.  There  were  two  literary 
societies  in  the  College,  to  one  or  other  of  which  every  student  belonged,  the 
Philotechnian  and  Philologian,  and,  as  my  room-mate,  John  Avery,  belonged  to 
the  Philotechnian,  I  was  induced  to  join  it.  These  societies  had  their  literary 
exercises,  in  which  I  took  a  great  interest. 

My  room-mate  was  a  most  worthy  and  well-principled  person,  several  years 
older  than  myself,  and  I  owed  so  much  to  his  example  and  counsels  that  I  have 
often  regretted  not  having  kept  up  a  correspondence  with  him.  He  became  in 
after  life  a  minister  of  the  Episcopal  Church,  and  went  to  the  Southern  States, 
to  Maryland,  I  think,  whence,  about  the  year  1835,  he  removed  to  Alabama, 
and  died  soon  afterward.  The  students  of  Williams  College  were  at  that  time 
mostly  youths  of  a  staid  character,  generally  in  narrow  circumstances,  who  went 
to  college  with  a  serious  intention  to  study,  and  prepare  themselves  for  some  of 
the  learned  professions,  so  that  I  have  no  college  pranks  to  relate.  The  course 
of  study  in  Williams  College  at  that  time  was  meagre  and  slight  in  comparison 
with  what  it  now  is.  There  was  but  one  Professor,  Chester  Dewey,  Professor 
of  Mathematics  and  Natural  Philosophy,  a  man  of  much  merit,  who  had  the 
charge  of  the  Junior  class.  The  President  of  the  college,  Dr.  Fitch,  superin- 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       335 

tended  the  studies  of  the  Senior  class,  and  the  Sophomores  and  Freshmen  were 
instructed  by  two  tutors  employed  from  year  to  year.  I  mastered  the  daily 
lessons  given  out  to  my  class,  and  found  much  time  for  miscellaneous  reading, 
for  disputations,  and  for  literary  composition  in  prose  and  verse,  in  all  of  which 
I  was  thought  to  acquit  myself  with  some  credit.  No  attention  was  then  paid  to 
prosody,  but  I  made  an  attempt  to  acquaint  myself  with  the  prosody  of  the 
Latin  language,  and  tried  some  experiments  in  Latin  verse  which  were  clumsy 
and  uncouth  enough. 

Among  my  verses  was  a  paraphrastic  translation  of  Anacreon's  ode  on  Spring. 
Moore's  version  of  Anacreon's  ode  was  consulted,  and  my  room-mate  suggested 
that  these  translations  should  be  shown  to  two  members  of  the  Junior  class, 
whom  he  named,  and  of  whose  judgment  in  literary  matters  he  thought  highly, 
and  that  they,  without  knowing  the  authorship  of  either,  should  be  asked  to  say 
which  of  the  two  was  the  better.  Both  versions  copied  in  the  same  hand  were 
accordingly  laid  before  them  by  Avery.  He  came  back  to  me  greatly  pleased, 
and  informed  me  that  the  two  judges  had  given  the  preference  to  my  translation. 
He  added  that  they  evidently  supposed  my  translation  to  be  that  of  Moore,  and 
spoke  of  the  other  in  an  encouraging  manner  as  quite  creditable  on  the  whole. 
He  came  away  without  undeceiving  them. 

My  room-mate,  for  the  sake  of  obtaining  a  more  complete  education  than  the 
course  of  study  at  Williams  then  promised,  had  resolved  to  leave  the  college  and 
become  matriculated  at  Yale  in  New  Haven.  His  example,  and  a  like  desire  on 
my  part,  induced  me  to  write  to  my  father  for  leave  to  take  the  same  step,  to 
which  he  consented.  Accordingly  in  the  year  1811,  before  the  third  term  of 
my  Sophomore  year  was  ended  [May  8th],  I  asked  and  obtained  an  honorable 
dismission  from  Williams  College,  and  going  back  to  Cummington  began  to 
prepare  myself  for  entering  the  Junior  class  at  Yale.  I  pursued  my  studies  at 
home  with  some  diligence  and  without  any  guide  save  my  books,  but,  when  the 
time  drew  near  that  I  should  apply  for  admission  to  Yale,  my  father  told  me 
that  his  means  did  not  allow  him  to  maintain  me  at  New  Haven,  and  that  I 
must  give  up  the  idea  of  a  full  course  of  college  education.  I  have  always 
thought  this  unfortunate  for  me,  since  it  left  me  but  superficially  acquainted 
with  several  branches  of  education,  which  a  college  course  would  have  enabled 
ine  to  master,  and  would  have  given  me  a  greater  readiness  in  their  application. 
-I  regretted  all  my  life  afterward  that  I  had  not  remained  at  Williams,  where, 
considering  that  the  expenses  were  less  than  at  Yale,  my  father  might  have  been 
willing  to  support  me  till  I  should  obtain  the  degree  of  Bachelor  of  Arts. 

The  room  that  John  Avery  and  Cullen  Bryant  occupied  together 
in  the  interval  of  time  sketched  above,  as  their  classmate  Sedgwick 
well  remembered  fifty  years  afterward,  was  the  inner  room  on  the 
third  floor  of  West  College,  east  side,  and  was  then  and  is  still 
No.  11.  The  changes  wrought  in  the  building  in  1854  did  not  in 
any  respect  destroy  the  identity  of  this  room,  nor  indeed  of  any 
other  room  in  the  building.  Two  small  bedrooms  were  cut  off  from 
the  side  of  each  of  the  large  rectangular  rooms  as  they  were  origi- 
nally finished  off,  and  the  numbering  of  the  rooms  from  one  to 
thirty-two  was  not  in  any  instance  changed. 


336  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

Some  of  Bryant's  ancestors  on  both  sides  had  shown  unusual 
poetic  impulses,  and  all  were  remarkably  thoughtful  and  reading 
people.  His  father  was  a  good  judge  of  poetry,  and  a  merciless 
critic  of  the  boy's  earliest  efforts  in  that  direction.  He  had  more- 
over a  good  library  both  of  prose  and  verse.  "  My  father  delighted 
in  poetry,  and  in  his  library  were  the  works  of  most  of  the  eminent 
English  poets.  He  wrote  verses  himself,  mostly  humorous  and 
satirical.  He  was  not  unskilled  in  Latin  poetry,  in  which  the  odes 
of  Horace  were  his  favorites.  He  was  fond  of  music,  played  on  the 
violin,  and  I  remember  hearing  him  say  that  he  once  made  a  bass 
viol,  —  for  he  was  very  ingenius  in  the  use  of  tools,  —  and  played 
upon  it."  Heredity  had  its  full  part/in  making  Bryant  a  great  poet; 
but  the  boy  had  in  himself  all  the  other  conditions  and  prerequisites. 
In  his  childhood  he  used  to  pray  that  he  might  receive  the  gift  of 
poetic  genius,  and  write  verses  that  might  endure.  "I  presented 
this  petition  in  those  early  years  with  great  fervor,  but  after  a  time 
I  discontinued  the  practice;  I  can  hardly  say  why.  Whatever  I 
might  innocently  wish  I  did  not  see  why  I  should  not  ask ;  and  I 
was  a  firm  believer  in  the  efficacy  of  prayer."  Corresponding  with 
his  desires  was  his  diligence.  He  read  books  from  his  father's 
library  with  an  amazing  facility  and  a  most  extraordinary  memory. 
Before  he  entered  college  (not  yet  sixteen),  he  had  read  every  word 
in  a  list  of  books  recollected  by  himself,  the  length  of  which  list  is 
the  chief  reason  for  its  not  being  copied  in  this  place. 

He  had  mastered  the  rudiments  of  Latin  and  Greek  with  such  ease 
and  quickness,  and  had  perused  the  preparatory  books  with  so  much 
pleasure  and  thoroughness,  that  he  might  doubtless  have  entered  the 
Junior  class  here  just  as  readily  as  he  did  the  Sophomore.  In  that 
case  he  would  have  come  immediately  under  the  stimulating  instruc- 
tion of  Chester  Dewey,  then  just  beginning  his  professorship  after  a 
successful  tutorship  of  two  years.  Had  he  done  so,  in  all  probability 
he  would  not  have  left  the  College  till  his  graduation.  Besides  his 
reading,  and  his  much  initial  writing  of  verse,  he  had  already  eagerly 
commenced  "in  the  love  of  Nature  to  hold  communion  with  her 
visible  forms."  Dewey  would  have  been  a  man  after  his  own  heart. 
Botany  would  have  been  equally  the  delight  and  inspiration  of  them 
both.  Each  would  certainly  have  kept  step  with  the  music  of  the 
other.  But  it  was  not  so  to  be.  Providence  knows  best.  Orange 
Lyman,  the  Sophomore  tutor,  was  a  staid  and  self-willed  and  stiff 
New  England  body,  an  alumnus  of  1809,  and  during  his  life  a  home 
missionary  in  New  York  and  Ohio  and  Illinois.  "Experienced, 
judicious,  grave,"  are  words  from  his  college  obituary.  Few  im- 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.        337 

pulses  from  such  a  man  could  come  to  such  a  boy  as  was  Cullen 
Bryant  in  1810.  The  latter  quickly  mastered  the  daily  lessons  given 
out  to  his  class,  and  then  went  about  his  miscellaneous  reading,  his 
college  and  society  disputations,  and  his  literary  compositions  in 
prose  and  verse. 

The  memorable  thing  about  it  all  is  this,  that  the  boy  showed  no 
signs  in  his  bearing  or  conduct  of  what  must  have  been  his  conscious 
superiority  over  all  those  around  him  in  personal  powers  and 
scholarly  attainments.  His  modesty  and  self-poise  under  all  the 
circumstances  are  nothing  short  of  wonderful.  In  1808  his  "Em- 
bargo ;  a  Satire ;  by  a  Youth  of  Thirteen ;  "  had  been  published  in 
Boston,  and  kindly  noticed  in  the  Federalist  papers,  and  at  least  in 
one  literary  periodical  there.  The  same,  somewhat  enlarged,  and  a 
few  shorter  poems  added,  passed  into  a  second  edition  in  1809.  Not 
long  after  Mr.  Bryant's  death,  in  1878,  the  present  writer  felt  so 
sure  from  the  general  principles  of  human  nature,  and  from  some 
knowledge  of  a  satirical  poem  written  by  him  just  before  he  left 
college  (rumors  of  which  then  first  came  to  be  bruited  about),  that 
there  must  have  been  some  such  tokens  of  self-consciousness  notice- 
able at  least  by  his  classmates,  that  he  wrote  a  letter  of  particular 
inquiry  on  this  point  to  General  Sedgwick.  The  following  is  the 
reply  received:  — 

SHARON,  CT.,  June  13,  1879. 
PROFESSOR  PERRY  — 

I  have  your  favor  of  yesterday,  and  very  cheerfully  comply  with  your  request 
in  relation  to  my  recollections  of  Bryant  while  he  was  in  college.  His  member- 
ship was  so  short,  that  there  is  not  much  to  be  written  about  it.  He  entered  our 
class  at  the  commencement  of  Sophomore  year  in  1810,  being  then  in  his  16th 
year,  and  brought  with  him  the  reputation  of  being  the  author  of  two  or  three 
short  poems  bearing  upon  the  politics  of  the  day,  which  were  deemed  of  remark- 
able ability  as  the  productions  of  an  author  so  young.  He  had  not  then  reached 
the  physical  dimensions  which  he  afterwards  attained,  but  his  person  was 
remarkably  well  formed,  and  his  head  was  covered  with  a  prolific  growth  of 
dark  brown  hair.  His  room-mate  was  John  Avery  from  Con  way  who  was  some 
ten  years  his  senior ;  and  they,  as  did  other  Sophomores,  roomed  in  the  West 
College.  As  I  now  recollect,  their  room  was  in  the  3d  story,  north  end,  east 
side,  next  to  the  N.  E.  corner  room  of  that  story.  I  never  heard  of  the  satiric 
stanzas  said  to  have  been  written  by  him  on  leaving  college  till  since  his  decease. 
I  was  a  member  of  the  Philotechnian  Society,  and  feel  confident  that  if  such  a 
production  had  been  read  there,  it  would  have  excited  a  sensation  which  could 
not  have  been  forgotten  by  me. 

When  I  noticed  the  allusion  to  the  poem  in  the  commemorative  address  by 
Mr.  G.  W.  Curtis,  I  took  measures  to  obtain  through  Hon.  E.  C.  Benedict  a  copy 
of  them,  and  the  enclosed  letter  from  that  gentleman  shows  the  failure  of  my 
effort.  As  they  are  to  be  published,  I  suppose  there  can  be  no  objection  to  my 


338  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

seeing  them,  and  I  earnestly  request  that  you  will  send  me  a  copy  of  them  on 
the  return  of  Mr.  Benedict's  letter.  Dr.  Hallock  did  not  become  a  member  of 
college  till  several  years  after  Mr.  Bryant  left. 

The  tutor  of  our  class  was  Rev.  Orange  Lyman,  who  was  afterwards  settled 
in  the  ministry  at  Vernon,  Oneida  Co.,  N.  Y.  Bryant  showed  no  superiority  to 
his  teacher  or  to  the  other  members  of  his  class,  who  were  men  of  studious 
habits.  He  associated  with  the  more  orderly  and  industrious  members  of  col- 
lege, and  was  entirely  modest  and  unobtrusive  in  his  deportment.  He  affected 
no  superiority  and  was  not  particularly  distinguished  from  other  members  who 
studied  faithfully,  in  any  department  of  the  course  of  studies  then  pursued  by 
the  class.  The  only  example  of  his  poetry  written  while  he  was  in  college 
which  was  known  to  the  members  was  a  composition  read  by  him  in  fulfilling 
that  imposed  duty,  which  received  the  examination  but  not  the  criticism  of 
Tutor  Lyman ;  and  a  translation  of  one  of  the  odes  of  Anacreon  which  he 
showed  to  a  few  friends.  I  had  the  reading  of  it,  but  have  forgotten  which  of 
the  odes  of  Anacreon  it  was. 

These  statements  will  assure  you  that  there  was  nothing  in  the  feelings  or 
deportment  of  Mr.  Bryant  which  is  described  in  common  parlance  as  sticking 
up  the  nose.  The  reason  always  given  by  Mr.  Bryant  for  leaving  college  was 
that  he  intended  to  become  a  member  of  Yale  and  graduate  there,  but  was  pre- 
vented by  the  want  of  ability  of  his  father  to  sustain  the  expense  of  his  educa- 
tion there.  I  add  as  a  matter  of  conjecture,  that  not  improbably  the  influence 
of  his  room-mate,  John  Avery,  persuaded  him  to  that  course.  Avery  was  far  in 
advance  of  many  the  other  members  of  the  class,  when  he  entered  Freshman, 
and  kept  in  advance  through  the  whole  term  of  his  membership.  He  left  college 
at  the  same  time  with  Bryant,  and  entered  at  the  next  term  in  Yale  in  the  same 
standing  that  he  had  at  Williams  ;  and  it  is  not  improbable  that  his  example  if 
not  his  council  persuaded  Bryant  to  adopt  the  same  purpose. 

I  believe  I  have  answered  your  inquiries  as  far  as  I  can.  If  there  is  any- 
thing further  in  which  I  can  aid  you,  please  command  me  at  any  time.  Don't 
forget  to  send  me  copies  of  the  stanzas,  as  I  have  set  my  heart  on  seeing  them 
ever  since  I  heard  of  their  existence. 

Very  truly  Yours 

CHA!    F.  SEDGWICK. 

There  was  at  least  one  other  man,  who  had  "  set  his  heart  on  see- 
ing them  "  quite  as  firmly  as  had  General  Sedgwick.  This  man  made 
a  journey  from  William stown  to  New  York,  on  purpose  to  see  what 
could  be  gotten  out  of  Eev.  Dr.  Hallock,  then  in  his  dotage.  He 
was  willing  to  repeat  parts  of  two  stanzas,  all  that  he  could  then  pos- 
sibly remember,  but  he  forbade  his  visitor  to  write  down  even  these 
meagre  lines.  Mrs.  Hallock,  however,  kindly  wrote  them  down  for 
him  in  an  anteroom,  and  he  returned  assured  that  he  had  made 
something  of  a  find.  It  was  not  long  before  he  heard,  vaguely  indeed 
but  credibly,  that  one  of  Bryant's  brothers  in  Illinois,  who  had  lost 
his  house  by  fire  and  in  it  the  original  copy  of  the  verses  given  to 
him  by  the  poet,  and  then  supposed  to  be  the  only  copy  in  existence. 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE    TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       339 

could  repeat  the  lines  by  memory  verbatim  and  entire.  A  corre- 
spondence was  entered  upon  immediately,  first,  to  obtain  the  address 
of  this  brother,  and  second,  to  obtain  (if  possible)  a  copy  of  the 
stanzas.  Before  this  roundabout  correspondence  had  had  time  to 
fructify,  however,  he  received  another  letter  from  General  Sedgwick, 
which  the  reader  will  be  glad  to  see.  Neither  of  these  letters  have 
ever  before  been  printed. 

SHARON,  January  26,  1880. 
PROFESSOR  FERRY 

I  am  very  glad  to  have  been  able  to  furnish  you  with  the  manuscript  we  have 
al}  been  seeking  for  a  long  time.  It  has  occurred  to  me  that  you  would  like  to 
know  the  circumstances  attending  the  discovery. 

Several  weeks  ago,  Parke  Godwin  Esq.,  son-in-law  of  Mr.  Bryant,  opened  a 
correspondence  with  me,  to  learn  from  me  what  I  could  tell  him  of  Mr.  Bryant's 
college  experience.  After  our  correspondence  was  finished,  it  occurred  to  me 
that  Mr.  Godwin  might  know  something  of  the  poem,  and  I  addressed  him  a 
note  making  inquiry  on  the  subject.  He  wrote  under  date  of  Jan.  7,  —  "  There  is 
such  a  poem  in  possession  of  Mr.  Hallock  of  this  city,  of  which  I  saw  a  copy 
many  years  since,  but  I  do  not  think  it  was  ever  delivered  or  publicly  read  at 
Williams.  Mr.  Arthur  Bryant  of  Illinois  could  repeat  it  from  memory,  but  has 
no  doubt  forgotten  it  by  this  time." 

I  knew  Mr.  Bryant  had  a  brother  residing  at  Princeton,  Illinois,  and  I  there- 
upon addressed  him  a  letter,  stating  that  I  was  seeking  for  a  humorous  poem 
written  by  his  brother  when  he  left  college  ;  and  requesting  him,  if  he  had  it  in 
manuscript  or  in  memory,  to  send  me  a  copy.  Within  ten  days  I  received  a 
copy  of  the  poem  in  full,  and  I  copy  verbatim  the  letter  which  accompanied  it. 

"PRINCETON,  ILL.,  Jan.  15,  1880. 
"  C.  F.  SEDGWICK  ESQ. 

"  Dear  Sir,  I  send-you  the  poem  you  wish  to  obtain  written  out  from  memory. 
I  think  it  is  accurate.  As  you  will  perceive,  its  tone  is  that  of  bitter  sarcasm 
and  censure,  rather  than  of  humor.  Twenty  four  years  ago  I  had  the  original 
copy  in  my  brother's  handwriting,  but  it  was  destroyed  when  my  house  was 
burned.  Written  under  it  was  this  memorandum,  —  '  Read  in  the  Philotech- 
nian  Society  March '  —  I  have  forgotten  the  exact  date. 

"Respectfully  Yours, 

"ARTHUR  BRYANT." 

Probably  Mr.  A.  Bryant  is  the  only  person  in  the  world  from  whom  the  poem 
could  be  obtained.  W.  C.  Bryant's  subsequent  relations  to  the  college  were  so 
intimate  and  friendly,  that  there  is  no  wonder  that  he  wished  this  early  speci- 
men of  his  young  poetic  talent  should  be  suppressed.  The  sarcasm  and  censure 
of  the  poem  was  afterwards  amply  condoned  by  his  munificent  friendship  to  our 

Alma  Mater. 

Yours  very  truly 

CHA?  F.   SEDGWICK. 


340  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

The  good  classmate's  natural  supposition  that  Arthur  Bryant's 
memory  was  the  only  repository  of  the  stanzas  in  January,  1880, 
proved  not  long  afterward  to  be  in  fault.  There  was  another  class- 
mate, Charles  Jenkins,  afterward  tutor  in  the  College  1816-19, 
subsequently  a  pastor  in  Portland,  father  of  Rev.  Dr.  J.  L.  Jenkins 
now  settled  in  the  same  pastorate,  left  among  his  papers  at  his  death 
in  1831  a  complete  copy  of  these  verses,  in  the  handwriting  indeed 
of  the  classmate  and  endorsed  in  the  same,  "Written  by  W.  C. 
Bryant,  late  a  member  of  the  Sophomore  class  in  Williams  College." 
Bryant  beyond  question  gave  to  Jenkins  on  leaving  as  a  personal 
keepsake  the  poem  to  copy  and  to  possess.  Among  the  latter's 
papers  the  copy  slumbered  for  three-quarters  of  a  century  and  more, 
when  his  son,  an  alumnus  of  Yale,  very  properly  gave  the  poem  to 
the  press.  Indeed,  it  is  very  fortunate  that  he  did  so ;  for  otherwise, 
the  men/writer  version  of  Arthur  Bryant  would  have  gone  on  perma- 
nent record  as  a  correct  and  unchangeable  version.  The  present 
writer  has  compared  critically  the  two  line  by  line  and  word  for  word. 
The  differences  are  only  verbal,  except  in  the  first  four  lines  of  the 
fifth  stanza,  where  they  are  substantive.  Arthur  Bryant  or  some- 
body else  made  a  paraphrase  of  those  lines,  and  made  them  much 
weaker,  also  with  different  rhymes  and  a  partially  different  thought. 
On  the  other  hand,  in  several  of  the  verbal  discrepances,  the  manu- 
script copy  is  clearly  right  and  the  printed  one  wrong.  There  are 
two  obvious  printer's  errors.  With  much  confidence  that  the  follow- 
ing recension  is  as  near  the  original  as  it  can  possibly  be  made,  the 
writer  submits  to  the  readers  its  final  form. 


DESCRIPTIO   GULIELMOPOLIS, 

No  more  the  brumal  tempest  sheds 

Its  gathered  stores  in  sleety  showers, 

Nor  yet  the  vernal  season  spreads 

Her  verdant  mantle  gemmed  with  flowers ; 

But  fettered  stands  the  naked  year 

And  shivers  to  the  chilling  air, 

And  lingers  dubious  on  the  wing ; 

And  often  struggles  to  unclasp 

Reluctant  Winter's  icy  grasp 

And  greet  the  arms  of  Spring. 

Hemmed  in  with  hills,  whose  heads  aspire, 
Abrupt  and  rude,  and  hung  with  woods  ; 
Amid  these  vales  I  touch  the  lyre, 
Where  devious  Hoosack  rolls  his  floods. 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       341 

Dear  vales,  where  every  pleasure  meets, 
Fain  would  I  paint  thy  slimy  streets, 
Extended  views  and  wholesome  air, 
Thy  soil  with  churlish  guardians  blest 
And  horrors  of  the  bleak  Northwest 
Poured  through  the  chasm  afar. 

Safe  from  the  morning's  golden  eye 
And  sheltered  from  the  western  breeze, 
These  happy  regions  bosomed  lie  — 
The  seats  of  bliss  and  bowers  of  ease, 
Far-famed  spot  whose  fertile  breast 
Now  droughts  with  lengthened  blaze  infest, 
Now  tempests  drench  with  copious  flood. 
Alternate  heat  and  cold  surprise, 
A  frozen  desert  now  it  lies, 
And  now  a  sea  of  mud  ! 

While  rising  on  the  tainted  gale, 

The  morbid  exhalations  ride, 

And  hover  o'er  the  unconscious  vale, 

Or  steep  upon  the  mountain  side. 

There  on  her  misty  throne  reclined, 

Her  aching  brows  with  nightshade  twined, 

Disease  unseen  directs  her  way, 

Wields  the  black  sceptre  of  her  reign 

And  barbs  her  shafts  with  keener  pain, 

And  singles  out  her  prey. 

Why  should  I  sing  its  turbid  springs 

That  trickle  through  its  rocks  of  lime, 

And  why  those  domes  where  science  flings 

Her  far-diffusing  rays  sublime, 

Where  through  the  horror-breathing  hall 

The  pale-faced,  moping  students  crawl 

Like  spectral  monuments  of  woe, 

Or  studious  seek  the  unwholesome  cell, 

Where  dust  and  gloom  and  cobwebs  dwell, 

Dark,  dirty,  dank,  and  low. 

Yet  on  the  picture  dark  with  shade 

Let  not  the  eye  forever  gaze 

Where  lawless  Power  his  nest  has  laid, 

And  stern  Suspicion  treads  her  maze. 

The  storm  that  o'er  the  wintry  waste 

Rides  howling  on  the  northern  blast, 

In  time  will  curb  its  furious  way  ; 

But  that  o'er  Hootiack's  vales  which  lowers 

Will  never  know  serener  hours, 

Nor  open  to  the  day. 


342  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

1.  This  curious  poem,  although  many  of  its  expressions  are  much 
exaggerated  in  accordance  with  the  nature  of  all  successful  sarcasm, 
is  nevertheless  of  decided  merit  and  of  manifold  value  to  posterity. 
Allusion's  to  it  made  by  George  William  Curtis  in  an  oration  on 
Bryant  before  the  New  York  Historical  Society,  Dec.  20,  1878,  the 
year  of  Bryant's  death,  awakened  the  public  curiosity  in  relation  to 
it,  and  particularly  the  curiosity  of  certain  graduates  of  the  College 
who  knew  Bryant  well  and  were  also  desirous  to  know  the  College 
well  in  its  early  day.  The  local  scenery,  as  it  was  in  the  first 
decade  of  the  nineteenth  century,  was  never  better  described,  and 
never  can  be  again. 

Safe  from  the  Morning's  golden  eye  [behind  the  Hoosacs] 
And  sheltered  from  the  western  breeze  [by  the  Taconics], 
These  happy  regions  bosomed  lie. 

Another  feature  of  the  landscape  as  it  was  then,  and  almost  as  it 
was  forty  years  later  when  the  writer  first  became  familiar  with 
it,  is  perfectly  hit  off  in  the  following  lines :  — 

Hemmed  in  with  hills,  whose  heads  aspire 
Abrupt  and  rude,  and  hung  with  woods  ; 
Amid  these  vales  I  touch  the  lyre, 
Where  devious  Hoosac  rolls  his  floods. 

No  other  poetic  adjective  so  well  as  "devious"  could  describe  the 
course  of  the  river  through  William stown.  Near  to  the  site  of 
old  Fort  Massachusetts  the  westerly  course  of  the  stream  from  the 
junction  of  its  two  branches  in  what  is  now  the  city  of  North  Adams 
is  sharply  deflected  to  the  south  by  striking  on  the  rock-wall  that 
defends  the  whole  northern  side  of  the  valley,  and  thus  is  made  to 
enclose  the  beautiful  "  Fort  Meadow  "  as  it  is  called.  Like  a  wilful 
child  once  sharply  corrected,  the  stream  soon  begins  to  work  its  way 
back  to  the  same  northern  line  of  rock  and  slope,  until,  just  before 
taking  in  on  its  southern  side  the  Green  Eiver  tributary,  the  Hoosac 
makes  an  almost  right-angle  bend  to  the  northward,  which  general 
direction  with  many  a  "devious7'  loop  it  keeps  thereafter  till  it 
slips  so  out  of  the  town  and  the  State.  This  last  stretch  of  the 
Hoosac  Eiver  in  Massachusetts,  having  thus  made  an  exit  for  itself 
through  the  high  hills  in  some  of  the  geologic  ages,  described  indeed 
by  Bryant, 

And  horrors  of  the  bleak  Northwest 

Poured  through  its  chasm  afar, 

is  fondly  called  by  us  a  century  afterward  the  "Golden  Gate," 
because  there  is  the  place  where  the  yellow  sunset  lingers  longest 
in  our  horizon-circuit. 


TOWN  AND   COLLEGE  TILL  THE  SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       343 

2.  So  far  as  is  now  known,  Bryant  was  the  first  in  what  has 
proved  a  long  succession  of  varying  Vates  to  pay  emphatic  tributes, 
poetic  and  dramatic,  to  the  climate  of  Williamstown  in  March. 
Certain  incidents  and  attachments  of  that  climate,  pretty  uniform 
in  itself  considered,  have  grown  a  good  deal  more  endurable  during 
the  century  past.  An  extremely  gradual  evolution  of  dry  sidewalks 
is  one  of  the  most  considerable  of  the  betterments.  The  general 
description  holds  good  to  this  day  :  — 

But  fettered  stands  the  naked  year 
And  shivers  to  the  chilling  air, 
And  lingers  dubious  on  the  wing ; 
And  often  struggles  to  unclasp 
Reluctant  Winter's  icy  grasp 
And  greet  the  arms  of  Spring. 

Two  of  the  incidents  or  accessories  of  the  March  climate  are 
savagely  alluded  to  in  these  lines  of  Bryant,  the  springs  of  which 
old  Father  Time  has  already  been  able  pretty  much  to  dry  up,  —  the 
impassableness  of  the  walks,  and  the  alarmingly  prevalent  epidemics 
of  the  springtime.  General  Samuel  Sloan,  whose  family  then 
occupied  the  best  house  in  the  village,  which  he  had  built  for  him- 
self in  1801,  and  which  is  still  the  official  home  of  the  College  presi- 
dent, was  then  giving  in  the  sight  of  the  students  object-lessons 
illustrating  also  these  lines  of  Bryant :  — 

Now  tempests  drench  with  copious  flood. 
Alternate  heat  and  cold  surprise, 
A  frozen  desert  now  it  lies, 
And  now  a  sea  of  mud! 

Keliable  traditions  of  eyewitnesses  represent  General  Sloan  as 
sending  out  his  hired  man  with  two  long  boards  to  accompany  his 
daughters  on  making  their  village  calls  in  the  springtime,  so  as  to 
lay  down  one  board  on  the  muddy  ground,  and  while  the  girls  were 
passing  over  that  to  lay  down  the  other  in  front  of  it,  and  then  to 
take  up  the  hinder  one  and  repeat  the  process  till  the  muddy  places 
were  practically  vanquished  for  that  day.  Clay  and  limestone  go 
naturally  together,  as  much  so  as  pines  and  sand;  and  the  writer 
knows  the  sites  of  three  or  four  "  old  brick-kilns  "  dating  back  into 
the  eighteenth  century  on  the  western  end  of  the  village  plat ;  and 
there  might  have  been  twice  as  many  more  in  other  parts  of  the 
little  hamlet,  so  predominant  is  the  clayey  soil  over  and  alongside 
the  lime  rocks.  Luckily  the  numerous  brooks  have  always  had  the 
knack  of  bringing  down  plenteous  gravel  to  the  valley;  gravelled 
walks  to  and  around  the  College  buildings  came  in  early ;  the  broad 


344  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

and  straight  walk  from  the  old  East  College  through  the  centre 
of  West  College  to  the  meeting-house  on  eminence  No.  3,  received 
copious  gravel  from  year  to  year  and  decade  to  decade  without  ever 
becoming  very  firm  ground  toward  its  western  end;  for  a  genera- 
tion or  more  the  College  gave  the  students  an  annual  holiday  called 
"  Gravel  Day,"  for  bona  fide  personal  work  around  the  buildings, 
but  it  dwindled  at  last  to  a  trifling  class  tax,  and  then  both  day  and 
deed  deceased.  As  the  last  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  are 
dropping  off  in  welcome  to  the  earliest  of  the  twentieth,  asphalt 
sidewalks  in  long  stretches  are  flanking  the  streets  of  the  village  in 
all  directions,  and  macadamized  highways  of  a  permanent  character 
(partly  paid  for  by  the  State)  are  penetrating  to  all  sides  and  corners 
of  the  town.  Old  things  in  this  respect  also  have  passed  away,  and 
behold  all  things  have  become  new. 

A  prejudice  or  opinion,  whichever  it  may  be,  against  the  whole- 
someness  of  limestone  water,  especially  to  those  who  have  not  been 
accustomed  to  it,  has  always  prevailed  in  Williamstown  more  or 
less,  and  is  now  tending  to  prevail  the  more  under  the  careful  judg- 
ment of  Dr.  F.  W.  Olds,  Williams  College  1876,  who  highly  com- 
mends for  sanitary  purposes  the  Sand  Springs  water,  the  only  water 
in  the  valley  not  impregnated  with  lime.  Bryant's  father  was  a 
practising  physician ;  and  it  can  hardly  be  that  the  mocking  lines, — 

Why  should  I  sing  its  turbid  springs, 
That  trickle  through  its  rocks  of  lime, 
While  rising  on  the  tainted  gale, 
The  morbid  exhalations  ride, 
And  hover  o'er  the  unconscious  vale, 
Or  steep  upon  the  mountain  side,  — 

should  not  be  at  least  an  echo  of  medical  opinions  entertained  at 
home.  There  is  no  successful  banishing  from  this  boyish  poem  the 
thorough  conviction  derived  from  some  source,  that  for  some  reason 
or  reasons  the  place  as  such  was  unhealthf  ul,  — 

Where  through  the  horror-breathing  hall 
The  pale-faced,  moping  students  crawl, 
Like  spectral  monuments  of  woe, 
Or  studious  seek  the  unwholesome  cell, 
Where  dust  and  gloom  and  cobwebs  dwell, 
Dark,  dirty,  dank,  and  low. 

At  this  late  day,  and  under  the  almost  wholly  changed  conditions 
of  things,  it  is  a  matter  of  comparative  indifference  what  a  bright 
boy  thought  of  externals  in  Williamstown  in  1811.  But  what  he 
thought  of  the  people  of  the  town,  so  far  as  he  came  in  contact  with 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       345 

them ;  and  what  he  thought  of  his  teachers,  and  of  the  educational 
opportunities  furnished  by  the  College  at  that  time,  are  matters  of 
perennial  interest.  The  poem  yields  but  a  single  line  of  judgment 
on  the  people  of  the  town :  — 

Thy  soil  with  churlish  guardians  blest. 

His  chances  of  acquaintance  with  the  farmers  of  the  place  must 
have  been  very  meagre  indeed.  He  came  in  October,  he  went  in  the 
next  May,  and  he  spent  a  considerable  vacation  about  New  Year's 
in  Cummington.  The  writer  is  going  to  take  all  the  risks  of  a  pure 
guess  as  to  the  source  of  Bryant's  opinion  that  the  farmers  around 
the  College  were  "churlish."  Incidents  that  certainly  happened  at 
the  same  spot  many  times  a  few  decades  later  may  reasonably  be 
conjectured  to  have  fallen  then  under  his  own  observation.  Each 
West  College  room  was  heated  in  winter  by  its  own  very  large  brick 
fireplace.  The  quantity  of  wood  naturally  burned  out  in  one  of 
those  immense  apertures  from  October  to  April  (the  vacation  ex- 
cepted),  in  order  to  make  the  room  even  partially  comfortable,  was 
enormous  to  contemplate  and  particularly  to  pay  for,  although  the 
best  of  wood  was  naturally  cheap  in  those  days.  So  cheap  that  a 
device  became  common  among  those  "churlish  guardians  of  the 
soil,"  namely,  to  delay  bringing  their  ox-loads  of  four-foot  wood  into 
the  college  yard  to  sell  to  students,  until  the  afternoon  of  some  un- 
usually cold  day,  the  sun  falling  fast  down  behind  the  Taconics, 
when  something  like  the  following  dialogue  would  take  place  be- 
tween town  and  gown  :  "  There's  a  good  load  of  solid  body  wood  for 
you~,  and  I  guess  you'll  need  some  of  it  before  morning"  "What  do 
you  ask  a  cord  for  such  wood  as  that  is  ?  "  "  Pd  oilers  ruther  sell  it 
by  the  load  than  by  the  cord."  "  Why  so  ?  I  would  rather  buy  it  by 
the  cord  than  by  the  load,  for  then  I  know  how  much  I  am  getting 
for  what  I  am  giving."  "  You've  come  to  college,  and  you  haven't  got 
eyes  enough  in  your  head  to  tell  how  much  wood  there  is  on  a  ox-cart ! 
Come  round  this  side  of  the  load,  and  look  at  it !  "  "  Pitch  it  off,  and 
pile  it  up  here  against  the  college,  and  measure  it,  and  I  will  give 
you  a  dollar  and  a  half  a  cord  for  it  more  or  less."  "No,  you  don't! 
That  will  take  an  hour !  I've  got  to  get  home  to  chore  time  !  Who- 
ever wants  this  load  for  a  dollar  and  a  half — just  as  it  is  —  top,  body, 
and  middle,  every  stick,  now  or  never,  can  have  it :  where' s  my  whip  — 
can  have  it  —  /  must  be  heading  for  home  I "  "  Going  to  haul  it  back 
on  to  the  hill,  are  you  ?  It  will  not  go  so  easy  up  hill  as  it  came 
down!  Better  pitch  it  off!  I  and  my  chum  here  will  help  you 
cord  it  up !  It  won't  take  long :  you  don't  want  to  lug  it  home." 


346  WILLIAMSTOWX    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

"You  bet!  Two  or  three  families  between  here'n  home  want  this  load 
at  that  price  !  TJiey  said  so  coming  down  !  Take  it,  or  leave  it,  I'm 
goin'  home  !  "  "  What  do  you  say,  chum,  had  we  better  take  it  ?  " 
"I  think  so;  it's  going  to  be  a  mighty  cold  night."  Off  comes  the 
load  pell-mell ;  and  three-quarters  of  a  cord  or  less  passes  for  a  cord 
for  the  hundredth  time  at  the  same  place  and  under  similar  circum- 
stances. 

Cordial  as  Bryant's  relations  became  in  his  elder  life  to  the  College 
through  several  of  its  prominent  trustees  and  professors,  willing  as 
he  became  to  assist  at  its  anniversaries,  to  contribute  to  its  funds,  to 
be  enrolled  among  and  to  serve  as  president  of  its  alumni ;  he  never 
retracted  even  in  semblance  the  biting  words  of  his  youth  about  its 
authorities  and  instructors.  He  never  ceased  to  regret  that  he  left 
the  College  in  a  huff,  or  that  he  left  it  at  all;  he  always  spoke  in 
terms  of  warm  praise  of  Chester  Dewey  as  a  lovable  man  and  a 
persuasive  preacher,  though  he  did  not  come  under  his  instruction 
at  all  in  the  classroom  ;  but  so  far  as  the  president  and  tutors  were 
concerned,  he  apparently  took  back  nothing  from  the  harsh  words  of 
the  "  Descriptio." 

Let  not  the  eye  forever  gaze 

Where  lawless  Power  his  nest  has  laid  [Fitch], 

And  stern  Suspicion  treads  her  maze  [Tutors]. 

The  storin  that  o'er  the  wintry  waste 

Rides  howling  on  the  northern  blast, 

In  time  will  curb  its  furious  way  ; 

But  that  o'er  Hoosack's  vales  which  lowers 

Will  never  know  serener  hours, 

Nor  open  to  the  day. 

Almost  fifty  years  after  these  lines  were  written,  and  many  years 
after  some  of  these  new  relations  spoken  of  above  were  knit,  in  a 
letter  to  Calvin  Durfee  of  the  class  of  1825,  who  published  a  valu- 
able sketch  of  the  life  of  President  Fitch  in  1865,  Mr.  Bryant  in 
answer  to  inquiries  wrote  the  following :  — 

At  that  time  Dr.  Fitch  was  president  of  the  college,  and  instructor  of  the 
Senior  class.  I  have  a  vivid  recollection  of  his  personal  appearance  —  a  square- 
built  man,  of  a  dark  complexion,  and  black,  arched  eyebrows.  To  me  his 
manner  was  kind  and  courteous,  and  I  remember  it  with  pleasure.  He  often 
preached  to  us  on  Sundays,  but  his  style  of  sermonizing  was  not  such  as  to  com- 
pel the  attention.  We  listened  with  more  interest  to  Professor  Chester  Dewey, 
then  in  his  early  manhood,  the  teacher  of  the  Junior  class,  who  was  the  most 
popular  of  those  who  were  called  the  Faculty  of  the  college.  Two  young  men, 
recent  graduates  of  the  college  [Gray  and  Lyman],  acted  as  tutors,  superin- 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       347 

tended  the  recitations  of  the  two  lower  classes,  and  made  their  periodical  visits 
to  the  college  rooms,  to  see  that  everything  was  in  order.  The  college  buildings 
consisted  of  two  large  plain  brick  structures,  called  the  East  and  the  West  Col- 
lege, and  the  college  grounds,  an  open  green,  were  between  the  two  and  sur- 
rounding them  both.  From  one  college  to  the  other  you  passed  by  a  straight 
avenue  of  Lombardy  poplars,  which  formed  the  sole  embellishment  of  the 
grounds.  Concerning  my  fellow-students,  I  have  little  of  importance  to  com- 
municate. My  stay  in  college  was  hardly  long  enough  to  form  those  close  and 
life-long  intimacies  of  which  college  life  is  generally  the  parent.  Orton  and 
Jenkins  —  I  am  not  sure  of  their  Christian  names,  and  have  not  the  catalogue  of 
graduates  at  hand  —  were  among  our  best  scholars,  and  Northrop  and  C.  F. 
Sedgwick  among  our  best  elocutionists.  When  either  of  these  two  spoke, 
every  ear  was  open.  I  recollect,  too,  the  eloquent  Lamed  and  the  amiable 
Morris. 

The  four  classmates  named  in  this  passage  all  became  distinguished 
men,  although  "  the  eloquent "  Sylvester  Lamed  did  not  remain  till 
the  close  of  the  course.  Dr.  Morris  lived  to  found  the  Morris  Pro- 
fessorship of  Rhetoric,  and  became  thus  and  otherwise  a  very  consid- 
erable benefactor  of  the  College.  Eev.  Dr.  Azariah  Orton  bore  the 
distinction  of  having  been  a  prominent  candidate  here  in  1830  for  the 
professorship  of  "Rhetoric  and  Moral  Philosophy,"  when  Mark 
Hopkins  was  elected  over  him  for  the  place.  Orton  was  a  nephew 
of  Nathan  Jackson,  who  became  a  singular  and  manifold  donor  to 
the  College,  becoming  interested  in  the  needs  of  Natural  History  here 
through  the  representations  of  Professor  James  Orton,  a  son  of  the 
other,  almost  equally  useful  and  influential  in  Natural  History 
matters  at  Williams  and  at  Vassar.  All  these  parties,  the  Jack  sons 
and  the  Ortons,  were  in  the  direct  line  of  descent  from  Abraham 
Jackson,  the  maternal  grandfather  of  the  founder  of  the  College. 
Indeed,  Ephraim  Williams  spent  his  boyhood  and  youth  in  the  family 
of  his  grandfather  at  Newton.1  Jenkins  and  Sedgwick  have  already 
been  somewhat  characterized  on  pages  preceding  the  present.  Sedg- 
wick was  the  last  survivor  of  the  class  of  1813.  He  was  often  at  the 
College  Commencements  during  his  old  age,  which  closed  in  1882. 
His  presence  was  always  as  welcome  as  his  person  was  imposing. 
He  was  in  the  direct  line  of  descent  from  General  Robert  Sedgwick, 
one  of  Crom well's  major-generals,  as  was  also  Judge  Theodore 
Sedgwick  of  Stockbridge. 

On  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  graduation  of  this  class  of  1813, 
which  fell  in  the  thick  of  the  Civil  War,  and  Bryant  could  not  him- 
self be  present,  he  sent  by  Sedgwick  the  following  poem,  which  the 
latter  read  at  the  Commencement  dinner :  — 

See,  for  particulars,  Origins  in  Williamstown,  p.  221  et  seq. 


348  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

Long  since  a  gallant,  youthful  company 

Went  from  these  learned  shades.     The  hand  of  Time 

Hath  scored  upon  the  perishing  works  of  man 

The  years  of  half  a  century  since  that  day. 

Forth  to  the  world  they  went  in  hope,  but  some 

Fell  at  the  threshold,  some  in  mid  career 

Sank  down,  and  some  who  bring  their  frosty  brows, 

A  living  register  of  change,  are  here  ; 

And  from  the  spot  where  once  they  conned  the  words 

Written  by  sages  of  the  older  time, 

Look  back  on  fifty  years.    Large  space  are  they 

Of  man's  brief  life,  those  fifty  years  ;  they  join 

Its  ruddy  morning  to  the  paler  light 

Of  its  declining  hours.     In  fifty  years 

As  many  generations  of  earth's  flowers 

Have  sweetened  the  soft  air  of  spring,  and  died. 

As  many  harvests  have,  in  turn,  made  green 

The  hills,  and  ripened  into  gold,  and  fallen 

Before  the  sickle's  edge.     The  sapling  tree 

Which  then  was  planted  stands  a  shaggy  trunk, 

Moss-grown,  the  centre  of  a  mighty  shade. 

In  fifty  years  the  pasture  grounds  have  oft 

Renewed  their  herds  and  flocks,  and  from  the  stalls 

New  races  of  the  generous  steed  have  neighed 

Or  pranced  in  the  smooth  roads.     In  fifty  years 

Ancestral  crowns  have  fallen  from  kingly  brows 

For  clownish  heels  to  crush  ;  new  dynasties 

Have  climbed  to  empire,  and  new  commonwealths 

Have  formed  and  fallen  again  to  wreck,  like  clouds 

Which  the  wind  tears  and  scatters.     Mighty  names 

Have  blazed  upon  the  world,  and  passed  away, 

Their  lustre  lessening,  like  the  faded  train 

Of  a  receding  comet.     Fifty  years 

Have  given  the  mariner  to  outstrip  the  wind 

With  engines  churning  the  black  deep  to  foam, 

And  tamed  the  nimble  lightnings,  sending  them 

On  messages  for  man,  and  forced  the  sun 

To  limn  for  man  upon  the  snowy  sheet 

Whate'er  he  shines  upon,  and  taught  the  art 

To  vex  the  pale  dull  clay  beneath  our  feet 

With  chemic  tortures,  till  the  sullen  mass 

Flows  in  bright  rents  from  the  furnace-mouth, 

A  shining  metal,  to  be  clay  no  more. 

O,  were  our  growth  in  goodness  like  our  growth 
In  art,  the  thousand  years  of  innocence 
And  peace,  foretold  by  ancient  prophecy, 
Were  here  already,  and  the  reign  of  Sin 
Were  ended  o'er  the  earth  on  which  we  dwell. 
In  fifty  years,  the  little  commonwealth, 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       349 

Our  league  of  States,  that,  in  its  early  day, 
Skirted  the  long  Atlantic  coast,  has  grown 
To  a  vast  empire,  filled  with  populous  towns 
Beside  its  midland  rivers,  and  beyond 
The  snowy  peaks  that  bound  its  midland  plains 
To  where  its  rivulets,  over  sands  of  gold, 
Seek  the  Pacific  —  till  at  length  it  stood 
Great  'mid  the  greatest  of  the  powers  of  earth, 
And  they  who  sat  upon  earth's  ancient  thrones 
Beheld  its  growth  in  wonder  and  in  awe. 
In  fifty  years  a  deadlier  foe  than  they  — 
The  wrong  that  scoffs  at  human  brotherhood, 
And  holds  the  lash  o'er  millions  —  has  become 
So  mighty  and  so  insolent  in  its  might 
That  now  it  springs  to  fix  on  Liberty 
The  death-gripe,  and  o'erturn  the  glorious  realm 
Her  children  founded  here.    Fierce  is  the  strife, 
As  when  of  old  the  sinning  angels  strove 
To  whelm,  beneath  the  uprooted  hills  of  heaven, 
The  warriors  of  the  Lord.     Yet  now,  as  then, 
God  and  the  Right  shall  give  the  victory. 
For  us,  who  fifty  years  ago  went  forth 
Upon  the  world's  great  theatre,  may  we 
Yet  see  the  day  of  triumph,  which  the  hours 
On  steady  wing  waft  hither  from  the  depths 
Of  a  serener  future  ;  may  we  yet, 
Beneath  the  reign  of  a  new  peace,  behold 
The  shaken  pillars  of  our  commonwealth 
Stand  readjusted  in  their  ancient  poise, 
And  the  great  crime  of  which  our  strife  was  born 
Perish  with  its  accursed  progeny. 

Mr.  Bryant  himself  attended  the  Commencement  in  1869,  six  years 
after  this  poem  with  its  confident  predictions  and  aspirations  had 
been  read,  and  was  elected  president  of  the  Society  of  the  Alumni. 
Called  up  in  this  capacity  by  President  Hopkins  at  the  alumni 
dinner,  who,  with  extraordinary  felicity  of  language,  spoke  of  him 
as  one  "having  the  wisdom  of  age  in  his  youth  and  the  vigor  of 
youth  in  his  old  age,"  Mr.  Bryant  remarked,  after  a  few  words  by 
way  of  introduction  :  — 

It  has  occurred  to  me,  since  I,  in  the  decline  of  life,  came  to  visit  once  more 
this  seat  of  learning,  in  which  our  youth  are  trained  to  succeed  us  on  the  stage 
of  the  world,  that  I  am  in  the  situation  of  one  who,  standing  on  a  spot  desolate 
with  winter  and  dim  with  twilight,  should  be  permitted  by  a  sort  of  miracle,  to 
look  upon  a  neighboring  region  glorious  with  the  bloom  of  spring  and  bright  with 
the  beams  of  the  morning.  On  the  side  where  I  stand  are  herbless  fields  and 
leafless  woods,  pools  sheeted  with  ice,  a  frozen  soil,  and  the  shadows  of  approach- 


350  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

ing  night.  On  the  side  to  which  I  look  are  emerald  meadows,  fields  of  springing 
wheat,  orchards  in  bloom,  transparent  streams,  and  a  general  sunshine.  With 
me  it  is  too  late  for  any  further  hopeful  tillage  ;  and  if  the  plough  were  put  into 
the  ground,  its  colter  would  be  obstructed  by  the  ice-bound  sods.  On  the  side 
to  which  I  look  I  see  the  tokens  of  judicious  cultivation  and  careful  tendence, 
recompensed  by  a  free  and  promising  growth.  I  rejoice  at  the  kindly  care  thus 
bestowed,  and  my  hope  and  prayer  is,  that  under  such  auspices  all  the  promises 
which  meet  my  eyes  may  be  amply  fulfilled,  and  that  from  these  luxuriant  fields 
a  harvest  may  be  gathered  richer  and  more  abundant  than  has  ever  yet  been 
stored  in  the  granaries  of  our  land. 

In  bringing  to  a  conclusion  this  section  of  our  story,  which  might 
perhaps  be  called  the  Bryant  section,  it  will  be  proper  to  insert  here 
a  final  letter  from  General  Sedgwick,  to  whom  all  are  indebted  for 
some  of  the  best  features  of  the  section. 

PROFESSOR  PERRY  SHAROK'  March  8<  188L 

.  Dear  Sir,  —  I  fitted  for  College  with  the  Rev.  Ammi  R.  Robbins  of  Norfolk, 
Conn.  My  home  was  in  Cornwall,  Ct.,  about  7  miles  from  Norfolk,  on  the  same 
farm  on  which  the  Hon.  Theadore  Sedgwick  of  Berkshire  was  raised.  Mr. 
Robbins  was  a  member  of  the  Corporation  of  Wms  College  and  his  advice  was 
always  in  favor  of  that  College  for  the  education  of  his  pupils.  This  probably 
had  an  influence  with  my  father  to  send  me  there,  although  the  fact  that  educa- 
tion there  could  be  obtained  at  much  less  expense  than  at  Yale  gave  Wms  a 
decided  popularity.  As  I  was  but  14  years  old  when  I  entered  College  I  was 
not  consulted  on  the  subject,  my  father  taking  the  matter  into  his  own  hands. 
We  rode  on  horseback  to  Williainstown  to  be  present  at  the  Commencement 
in  1809.  There  I  was  examined  and  admitted  with  some  dozen  others,  a  member 
of  the  freshman  Class.  The  distance  from  my  home  to  Wmstown  was  63  miles, 
which  as  travelling  was  prosecuted  in  those  days  occupied  a  day  and  a  half. 
At  the  commencement  of  the  next  term  my  father  took  me  to  Wms  town  with  a 
wagon  well  loaded  with  furniture  for  my  room,  and  as  we  were  passing  through 
Sheffield  Tutor  Dewey,  who  had  taken  part  in  our  examination  at  the  previous 
commencement,  recognized  me  and  asked  for  a  ride  with  us  to  Williamstown, 
which  was  cheerfully  accorded  to  him.  M*  Dewey  held  the  tutorship  during 
our  freshman  year  and  at  the  Commencement  in  1810  was  appointed  to  the 
Professorship.  He  had,  while  tutor,  the  charge  of  the  junior  Class  ;  and  in  those 
times,  that  was  considered  the  trying  year  of  the  College  course.  There  was  no 
change  in  his  method  of  teaching  after  he  became  Professor  from  what  it  had 
been  while  he  was  tutor.  He  was  a  faithful  teacher,  taking  pains  to  illustrate 
every  matter  which  came  before  the  class  at  the  recitations  in  a  way  to  be  easily 
understood.  He  not  unfrequently  exhibited  his  illustrations  in  geometry  and 
kindred  sciences  by  plans  and  figures  on  the  floor,  with  chalk.  He  was  married 
to  a  lady  in  Stockbridge  (his  first  wife)  during  our  Sophomore  year,  and  his 
house  stood  on  nearly  the  spot  now  occupied  by  the  Chapel.  He  gave  no 
Lectures  while  I  was  in  College.  He  was  not  decidedly  unpopular,  but  there 
was  not  that  fondness  connected  with  respect  for  his  office  which  attached  to 
Tutor  Nelson  whom  all  the  College  loved.  His  Recitation  room  was  in  the  East 
College  (since  burned),  North  End,  west  side  third  story,  middle  room.  The 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       351 

room  which  he  occupied  iii  the  College  was  the  S.E.  corner  room  2d  story  of  the 
same  building.  The  only  astronomical  instruments  which  I  ever  saw  was  a 
small  telescope,  and  an  Orrery,  which  was  contrived  with  a  good  deal  of  ingenuity 
to  illustrate  the  revolution  of  the  Planets  round  the  sun  and  I  think  in  some 
cases  of  the  Satellites  round  their  planets.  Professor  Dewey  sometimes  brought 
out  the  telescope  on  a  pleasant  evening  upon  the  College  green  and  gave  the 
scholars  opportunity  to  look  through  it  at  the  moon  and  stars. 

The  tutors  who  officiated  in  College  while  I  was  there  were  Dewey,  Nelson, 
Bushnell,  Lyman,  Emerson  and  Bancroft.  Dewey  and  Lyman  were  the  only 
preachers  among  them  then,  but  Nelson,  Bushnell  and  Emerson  afterwards 
became  preachers.  None  of  them,  during  their  tutorship,  disclosed  any  very  emi- 
nent ability,  but  all  discharged  well  their  official  duties  as  tutors.  Tutor  Lyman 
instructed  our  class  during  Sophomore  year,  and  during  the  first  term  and  part 
of  the  second  he  was  very  unpopular  with  the  class.  At  this  time  there  occurred 
a  difficulty  between  us  and  the  freshmen,  which  at  one  time  threatened  serious 
collision  and  when  the  matter  came  upon  the  faculty  Mr  Lyman  took  decided 
ground  in  our  favor,  and  from  that  time  he  enjoyed  the  warmest  friendship  of 
its  members.  We  made  him  a  handsome  present  in  valuable  Books  when  we 
parted  with  him  at  the  end  of  the  year. 

College  expenses  were  very  much  less  then  than  now.  The  common  board- 
ing houses  charged  9  shillings  ($1.50)  per  week.  The  first-class  boarding  houses 
charged  10  shillings  (1.69)  per  week  and  good  board  was  furnished  the  students. 
I  think  the  cash  paid  by  my  father  for  my  education  at  Wmstowri  was  about  $600, 
and  added  to  this  was  the  expense  of  travel  back  and  forth  at  the  end  and 
beginning  of  each  term.  I  kept  a  horse  during  the  two  last  summers  of  my 
College  course,  which  I  could  procure  well  pastured  at  34  cents  per  week. 

This  sheet  is  ended  and  the  matters  connected  with  my  College  life  are 

exhausted. 

Very  truly  yours 

CHA?  F.  SEDGWICK. 

The  writer  turns  from  the  clear  and  pleasant  portion  of  his  task 
now  completed,  to  what  chronologically  and  on  every  other  ground 
properly  comes  next  in  order,  not  without  certain  misgivings  of 
heart  or  rather  an  unpleasant  fear  of  disappointing  and  perhaps 
offending  certain  friends  of  his  own  and  of  the  College  by  the 
manner  of  handling  the  portion  that  follows.  The  historical  proofs 
are  not  as  clear  as  they  have  been ;  and  the  historical  tests  strictly 
applied  do  not  lead  to  those  conclusions,  which  have  been  fondly 
accepted  as  settled  by  several  of  his  predecessors,  as  at  least  partial 
inquirers  into  this  prized  part  of  the  college  history.  AVith  motives 
that  were  of  the  purest,  and  following  evidences  that  certainly  seem 
to  be  plausible,  these  inquirers  have  made  more  than  the  histori- 
cal facts  will  really  warrant  —  than  the  testimony  of  eye-  and  ear- 
witnesses  will  fairly  bear  out  —  of  the  early  position  of  the  College 
as  "the  missionary  college,"  "the  birthplace  of  American  *  foreign 
missions."  Especially  since  1854,  when  Byram  Green  of  1808 


352  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

revisited  his  Alma  Mater  and  ostensibly  identified  the  place  of 
the  too-famous  haystack,  has  a  loose  logic  been  employed  in  the 
apparent  behalf  of  the  College,  and  historical  proofs  been  adduced 
of  its  agencies  and  instrumentalities,  which,  when  candidly  poised, 
shrivel  somewhat  to  the  sight  and  shrink  as  to  weight.  The  writer 
has  probably  proven,  —  perhaps  overproven,  —  throughout  this  volume 
and  the  similar  one  that  preceded  it,  that  he  would  be  among  the 
last  to  derogate  one  jot  from  the  just  honors  of  his  town  and  college; 
and  he  hopes  to  have  proven,  by  the  same  means,  that  he  prizes 
truth  in  history  beyond  all  other  possible  qualities  of  its  pages. 

The  exact  truth  of  the  religious  and  missionary  significance  of  the 
early  College,  so  far  as  that  can  be  ascertained  at  this  late  date,  will 
turn  best  on  the  story  of  Samuel  J.  Mills.  As  appears  by  an  entry 
on  one  of  the  books  of  the  college  treasurer  still  extant,  Mills  entered 
college  in  April,  1806.  He  died  at  sea  off  the  coast  of  Africa  in  1818. 
The  materials  are  fairly  abundant  from  which  to  make  out  the  state 
of  things  he  found  on  coming  hither,  the  sort  of  life  and  influence 
he  had  while  here,  and  something  of  the  germinating  religious 
agencies  he  left  behind  him.  Fortunately  enough  for  the  present 
purpose,  we  possess  in  a  letter  of  Jedidiah  Bushnell,  a  member  of 
the  first  Freshman  class  organized  on  the  ground  and  an  alumnus  of 
1797,  the  means  of  fairly  constructing  the  religious  condition  of  the 
College  from  the  very  first.  The  letter  was  indeed  written  in  his  old 
age,  but  it  is  probably  all  the  better  for  that,  and  certainly  all  the 
better  for  its  writer,  having  had  much  to  do  in  the  meantime  with 
the  organization  and  development  of  Middlebury  College  both  as 
a  trustee  and  as  a  neighboring  pastor.  The  reader  will  find  a  large 
reward  in  conning  this  letter  in  a  penetrative  spirit. 

Respecting  the  religious  state  of  things  in  college  during  my  residence  in  it,  I 
have  no  very  favorable  account  to  give.  It  was  the  time  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, which  was  at  that  time  very  popular  with  almost  all  the  inmates  of  College, 
and  with  almost  all  people  in  that  part  of  the  country.  French  liberty  and 
French  Philosophy  poured  in  upon  us  like  a  flood  ;  and  seemed  to  sweep  almost 
everything  before  it.  Not  that  I  believe,  or  ever  did  believe,  that  the  greatest 
part  of  the  students  were  in  theory  settled  infidels  ;  but  I  did  fear  at  that  time, 
and  now  as  much  fear,  that  a  number  of  talented  young  men  of  the  several 
classes  did  fix  down  on  those  infidel  principles,  from  which  they  never  afterwards 
were  recovered.  Some,  however,  who  thus  made  Volney  their  oracle,  and  openly 
professed  it,  have  renounced  it  since,  and  become  pious  and  useful  men.  But 
French  principles  at  college  had  a  commanding  influence,  and  bore  the  multitude 
onward  in  its  course.  The  influence  was  so  great,  that  it  was  very  unpopular 
for  a  sinner  to  be  convicted  of  sin,  or  be  converted  or  say  or  do  anything  on  the 
subject  of  experimental  piety.  There  were  two  or  three  old  professors  of  religion 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       353 

whom  the  wicked  very  rarely  treated  with  indignity  ;  but  the  moment  the  sinner 
began  to  have  serious  thoughts,  the  wicked  would  load  him  with  ridicule  and 
with  shocking  abuse.  This  spirit  ran  so  high,  that  none  dared  manifest  serious- 
ness except  those  whom  God  truly  made  serious.  Respecting  the  morals  of  the 
college,  some  infidels  were  moral  men  according  to  the  common  acceptation  of 
that  term  ;  but,  as  a  general  rule,  the  college  suffered  about  as  much  in  morals 
as  it  did  in  the  theory  of  religion.  Comparatively  with  colleges  now  in  New 
England  I  think  we  were  quite  immoral. 

Notwithstanding  this  state  of  things,  there  was  a  redeeming  spirit  in  the 
college  as  long  as  I  was  a  member  of  the  Institution.  There  was  some  solid 
active  piety  in  a  few  which  remained  unmoved.  The  number  of  professors  of 
religion  was  very  few ;  but  one  in  my  class  at  that  time  who  belonged  to  any 
church,  —  none  in  the  higher  classes.  The  classes  which  entered  afterwards 
were  larger,  and  contained  several  professors  of  religion,  one  or  two  instances  of 
decided  piety.  This  spirit  of  piety,  though  limited  to  a  small  number,  had  an 
enlightening  and  restraining  influence  on  many,  at  times,  beyond  what  is  easily 
imagined,  so  that  it  gave  comfort  and  hope.  About  three  or  four  were  deeply 
convicted  or  hopefully  converted  while  I  was  a  member  of  college.  Others  have 
informed  me  since,  that  they  received  impressions  then  which  were  never  effaced 
from  their  minds,  until  they  found  the  salvation  of  the  Lord. 

But  that  which  in  my  judgement  had  the  most  influence  of  all  things,  under 
God,  was  a  prayer-meeting  every  evening  of  the  week  at  the  ringing  of  the  nine 
o'clock  bell.  One  of  the  students  opened  his  room  for  that  prayer-meeting. 
The  meeting  was  much  in  the  form  of  our  usual  family  prayer.  We  read  the 
Scriptures,  commented  on  the  truth,  exhorted  one  another,  and  closed  by 
prayer.  Our  number  hardly  ever  exceeded  twelve,  sometimes  nine  or  ten,  com- 
monly six,  seven  or  eight.  We  usually  spent  twelve  or  fourteen  minutes  in  those 
meetings  at  a  time.  All  were  invited  to  come  who  wished.  Some  non-professors 
came  ;  some  of  them  would  come  for  a  while,  and  then  retire  for  a  season,  and 
then  others  would  come.  This  meeting  was  sustained  uniformly  for  four  years 
during  my  whole  college  life,  and  I  believe  will  be  remembered  with  joy  by 
some  in  another  world.  Those  evening  meetings  were  solemn,  and  sometimes 
soul-refreshing,  and  they  constituted  a  rendezvous  for  any  serious  mind  in 
college.  As  wicked  as  we  were  at  that  time,  I  do  not  recollect  a  single  insult  on 
the  room  during  the  time  of  our  devotions,  or  when  we  held  those  prayer-meet- 
ings during  the  space  of  four  years.  The  ground  during  the  time  of  our  worship, 
seemed  in  the  view  of  all  to  be  sacred  ground,  which  was  a  wonder  to  all  thus 
associated,  and  to  me  is  a  wonder  now.  I  have  always  been  glad  that  I  was 
there  at  the  time  I  was,  and  still  hold  the  scenes  that  there  passed  in  sweet 
remembrance. 

In  another  paragraph  of  this  same  communication,  not  thought 
worth  while  to  quote  verbally,  Bushnell  speaks  of  a  weekly  religious 
conference  in  his  time,  generally  though  not  uniformly  kept  up. 
This  must  have  been  sustained  by  some  member  or  members  of  the 
faculty  as  then  constituted ;  and  became  the  prototype  of  meetings 
in  different  forms  under  the  same  auspices  that  practically  knew  no 
intermission  until  just  before  the  Centennial.  There  is  no  direct 


354  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

evidence  like  this  of  BushnelPs,  but  a  plenty  of  indications  on  every 
hand,  that  the  state  of  things  in  college  both  religiously  and  socially 
continued  substantially  as  he  described  it  for  at  least  ten  years 
longer.  Bryant's  words  are  very  significant  as  to  the  social  dis- 
orders and  laxity  of  government  just  previous  to  his  time. 

Before  my  admission,  it  had  been  the  practice  for  the  members  of  the  Sopho- 
more class,  in  the  first  term  of  their  year,  to  seize  upon  the  persons  of  some  of 
the  Freshmen,  bring  them  before  an  assembly  of  the  Sophomores,  and  compel 
them  to  go  through  a  series  of  burlesque  ceremonies,  and  receive  certain  mock 
injunctions  with  regard  to  their  future  behavior.  This  was  called  gamutizing- 
the  Freshmen.  It  was  a  brutal  and  rather  riotous  proceeding,  which  I  can,  at 
this  time,  hardly  suppose  that  those  who  had  the  government  of  the  college  could 
have  tolerated  ;  yet  the  tradition  ran  that,  if  it  was  not  connived  at,  no  pains  were 
taken  to  suppress  it.  There  were  strong  manifestations  of  a  disposition  to  enforce 
the  custom  after  I  became  a  member  of  the  Sophomore  class,  but  the  Freshmen 
showed  so  resolute  a  determination  to  resist  it,  that  the  design  was  dropped  ;  and 
this,  if  I  am  rightly  informed,  was  the  last  of  the  practice. 

Samuel  J.  Mills  joined  college  in  April,  1806.  He  came  out  of  a 
Dutch  family  very  early  settled  in  Windsor,  Connecticut.  His  father 
of  the  same  name  lived  to  be  ninety  years  old,  a  giant  in  his  physical 
frame,  and  said  to  have  been  of  a  mental  greatness  equal  to  the 
physical,  though  strongly  mixed  with  oddity.  "Fun  oozed  out  of 
him  as  freely  as  sap  from  a  sugar-maple  in  spring-time."  Even  when 
rebuking  the  boys  in  the  gallery  of  his  church  at  Torringford  for 
some  apparent  levity  caused  by  the  turns  of  his  discourse,  intending 
the  reproof  in  all  seriousness,  he  would  sometimes  intensify  the 
merriment  by  the  oddity  of  the  terms  of  his  rebuke.  "  But  when  he 
unbent,  and  gave  himself  to  wit  and  story-telling,  he  was  famous  in 
all  the  region  round  about." l  "  It  was  a  bad  generation  of  books  !  " 
once  exclaimed  Henry  Ward  Beecher  of  that  large  number  of 
Memoirs  of  remarkably  pious  youth  published  in  Great  Britain  and 
in  the  United  States  during  the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
Rev.  Dr.  Lyman  Beecher  furnished  these  books  to  his  youngest  son 
for  his  reading;  and  almost  all  pastors  in  New  England  did  the 
same  thing.  The  present  writer  had  access  in  his  boyhood  to  no 
other  sort  of  books  than  these  from  his  deceased  father's  library. 
Among  them,  —  the  very  same  volume  now  lies  open  before  him,  — 
was  "Memoirs  of  the  Rev.  Samuel  J.  Mills,  late  Missionary  to  the 
South  Western  Section  of  the  United  States,  and  Agent  of  the 
American  Colonization  Society  deputed  to  explore  the  coast  of 
Africa."  Other  specimen  books  of  this  class  were  "Remains  of 
1  Letter  to  the  author  in  lb«5  from  the  late  Increase  N.  Tarbox. 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE    TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.        355 

Henry  Kirke  White,"  "Life  of  David  Brainerd,"  "Memoirs  of 
Henry  Obookiah,"  and  "  Memoir  of  Edward  Pay  son."  Beecher  did 
not  give  the  grounds  of  his  unfavorable  judgment  of  these  books, 
but  they  may  be  confidently  supposed  to  be :  (1)  The  unlovable  and 
unscriptural  character  of  our  Heavenly  Father  implied,  if  not  deline- 
ated, in  most  of  them.  (2)  The  monstrously  unreasonable  and  un- 
thinkable theology  of  those  times,  which,  while  it  made  the  salvation 
of  every  individual  unchangeably  depend  on  counsels  and  determina- 
tions had  from  all  etefnity  among  the  persons  of  the  sacred  Trinity, 
made  at  the  same  time  the  scattered  Christians  of  England  and 
America  responsible  in  a  substantive  sense  for  the  desperate  con- 
dition of  the  heathen  world.  And  (3)  the  abnormal  and  unsocial 
display  of  the  Christian  virtues  in  individuals,  who,  for  the  most 
part,  segregated  from  their  fellows  in  strange  situations,  and  also 
dying  young,  were  worse  than  useless  to  common  youth  for  purposes 
of  imitation.  It  will  hardly  be  believed  in  the  twentieth  century 
that,  in  the  Christian  churches  of  New  England  during  the  first  half 
of  the  nineteenth,  the  Lord's  Prayer  was  relatively  unpopular  as 
compared  with  the  prayer  of  the  "  publican." 

The  first  "  revival  of  religion,"  so  called,  a  phrase  of  great  signifi- 
cance and  of  great  beneficence  in  the  history  of  New  England, 
notwithstanding  the  narrowness  of  the  current  theology  and  the 
assumption  of  the  clergy  in  knowing  what  never  can  be  known  on 
earth,  came  to  Williamstown  in  the  spring  of  1805.  The  good  pastor, 
a  native  of  Kent,  Connecticut,  and  a  graduate  of  Yale  in  1774,  had 
preached  faithfully  for  twenty-six  years,  1779-1805,  without  seeing 
at  any  time  any  considerable  fruit  of  his  labors..  But  it  was  borne 
in  from  above  upon  the  mind  of  the  good  man  that  he  should  live  to 
see  a  revival  of  religion  under  his  own  ministrations.  Political  con- 
tentions had  been  a  hindrance  to  his  work  almost  from  the  first. 
The  pews  were  very  much  divided  in  political  sentiment,  the  chief 
seats,  however,  were  thought  to  be  occupied  by  Federalists,  and  the 
pulpit  was  unanimously  Federalist,  whether  pastor  or  president 
preached;  while  a  majority  of  the  builders  of  the  meeting-house, 
and  a  majority  of  the  attendants  on  church  worship,  and  the  most  of 
the  leading  men  in  town  affairs,  were  Democrats.  This  distinction 
went  down  deeper  into  social  and  religious  life  than  can  be  easily 
conceived  of  in  these  later  generations.  But  Pastor  Swift  preached 
on,  it  was  thought,  with  more  pungency  and  power,  and  with  less 
and  less  implied  references  to  earthly,  and  therefore  transient,  differ- 
ences among  men.  The  whole  surface  of  the  barren  soil  seemed  to 
be  broken  up  by  this  sharp  colter  of  1805.  Fifty-four  new  members 


356  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

were  united  to  the  church  in  that  year,  and  fifty-two  in  the  following 
year;  and  in  February,  1807,  the  good  man  died  while  the  good 
work  was  still  going  on.  But  the  College  was  not  apparently  at  all 
affected  by  this  town  movement  the  first  year,  except  to  be  stirred  up 
to  a  bitter  spirit  of  opposition.  One  young  man  in  the  Junior  class, 
Algernon  Sidney  Bailey,  from  Worcester  County,  is  said  to  have  let 
his  light  so  shine  as  to  become  a  sort  of  terror  to  opposers  both  in 
town  and  college.  A  combined  movement  was  made  to  mob  him. 
It  was  his  prayers  that  seemed  to  excite  this  personal  bitterness. 
A  small  party  had  couched  themselves  in  an  out-of-the-way  place, 
which  he  was  to  pass,  with  a  view  to  offer  indignity  and  violence  to 
his  person,  when  some  of  them  were  suddenly  brought  to  a  moral 
crisis  in  their  lives.  The  ambush  was  broken  up  before  the  supposed 
passer-by  had  reached  the  place  of  offence. 

This  young  man,  Bailey,  with  a  very  few  other  students,  and  at 
the  invitation  of  Mrs.  Mehitable  Bardwell,  who  lived  near  the 
bridge  over  the  Hoosac,  a  full  mile  northwest  of  the  College,  set  up 
a  private  prayer-meeting  in  her  house,  which  had  consequences  of 
lasting  moment  both  to  town  and  college.  Indeed,  here  is  one  of 
the  many  insoluble  points  of  contact  between  town  and  college, 
which  make  it  impossible  to  set  forth  the  history  of  one  separate 
from  that  of  the  other.  It  may  well  have  been,  though  we  have  no 
information  on  that  point,  that  it  was  thought  likely,  that  Bailey 
would  be  wending  his  way  northward  to  this  meeting  along  the  still, 
shaded  road  toward  Bennington,  when  the  futile  scheme  was  con- 
trived to  waylay  him.  This  meeting,  however,  could  not  be  kept 
altogether  secret.  Though  convened  at  a  distance  from  the  College, 
because  it  was  not  thought  prudent  to  hold  such  a  meeting  there,  and 
one  could  hardly  have  been  held  there  at  that  time  without  ridicule 
and  interruption,  the  meeting  itself  at  Mrs.  Bardwell's  increased 
somewhat  in  numbers  and  much  in  interest  throughout  the  summer 
of  1805.  "  This  was  a  blessed  meeting,"  said  one  who  was  a  member 
of  it,  "  and  there  I  have  always  thought  the  College  revival  began." 
The  careful  reader  will  note  the  circumstances  of  origin  as  well  as 
the  date  of  this  secret  prayer-gathering  at  the  small  house  by  the 
Hoosac  River.  Much  confusion  and  undesigned  misstatement  has 
arisen  from  confounding  persons  and  mixing  the  dates  of  events 
about  this  time.  These  first  meetings  at  Mrs.  Bardwell's  house 
were  more  than  six  months  before  Samuel  J.  Mills  entered  college. 

Mrs.  Bardwell  was  the  nurse  at  the  bedside  of  Colonel  Benjamin 
Simonds  and  of  his  wife,  Anna  Simonds,  both  of  whom  died  in 
April,  1807 ;  and  the  Bardwells,  who  were  then  the  nearest  neigh- 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       357 

bors  of  the  Simonds  family,  moved  shortly  afterward  into  a  house 
still  standing  in  South  Street,  which  itself  had  not  long  before  been 
moved  from  the  site  of  the  present  president's  house  to  make  room 
for  this  latter,  then  about  to  be  built  by  General  Sloan.  When  the 
Bardwells  were  fairly  established  in  their  new  home,  whether  by  a 
request  of  some  students  who  knew  of  the  former  meeting-place  or 
by  an  invitation  direct  from  Mrs.  Bardwell,  her  kitchen  was  put  at 
the  disposal  of  the  students  for  a  similar  purpose  during  the  winter 
months,  Saturday  nights  being  designated  as  the  time.  After  a 
little,  the  family  asked  that  the  door  into  the  sitting-room  might  be 
left  ajar,  and  that  a  few  neighbors  might  be  invited  in  to  overhear. 
This  concession  in  the  course  of  time  changed  the  nature  of  the 
meeting  somewhat.  It  became  a  neighborhood  prayer-meeting  led 
by  the  students,  and  continued  for  many  years,  until  the  breaking 
up  of  the  household  by  the  death  of  the  husband,  Obadiah  Bardwell, 
and  the  removal  of  the  widow  to  live  with  her  daughter  near  by, 
Mrs.  Noah  Cook.  But  the  meeting  had  become  so  prized  in  the 
neighborhood,  that  another  good  lady,  Mrs.  Benjamin,  with  her 
widowed  daughter,  Mrs.  Perry,  opened  their  house  for  its  con- 
tinuance, where  it  flourished  without  intermission  for  about  twenty- 
five  years.  Either  students  or  some  professor  in  the  College  usually 
conducted  the  meeting.  Its  last  conductor  was  George  B.  Perry, 
son  of  the  widow  just  mentioned,  still  living  in  North  Adams  as  an 
honored  citizen  and  beloved  deacon  in  the  church. 

To  revert  now  to  the  college  situation,  it  must  be  said,  that  the 
good  work  in  the  town  commencing  in  1805  took  hold  but  slowly 
of  the  men  in  the  College.  The  advent  of  Mills,  in  April,  1806,  a 
freshman  then  twenty-three  years  old,  brought  a  mature  Christian 
into  influential  contact  with  classmates  as  a  rule  much  younger. 
An  extract  from  his  diary  under  date  of  June  26,  presents  him  and 
them  in  striking  relations.  "Attended  conference  this  evening 
composed  principally  of  the  freshmen  class.  A  very  good  meeting. 
Many  very  solemn ;  K.  much  cast  down.  It  was  very  evident  God 
was  stirring  with  some  of  his  disobedient  creatures.  The  work  is 
the  Lord's  and  He  is  abundantly  able  to  carry  it  on.  Arise,  0  Lord, 
thou  and  the  Ark  of  thy  Strength !  It  seems  to  me  that  I  never 
longed  so  much  for  the  Sabbath  as  I  do  now.  I  am  afraid  the 
impressions  of  my  classmates  will  wear  off.  But  all  things  are 
possible  with  God."  The  biographer  of  Mills,  Gardiner  Spring,  in 
telling  the  story  of  the  boy's  conversion  when  he  was  sixteen  years 
old,  that  is,  seven  years  before  he  ever  saw  Williamstown,  quotes 
from  a  letter  of  the  son  to  his  father,  "that  he  could  not  conceive 


358  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

of  any  course  of  life  in  which  to  pass  the  rest  of  his  days,  that  would 
prove  so  pleasant,  as  to  go  and  communicate  the  Gospel  salvation  to  the 
poor  Heathen."  The  biographer  adds  :  — 

From  this  same  hour  he  never  once  lost  sight  of  his  darling  object.  Though  but 
a  youth  of  sixteen,  he  discovered  a  zeal  in  the  missionary  cause,  an  eagerness  in 
the  pursuit  of  missionary  intelligence,  and  an  enlargement  of  thought  in  his 
plans  to  become  acquainted  with  the  true  state  of  the  unevangelized  world, 
which  left  little  doubt  that  he  was  chained  to  his  purpose  by  a  superior  power. 
It  was  a  heart  yearning  over  the  miseries  of  perishing  millions,  that  first  led  him 
to  think  of  acquiring  an  education  with  a  view  to  the  gospel  ministry.  Having 
consulted  his  parents,  and  unfolded  all  his  purpose,  which,  should  God  permit, 
was  no  less  than  to  devote  his  life  to  the  cause  of  missions  in  foreign  lands ;  and 
having  received  their  approbation  and  their  blessing,  he  resolved  on  measures 
for  changing  his  course  of  life.  The  Spirit  of  God  came  over  him  like  Elisha  in 
the  field.  While  toiling  at  the  plough,  was  his  heart  touched  with  compassion 
for  the  heathen  world,  and  he  bid  adieu  to  his  farm,  to  obtain  an  education  on 
purpose  to  carry  the  Gospel  to  millions  who  perish  for  lack  of  knowledge.  Thus 
in  a  retired  field  in  Litchfield  county,  was  the  King  of  Zion  beginning  that 
grand  course  of  operations  which  have  produced  such  a  mighty  revolution  in  the 
American  churches.  Having  put  his  secular  concerns  into  other  hands,  and 
having  previously  connected  himself  with  the  church  under  the  pastoral  care  of 
his  father,  Mills  became  a  member  of  Williams  College  in  Massachusetts  in  the 
Spring  of  1806. 

This  unquestionable  record  puts  a  different  phase  upon  certain 
events  in  Williamstown  during  the  summer  of  1806,  from  that  under 
which  these  have  been  hitherto  often  exhibited.  It  is  true,  that  the 
freshmen  then  studied  geography  in  their  summer  term ;  and  it  is 
doubtless  true,  that  this  study  together  furnished  Mills  a  happy  oc- 
casion to  expatiate  with  his  classmates  on  the  vast  numbers  and  the 
desperate  needs  of  the  heathen  world.  That  is  one  thing,  and  a 
good  thing.  But  to  represent  the  interest  of  Mills  and  others  as 
springing  up  out  of  a  casual  geography  lesson  in  West  College,  and 
this  becoming  the  uppermost  headspring  of  the  vast  stream  of  Amer- 
ican foreign  missions,  is  an  abuse  rather  than  the  use  of  geography 
and  history  at  once.  Coming  to  Williams  College,  as  he  did,  on 
purpose  to  prepare  himself  for  becoming  a  missionary  to  the  heathen, 
nothing  is  more  natural  and  inevitable  than  that  he  should  put 
himself  into  immediate  connection  with  the  few  spiritually-minded 
Christians  in  college,  like  Bailey  and  Nelson ;  that  he  should  have 
learned  pretty  soon  about  their  place  or  places  of  secret  conference 
and  devotion ;  that  he  should  have  made  the  geography  lessons  on 
Asia  and  Africa  a  means  of  discussing,  especially  with  his  class- 
mates, the  duty  and  privilege  of  a  missionary  life ;  and  that,  con- 
sidering his  age  and  experience,  he  should  have  become  (though  a 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL    THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       359 

f resliman)  a  sort  of  leader  in  a  circle,  several  of  whom  were  members 
of  upper  classes.  The  point  is,  that  things  were  already  prepared 
for  Mills  and  his  work  in  college,  just  as  he  was  later  instrumental 
in  preparing  the  way  for  others  to  enter  the  missionary  field.  It  is 
certain,  that  there  were  two  out-of-the-way  places  of  meeting  for 
prayer  and  conference  in  the  summer  in  the  fields  not  far  from  the 
colleges,  besides  Mrs.  BardwelPs  kitchen  north  of  the  river,  before 
Mills  arrived  in  town.  Undoubtedly  the  most  frequented  of  these 
then  and  afterward  was  a  thick  grove  of  original  maples  on  General 
Sloan's  land  north  of  West  College,  nearly  halfway  between  Main 
Street  and  the  Hoosac  Eiver.  The  other  was  south  of  West  College, 
considerably  nearer,  at  that  time  even  more  sequestered,  under  an 
immense  willow  tree  in  the  low  ground,  where  now  are  growing  as 
representatives  of  that  eight  or  nine  large  willows.  The  original 
tree  was  struck  by  lightning  in  the  night-time  about  1864,  and  was 
partially  destroyed.  It  is  not  likely  that  willow  trees  will  ever 
cease  to  grow  in  that  spot,  and  to  be  a  reminder  at  once  of  the  piety 
and  impiety  of  the  students  about  1805,  for  the  place  is  unsuitable 
for  any  building  purposes,  and  the  present  trees  are  growing  in  the 
boundary-line  between  two  distinct  estates. 

It  so  happened  that  a  students'  meeting  in  the  first  mentioned  of 
these  localities,  and  led  by  Mills,  was  specially  remembered  on 
account  of  its  sudden  interruption  by  a  thunder-shower,  and  the 
accidental  proximity  of  a  haystack  on  the  meadow,  under  which  the 
five  students  present  took  refuge  till  the  western  sky  was  cleared. 
The  brevity  of  the  shower,  the  strangeness  of  their  place  of  refuge, 
and  the  peculiarity  of  their  topic  of  prayer  and  conference,  all  took 
hold  of  their  imaginations  and  of  their  memories.  They  spoke  of 
the  occurrence  to  others,  and  often  among  themselves,  until  the  whole 
thing  became  a  sort  of  transmitted  wonder.  The  relations  of  the 
haystack  to  the  grove  as  a  frequented  place  for  secret  prayer  were 
only  momentary,  and  never  recurred ;  and  yet  the  story  and  the  sub- 
sequent traditions  and  exaggerations  all  seemed  especially  to  fasten 
on  the  Haystack,  probably  on  account  of  the  inherent  oddity  of  such 
a  frail  and  transient  structure  proving  a  port  of  shelter  in  a  thunder- 
storm. Locally,  the  whole  matter  passed  out  of  mind  and  memory. 
Nobody  here  knew  where  the  haystack  stood,  and  very  few  had  ever 
heard  of  any  special  haystack,  when  the  following  letter,  dated 
"  South  Williamstown,  April  26,  1852,"  was  received  by  Professor 
Hopkins.  The  writer  was  an  entire  stranger  to  him,  and  to  all  then 
connected  with  the  College,  and  proved  long  afterward  to  have  been 
a  Baptist  layman  from  a  distance. 


360  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

In  making  inquiries  this  afternoon  on  ray  first  visit  to  William stown,  in  rela- 
tion to  the  spot  where  the  haystack  stood,  so  famous  in  the  history  of  missions 
as  the  one  behind  which  Mills  and  his  associates  prayed  for  the  Divine  guidance 
and  blessing  while  maturing  their  plans  for  preaching  the  Gospel  of  the  Kingdom 
to  the  heathen  world,  —  plans  which  were  carried  out  so  successfully,  —  I  re- 
gretted to  learn  that  the  place  was  unmarked  by  tree,  shrub,  stone,  or  monument 
of  any  kind. 

Having  learned  that  there  had  been  among  some  ladies,  —  who  are  the  world 
over  always  ready  to  every  good  work, — some  desire  manifested  to  mark  the 
sacred  place  before  it  was  entirely  forgotten  by  some  memorial,  will  you  please 
take  charge  of  the  enclosed  dollar  (a  gold  one),  and  apply  it  in  any  way  you 
may  deem  best  suited  to  effect  the  object.  It  is  little,  but  rain  drops  make  the 
shower.  If  it  does  no  more  than  purchase  a  cedar  stake  to  mark  the  spot,  it 
will  not  be  in  vain  ;  for  long  before  that  will  have  time  to  moulder,  wealthy  ones 
will  have  marked  with  marble  the  place  where  American  Missions  had  their 
birth,  and  from  whence  went  forth  those  who  were  chosen  of  God  to  commence 
the  work  of  making  every  heathen  heart  bow  at  the  blessed  name  of  Jesus. 

Professor  Hopkins  "  took  charge  "  of  the  dollar,  was  immensely 
interested  in  it,  in  fact,  communicated  its  reception  and  purpose  to 
many  persons  of  his  acquaintance,  and  instituted  inquiries  of  old 
people  and  of  old  alumni  in  order  to  ascertain,  if  possible,  the 
locality  in  question.  But  nothing  of  consequence  was  in  this  man- 
ner elicited.  In  the  spring  of  1854,  after  the  gold  dollar  had  lain 
two  years  as  buried  seed,  a  venerable-looking  gentleman  called  at 
his  study  with  the  announcement,  that  his  name  was  Byram  Green, 
that  he  was  a  graduate  of  1808,  and  that  he  was  one  of  five  students 
who  had  talked  and  prayed  at  the  haystack  meeting.  None  but 
those  two  were  then  present,  but  the  writer  will  venture  the  asser- 
tion, that  Albert  Hopkins  was  glad  to  see  Byram  Green  on  that 
occasion.  "  Can  you  tell  me  now  where  the  haystack  stood  9  "  "  1 
think  I  can,  if*  there  are  any  remains  of  a  maple  grove,  that  stood  near 
there  forty-eight  years  ago."  "  Whereabouts  was  the  place  in  gen- 
eral ? "  "  North  of  West  College,  down  toivard  the  Hoosac  River." 
"  What  did  you  call  the  place  in  those  days  ?"  "  We  called  it  'Sloan's 
Meadow.9"  "Will  you  go  down  there  with  me,  and  see  if  we  can 
identify  the  place  ?  "  "  Most  certainly  I  will."  And  they  went. 

The  next  day  at  the  invitation  of  Professor  Hopkins,  Professor 
Perry  joined  the  two  in  a  visit  to  the  identified  locality,  saw  the 
stake  which  Green  had  set  with  his  own  hands  the  day  before  on 
the  supposed  site  of  the  haystack,  and  witnessed  also  something  of 
the  uncertainty  of  the  day  before  in  his  assertion  of  the  precise  spot. 
The  whole  region  had  greatly  changed  in  half  a  century.  Green 
was  guided  mainly  by  the  position  of  three  or  four  old  maples  then 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       361 

standing,  which  he  judged  to  be  a  part,  or  at  least  to  indicate  in 
general,  the  place  of  the  old  prayer-grove.  So  let  it  be.  So  it  will 
be  till  the  end  of  time.  Within  narrow  limits,  it  is  absolutely  cer- 
tain, that  the  place  is  rightly  marked.  It  was  Green's  main  errand 
to  Williamstown  at  that  time  to  render,  if  possible,  this  precise 
service.  It  was  a  good  and  great  and  timely  service.  But  he  ren- 
dered another,  not  long  after,  much  better  and  greater  and  more 
timely,  namely,  to  write  out  the  following  careful  account  of  the 
prayer-meeting.  In  all  the  scattered  archives  of  the  town  and 
college,  wheresoever  they  may  be  kept  and  howsoever  they  may  be 
gathered,  very  few  are  more  precious  than  this  letter  and  all  that  is 
implied  in  and  between  its  lines. 

You  request  a  statement  of  the  facts  in  relation  to  the  prayer-meeting  which 
was  held  under  the  haystack,  by  some  students  of  Williams  College,  in  July  or 
August,  1806.  That  prayer-meeting  becomes  interesting  to  the  Christian  com- 
munity, because  it  was  then  and  there  proposed  to  send  the  Gospel  to  the  pagans 
of  Asia,  and  to  the  disciples  of  Mohammed.  The  stack  of  hay  stood  northerly 
from  the  West  College,  near  a  maple  grove,  in  a  field  that  was  then  called 
Sloan's  meadow. 

Samuel  J.  Mills,  James  Richards,  Francis  L.  Robbins,  Harvey  Loomis,  and 
Byram  Green  were  present.  The  afternoon  was  oppressively  warm,  which 
probably  detained  all  those  from  the  East  College  that  usually  attended,  and 
some  from  the  West.  We  first  went  to  the  grove,  expecting  to  hold  our  prayer- 
meeting  there,  but  a  dark  cloud  was  rising  in  the  west,  and  it  soon  began  to 
thunder  and  lighten,  and  we  left  the  grove  and  went  under  the  haystack  to  pro- 
tect us  from  the  approaching  storm,  which  was  soon  realized. 

The  subject  of  conversation  under  the  stack,  before  and  during  the  shower, 
was  the  moral  darkness  of  Asia.  Mills  proposed  to  send  the  Gospel  to  that  dark 
and  heathen  land ;  and  said  that  we  could  do  it  if  we  would.  We  were  all 
agreed  and  delighted  with  the  idea,  except  Loomis,  who  contended  that  it  was 
premature ;  that  if  missionaries  should  be  sent  to  Asia  they  would  be  mur- 
dered ;  that  Christian  armies  must  subdue  the  country  before  the  Gospel  could 
be  sent  to  the  Turks  and  Arabs.  In  reply,  it  was  said,  that  God  was  always 
willing  to  have  his  Gospel  spread  throughout  the  world ;  that  if  the  Christian 
public  was  willing  and  active,  the  work  would  be  done ;  that  on  this  subject 
the  Roman  adage  would  be  true,  Vox  populi  vox  Dei.  "Come,"  said  Mills, 
"  let  us  make  it  a  subject  of  prayer,  under  this  haystack,  while  the  dark  clouds 
are  going,  and  the  clear  sky  is  coming." 

We  all  prayed  and  made  Foreign  Missions  a  subject  in  our  prayers,  except 
Loomis.  Mills  made  the  last  prayer,  and  was  in  some  degree  enthusiastic  ;  he 
prayed  that  God  would  strike  down  the  arm,  with  the  red  artillery  of  heaven, 
that  should  be  raised  against  a  herald  of  the  cross.  We  then  sang  one  stanza, 

as  follows :  — 

Let  all  the  heathen  writers  join 

To  form  one  perfect  book : 
Great  God,  if  once  compared  with  thine, 
How  mean  their  writings  look ! 


362  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

The  prayer-meetings  were  continued  during  the  warm  season  of  that  year,  in 
the  groves  somewhere  between  the  village  and  the  Hoosac,  and  the  subject  of 
Foreign  Missions  was  remembered  in  our  prayers.  The  following  is  a  list  of 
names  that  usually  attended,  to  wit:  John  Nelson,  Calvin  Bushnell,  Byrarn 
Green,  Rufus  Pomeroy,  Francis  L.  Bobbins,  Samuel  Ware,  Edwin  W.  Dwight, 
Ezra  Fisk,  Harvey  Loomis,  Samuel  J.  Mills,  and  James  Richards.  Others 
attended  occasionally. 

The  next  summer,  1807,  the  prayer-meetings  were  again  held  in  the  grove ; 
two  were  added  to  our  number,  to  wit,  Luther  Rice  and  John  Whittlesey.  I 
have  several  times  seen  the  names  of  Hall  and  Rice  numbered  among  those  who 
were  at  the  prayer-meeting  under  the  haystack.  That  is  an  error.  Rice  was  not 
a  member  of  college  until  October,  1806.  Hall  was  not  a  professor  of  religion  at 
that  time,  and  did  not  attend  our  religious  meetings.  He  was  made  a  subject  of 
grace  in  the  year  1808,  about  six  or  eight  months  before  he  graduated.  After 
that  he  was  active  in  the  cause. 


Up  to  this  point  Green  speaks  as  an  eye-  and  ear-witness,  and  his 
testimony  is  unimpeachable ;  but  he  added  to  the  letter  a  couple  of 
short  paragraphs,  the  first  beginning  with  the  words,  "Nothing 
can  be  more  certain  and  direct  than  the  connection  between  this 
prayer-meeting  and  the  subsequent  movements  in  this  country  re- 
specting Foreign  Missions,"  —  in  respect  to  matters  of  which  he  had 
no  opportunity  personally  to  judge,  and  which  as  matters  of  fact 
are  at  the  least  doubtful.  Of  the  five  men  who  prayed  and  sang 
under  the  haystack,  only  one,  James  Eichards,  ever  went  out  as  a 
foreign  missionary.  He  sailed  for  Ceylon  in  October,  1815.  He 
would  doubtless  have  gone  with  the  first  party  in  1812,  had  it  not 
been  for  his  own  humility  and  some  judgment  of  his  compeers  that 
he  was  not  yet  sufficiently  prepared  for  the  foreign  service.  In  the 
meantime  he  studied  medicine  in  Philadelphia.  Eichards  was  of 
very  moderate  talents,  but  of  a  very  conservative  spirit.  His  most 
memorable  words  were,  that  he  was  willing  to  work  his  passage  to 
India  on  shipboard.  On  leaving  his  native  land  in  company  with 
eight  missionary  brethren  and  sisters  he  said,  "  I  have  been  waiting 
with  anxiety  almost  eight  years  for  an  opportunity  to  go  and  preach 
Christ  among  the  heathen.  I  have  often  wept  at  the  long  delay. 
But  the  day  on  which  I  now  bid  farewell  to  my  native  land  is  the 
happiest  day  of  my  life."  He  died  in  Ceylon  in  1822.  Like  Mills, 
and  others  at  that  time,  Eichards  took  a  sort  of  mechanical  view  of 
the  Gospel,  as  if  it  only  needed  to  be  carried,  as  in  a  trunk  by  any- 
body, even  to  such  astute  and  intellectual  people  as  are  the  natives 
of  India.  In  this  point  of  view  the  contemporary  words  of  Mills 
himself  are  significant  and  saddening :  "  /  wish  we  could  break  out 
upon  the  heathen  like  the  Irish  rebellion,  forty  thousand  strong." 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       363 

Certainly  the  best  mind  by  much,  and  probably  the  most  useful 
life,  of  the  five  men  of  the  haystack  had  Harvey  Loomis,  the  dis- 
senter at  the  time  of  the  meeting  and  the  home  missionary  of  blessed 
memory.  It  is  remarkable  that  home  missions  had  its  champion 
and  exemplar  in  that  first  and  much-lauded  gathering  of  young 
Christian  enthusiasts  in  1806.  There  was  a  difference  of  opinion 
then,  and  there  is  a  difference  of  opinion  now.  As  soon  as  he  had 
finished  his  theological  education  he  went  directly  to  Bangor,  Maine, 
which  was  then  a  difficult  and  highly  important  field  of  ministerial 
labor.  In  November,  1811,  he  was  ordained  pastor  there  over  a 
church  which  was  organized  there  the  day  before,  consisting  of  four 
members,  and  embracing  all  the  male  professors  of  religion  then  in 
the  place.  For  one  year  he  preached  in  an  unfinished  hall  over  a 
store ;  the  next  year  a  court-house  was  built  with  the  double  purpose 
of  serving  as  a  meeting-house  and  county  house  of  justice ;  and  in 
1821  the  first  meeting-house  in  Bangor  was  erected  for  the  use  of  his 
enlarged  and  constantly  enlarging  congregation.  His  practice  was 
to  preach  twice  on  the  Sunday,  morning  and  afternoon,  and  to  hold 
one  conference  meeting  in  the  middle  of  the  week.  These  meetings 
were  never  increased  in  number  even  in  times  of  special  religious 
interest,  which  times  soon  ceased  to  be  special  and  became  con- 
tinuous, so  that  almost  every  communion  witnessed  additions  and 
the  church  became  strong  and  influential.  His  method  of  conduct- 
ing his  weekly  conference  was  characteristic  of  the  man.  He  sat  in 
a  chair  in  one  corner  of  the  room  on  the  same  level  with  the  rest, 
and  wished  and  encouraged  every  man  present,  whether  a  professor 
of  religion  or  not,  to  take  some  brief  part  in  the  meeting.  All  who 
had  a  word  for  the  Master  were  requested  to  utter  it  in  their  own 
way;  and  if  any  one  had  any  objections  to  any  point  of  the  current 
faith  and  practice  he  was  urged  to  present  them,  and  they  were 
always  fairly  met  and  as  fully  answered  as  the  time  and  his  ability 
allowed.  Some  years  after  his  death  a  competent  contemporary 
used  these  words  of  Harvey  Loomis  :  — 

Few  ministers  have  ever  been  loved  and  revered  by  their  parishioners  more 
than  Mr.  Loomis  ;  and  few  have  been  more  eminently  successful  in  their  labors 
than  he.  He  had  the  advantage  of  a  fine  person  and  a  natural  grace  of  manner. 
He  was  rather  tall,  his  form  was  commanding,  his  countenance  noble,  his  ex- 
pression full,  his  eye  brilliant,  his  voice  clear,  and  his  utterance  fluent.  His 
enunciation  was  remarkable  for  its  distinctness.  He  was  a  man  of  great  firmness 
and  decision,  of  uncommon  moral  courage,  and  of  rare  self-possession.  No 
assaults  of  opposers  ever  found  him  off  his  guard,  or  unprepared  for  the  emer- 
gency. A  young  lawyer  wished  for  his  minister's  views  respecting  his  favorite 
amusement  of  dancing.  Mr.  Loomis  replied,  —  "  I  think  that  all  things  are  not 


364  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

equally  important.  Some  things  have  a  claim  prior  to  others.  Now,  it  seems  to 
me  the  most  important  thing  for  you  is  to  become  a  true  Christian  ;  afterwards 
you  can  dance  just  as  much  as  will  be  for  your  enjoyment  and  usefulness." 

Numerically  foreign  missions  outvoted  home  missions  four  to  one 
in  the  haystack  meeting.  A  part  of  those  present  then  and  there 
formed,  with  a  few  others  in  college,  in  September,  1808,  the  "  Society 
of  Brethren,"  so  called,  a  religious  organization  with  a  decided  bent 
in  its  spirit  and  purpose  toward  foreign  missions.  Under  various 
modifications  and  designations  this  society  has  continued  in  the 
College  till  the  present  time.  As  the  old  century  is  going  out,  its 
name  is  the  Mills  Young  Men's  Christian  Association.  Four  of  the 
members  of  this  little  Society  of  Brethren,  namely,  Mills,  Richards, 
Rice,  and  Hall,  not  long  after  their  respective  graduations,  went  to 
the  then  newly  founded  Andover  Theological  Seminary,  and  all 
became  members  of  a  similar  missionary  society  there,  which  Mills 
was  instrumental  in  instituting,  and  which  still  exists  in  the  semi- 
nary. The  connection  between  the  haystack  meeting  and  the  Society 
of  Brethren,  formed  more  than  two  years  after,  is  not  very  direct, 
though  it  may  have  been  substantive ;  and  the  same  may  be  said  of 
the  connection  between  that  and  the  Andover  society  ;  and  when  it 
comes  to  the  connection  of  all  three  of  these  in  order  with  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  American  Board  of  Missions  in  1810,  instead  of 
traceable  causes  and  effects  we  come  into  a  maze,  in  which  it  is  diffi- 
cult (to  say  the  least)  to  find  the  clew.  Samuel  J.  Mills  was  indeed 
a  living  factor  in  all  four  of  these  matters,  and  has  gained  a  precious 
and  lasting  name  in  the  field  of  Christian  beneficence,  while  he  never 
went  on  a  foreign  mission  himself,  nor  was  he  well  fitted  by  tempera- 
ment or  scholarship  for  any  such  task.  He  was  the  religious  leader 
so  long  as  he  remained  in  college,  for  the  reasons  heretofore  indi- 
cated; but  when  he  went  to  Andover,  while  he  was  there  also  active 
and  zealous  and  indefatigable,  he  met  other  young  men  more  gifted 
than  himself,  more  naturally  leaders  in  great  enterprises.  Such  an 
one,  especially,  was  Adoniram  Judson.  The  General  Association  of 
Congregational  Ministers,  meeting  at  Bradford,  in  June,  1810,  re- 
ceived a  delegation  of  four  young  men  from  the  Andover  Seminary, 
bearing  a  formal  paper  signed  by  themselves  asking  the  advice  of 
their  Fathers  in  the  church,  and  virtually  offering  themselves  to  go 
as  missionaries  east  or  west,  under  such  auspices  and  conditions  as 
the  said  Fathers  might  recommend.  The  paper  was  signed  by  — 

ADONIRAM  JUDSON  SAMUEL  J.  MILLS 

SAMUEL  NOTT  SAMUEL  NEWELL 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       365 

The  Association  at  that  meeting  raised  a  committee  from  among 
themselves,  which  they  entitled  a  Board  of  Commissioners  for 
Foreign  Missions.  That  Board,  afterward  incorporated  by  the  State 
of  Massachusetts,  has  done  great  and  wonderful  things  both  at  home 
and  abroad  during  the  past  ninety  years.  But  it  was  almost  helpless 
at  first.  After  much  consultation  it  was  resolved  to  send  one  of  the 
young  men  to  England,  with  a  view  to  ascertaining  what  assistance, 
if  any,  would  be  afforded  to  their  mission  by  the  London  Missionary 
Society.  Judson  was  selected  to  go  as  their  representative  most  fit, 
and  he  went.  In  this  connection  it  must  be  noted  how  baseless  is 
the  claim  often  put  forth  in  ignorance  by  men  prominently  connected 
with  the  College  and  the  Board,  who  ought  to  have  known  better, 
that  American  foreign  missions  took  the  precedence  in  point  of  time 
over  those  of  all  other  modern  nations.  If  this  were  so,  why  was 
Judson  sent  to  the  London  Missionary  Society,  founded  in  1792? 
And  why  should  it  be  a  matter  of  formal  record,  that  "  he  was  wel- 
comed with  great  cordiality  by  the  directors  of  the  London  Society, 
who  engaged  to  take  him  and  his  three  brethren  under  their  care, 
and  to  allow  them  salaries,  and  employ  them  on  a  mission,  if  the 
funds  of  the  American  Board  should  not  be  competent  for  their 
support "  ?  In  fact,  contrary  to  the  expectations  of  the  Board, 
Judson,  during  his  absence,  felt  himself  justified  in  entering  into 
partial  arrangements,  at  least,  to  become  the  missionary  of  the 
London  Society  in  the  East  Indies.  When  Mills  heard  of  this,  he 
exclaimed  in  a  letter  to  a  friend  :  — 

What !  is  England  to  support  her  own  missionaries  and  ours  likewise  ?  O 
shame  !  If  brother  Judson  is  prepared,  I  would  fain  press  him  forward  with 
the  arm  of  an  Hercules,  if  I  had  the  strength  ;  but  I  do  not  like  this  dependence 
on  another  nation,  especially  when  they  have  already  done  so  much,  and  we 
nothing.  I  trust  that  each  of  the  brethren  will  stand  at  their  several  posts, 
determined,  God  helping  them,  to  show  themselves  MEN.  Perhaps  the  Fathers 
will  soon  arise,  and  take  the  business  of  Missions  into  their  own  hands.  But 
should  they  hesitate,  let  us  be  prepared  to  GO  FORWARD,  trusting  to  that  God  for 
assistance  who  hath  said,  Lo !  I  am  with  you  always,  even  to  the  end  of  the 
world. 

A  timely  legacy  from  a  Grod-f earing  woman,  Mary  Norris,  wife  of 
one  of  the  founders  of  Andover  Seminary,  enabled  the  "  Fathers  to 
arise,"  and  to  send  out  to  Calcutta  in  February,  1812,  five  mission- 
aries, namely,  Judson,  Nott,  and  Newell,  three  of  the  signers  of  the 
missionary  memorial  of  1810;  and  Gordon  Hall  and  Luther  Rice, 
both  graduates  of  Williams,  Hall  in  1808  and  Rice  in  1810.  The 
biographer  of  Samuel  J.  Mills  does  not  furnish  us  with  the  reasons 


366  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

why  the  latter  did  not  embark  for  India  with  his  fellow-signers 
of  the  missionary  memorial,  but  preferred  to  make  two  extended 
and  hazardous  missionary  journeys  on  horseback  with  but  a  single 
companion  in  each,  throughout  the  western  and  southern  portions  of 
the  United  States.  New  Orleans  was  the  objective  in  both  tours; 
and  the  larger  part  of  the  routes  both  going  and  coming  was  mere 
wilderness.  Were  these  home  missionary  journeys  in  any  sense  the 
fruitage  of  the  good  seed-corn  words  of  Harvey  Loomis  at  the  hay- 
stack prayer-meeting  ? 

Mills  was  present  at  Washington  at  the  organization  of  the 
American  Colonization  Society  on  New  Year's  Day,  1817.  His 
thoughts  had  been  strongly  drawn  to  Africa  as  a  place  of  missionary 
labor  as  early  as  his  Sophomore  year  in  college ;  and  his  more  recent 
tours  in  the  Southern  States  had  brought  him  in  contact  with  negroes 
both  free  and  slave.  The  colony  of  Sierra  Leone  had  been  fully 
established  by  Great  Britain  in  1792,  and  more  than  a  thousand 
blacks  had  been  transported  thither  in  that  year  from  Nova  Scotia. 
In  1816  the  General  Assembly  of  the  State  of  Virginia  had  requested 
their  Governor  to  correspond  with  the  President  of  the  United 
States  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  a  territory  on  the  coast  of  Africa 
to  serve  as  an  asylum  for  such  persons  of  color  as  had  been  or  might 
be  emancipated  by  the  laws  of  that  Commonwealth.  How  far  the 
motive  in  these  proposed  negotiations  for  colonization  was  to 
strengthen  slavery  in  the  South  by  getting  rid  of  the  free  blacks 
there,  it  is  impossible  to  say ;  that  that  motive  mingled  in  more  or 
less,  both  at  the  first  and  afterwards,  is  evidenced  by  the  fact  that 
Henry  Clay,  a  slaveholder,  was  president  of  the  Society  for  many 
years,  and  that  the  antislavery  people  of  the  North  were  strongly 
prejudiced  against  it;  but  it  is  certain,  that  the  men  who  actually 
organized  and  put  the  Society  into  operation,  like  Caldwell  and 
Finley  and  Mills,  were  men  of  the  purest  philanthropy,  who  sup- 
posed that  thus  only  could  American  Christian  missions  obtain  a 
footing  in  Africa.  In  1819;  Congress  voted  an  appropriation  of 
$100,000  to  aid  in  the  work,  and  the  next  year  the  first  colonists 
were  sent  out.  But  of  course  there  were  preliminaries  to  be  attended 
to.  An  eligible  place  on  the  coast  of  Africa  must  be  selected  by 
somebody,  and  somebody  must  be  sent  out  to  explore  the  west  coast 
in  the  neighborhood  of  Sierra  Leone  for  such  a  place.  This  commis- 
sion, replete  as  it  was  with  responsibility,  was  put  at  once  into  the 
hands  of  Samuel  J.  Mills,  with  the  privilege  of  selecting  a  colleague 
to  share  the  arduous  labors  with  him.  His  thoughts  were  directed 
to  Ebenezer  Burgess,  a  young  minister  of  kindred  spirit,  who  had 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       367 

just  before  been  a  professor  of  mathematics  in  the  University  of 
Vermont.  He  accepted  the  .appointment.  The  two  left  America 
for  England  in  November,  1817 ;  the  next  February  they  departed 
for  the  British  Colony  in  Africa ;  and  after  two  months  of  explora- 
tion on  the  coast  to  the  south  of  that  Colony,  they  selected  what 
they  supposed  was  a  suitable  place  for  a  settlement,  and  took  ship 
for  home.  On  the  sixteenth  of  May,  Mills  died  at  sea;  his  eyes 
were  tenderly  closed  by  his  faithful  colleague,  and  his  body  buried 
in  the  mighty  waters  off  the  coast  of  that  Dark  Continent,  to  serve 
as  a  means  of  enlightening  which  he  had  done  what  he  could. 

Years  afterwards,  when  Ebenezer  Burgess  had  been  a  long  time 
pastor  in  Dedham,1  he  furnished  the  following  tender,  yet  discrimi- 
nating, characterization  of  his  early  companion  in  labor  and  perils  :  — 

If  we  wish  to  do  justice  to  Mr.  Mills,  we  must  not  contemplate  him  as  a 
student,  a  writer,  a  preacher,  but  as  a  philanthropist,  wise  in  council,  active, 
zealous,  self-sacrificing,  and  devoted  to  good  works.  He  did  not  claim  to  be  a 
classical  scholar,  a  lucid  writer,  or  a  popular  orator.  While  his  figure  was 
manly,  his  apparel  studiously  neat,  and  his  manner  rather  graceful,  his  voice 
was  not  clear,  nor  his  eye  brilliant,  nor  his  language  fluent.  Unlike  his  father 
he  had  no  wit.  The  prominent  traits  of  his  character,  which  gave  him  efficiency 
as  a  philanthropist,  were  such  as  these :  He  was  sagacious  to  see  what  could  be 
done  and  what  could  not  be  done.  He  embarked  in  no  theoretic  or  impracti- 
cable enterprises.  He  had  more  than  ordinary  knowledge  of  human  nature. 
He  did  not  attempt  to  do  himself  any  work  for  which  he  was  incompetent ;  but 
he  had  the  wisdom  to  solicit  the  able  writer,  the  effective  preacher,  the  noble 
statesman,  the  liberal  merchant,  to  do  each  his  appropriate  work ;  and  then  he 
was  willing  they  should  enjoy  all  the  reputation,  while  he  was  himself  unseen. 
He  was  sincere  as  zealous  in  his  philanthropy.  He  expended  the  little  patri- 
mony of  his  maternal  grandfather.  He  did  not  consult  his  own  wealth,  ease,  or 
honor.  His  compassion  for  man  was  tender  and  large.  His  love  to  the  king- 
dom of  Christ  was  a  flame  of  fire,  enkindling  his  prayers,  and  warning  him  to 
action  amid  the  coldness  of  others.  He  wasted  no  time  in  despondence  or  com- 
plaints. He  was  prudent  in  the  use  of  his  tongue.  He  did  not  rail  about  the 
popular  errors  or  vices,  whether  of  nations  or  individuals.  Slavery  and  war, 
drunkenness  and  sensuality,  were  almost  never  topics  of  remark.  Intent  on 
making  the  world  better  in  the  use  of  appropriate  means,  he  did  not  expend  his 
energies  in  ridicule  or  in  tears.  He  was  no  bigot.  He  silently  communed  with 
the  Baptist,  prayed  with  the  Methodist,  loved  the  Moravian,  and  praised  the 
Friend.  His  prayers  were  short ;  often  saying,  "  We  praise  thee  that  we  belong 
to  a  race  of  beings  who  were  made  by  Jesus  Christ,  and  for  him,  and  are 
redeemed  by  his  blood." 

1  The  present  writer  taught  a  school  in  Dedham  in  two  successive  winters,  1848-50, 
during  which  seasons  the  Rev.  Dr.  Burgess  was  his  pastor,  and  he  had  the  privilege  of 
becoming  well  acquainted  with  him  and  his  interesting  family  of  two  sons  and  two 
daughters. 


368  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

In  parting  finally  with  the  men  of  the  haystack  and  their  coad- 
jutors, it  may  be  worth  while  to  note  .two  or  three  points  relating 
to  them  and  their  work.  (1)  Adoniram  Judson,  the  ablest  and 
most  successful  of  them  all,  himself  also  died  at  sea  in  April,  1850. 
It  is  a  matter  of  profound  thankfulness  that  American  Christians 
have  outgrown  the  intense  sectarianism  that  made  Andover  Semi- 
nary and  New  England  Congregationalists  generally,  when  Judson 
and  Rice  became  Baptists  almost  as  soon  as  they  became  mission- 
ari^s,  look  on  them  askance  as  if  they  had  denied  the  faith  and  shut 
themselves  out  of  the  fold.  (2)  As  the  decades  have  rolled  by,  the 
words  and  life  of  Harvey  Loomis  have  overtaken,  even  if  they  have 
not  overshadowed,  in  influence  and  power  the  words  and  life  of 
Samuel  J.  Mills.  The  American  Home  Missionary  societies  and 
benevolences  are  now  on  a  grander  scale,  and  are  obviously  pro- 
ducing more  momentous  results,  than  all  the  foreign  missionaries' 
agencies  of  every  name.  Mark  Hopkins,  Williams  College  1824, 
was  for  many  years  the  president  of  the  American  Board,  during 
the  time  of  its  highest  and  broadest  efficiency;  his  eldest  son, 
Henry  Hopkins,  Williams  College  1858,  is  now  one  of  the  vice- 
presidents  of  the  American  Missionary  Association,  an  organization 
of  increasing  and  amazing  potency  for  good.  (3)  It  was  not  in  the 
plan  of  God  that  the  American  Colonization  Society,  probably 
tainted  in  its  source  and  certainly  in  its  flow  by  the  deadly  slough- 
off  of  American  slavery,  should  accomplish  much  (if  anything)  as 
toward  the  great  ends  of  Liberty  and  Righteousness. 

The  identification  of  the  place  of  the  haystack  excited  a  deal  of 
interest  among  the  alumni  and  other  friends  of  the  College.  Steps 
were  at  once  taken  toward  purchasing  the  land  on  which  it  stood, 
that  is  to  say,  the  whole  of  "  Sloan's  meadow  "  lying  between  Main 
Street  and  the  Hoosac,  as  toward  the  end  of  a  "  Missionary  Park," 
so-called.  This  fortunate  move  reached  its  goal.  The  Whitman 
family,  always  warm  friends  and  generous  donors  to  the  College, 
sold  the  land  for  $250  an  acre.  The  park  was  laid  out  on  broad 
lines,  and  came  at  first  under  the  care  of  Professor  Hopkins,  but 
before  long  passed  into  that  of  Professor  Bascom,  to  whom  for  the 
most  part  its  beautiful  paths  and  arboral  adornments  are  due,  and 
who  as  the  old  century  goes  out  still  presides  alone  over  all  of  its 
steadily  increasing  beauties.  As  soon  as  the  possession  of  the  land 
was  assured  to  the  College,  Professor  Perry  went  to  President 
Hopkins  with  a  plan  to  utilize  a  small  part  of  the  Park,  at  one 
corner,  for  a  college  cemetery.  It  was  his  own  idea.  He  felt 
strongly  that  such  a  place  would  come  in  time  to  be  precious  in  its 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       369 

associations,  and  that  now*  was  the  time  to  secure  it.  Dr.  Hopkins 
took  no  interest  in  the  scheme,  and  at  once  discarded  it ;  whereupon 
its  proposer  went  to  Professor  Hopkins  as  the  next  most  influen- 
tial person  in  the  premises,  who  listened  attentively  and  assented 
heartily  and  entered  practically  upon  the  realization  of  the  plan. 
This  is  the  whole  story  of  the  origin  of  the  College  cemetery.  It 
is  the  more  deeply  impressed  upon  the  writer's  memory,  insomuch 
as  his  own  first-born,  Gray  Perry,  was  the  first  to  be  deposited  in 
its  consecrated  ground.  A  little  before  this  primal  interment,  Pro- 
fessor Chadbourne  had  built  a  family  tomb  of  brick  in  the  south- 
west corner  of  the  cemetery  lot,  and  his  own  first-born  child  also, 
Abby  Chadbourne,  had  been  deposited  beneath  its  broad  arch. 
After  the  death  of  President  Chadbourne  in  1883  and  his  own 
entombment  there,  the  trustees  of  the  College  erected  the  present 
massive  stone  front  of  the  tomb,  on  which  an  appropriate  epitaph 
is  engraved.  Already  before  the  first  half-century  has  expired,  this 
piece  of  ground  has  gathered  to  itself  manifold  and  hallowed  asso- 
ciations connected  with  the  sleepers  there. 

The  semi-centennial  of  the  haystack  meeting  was  celebrated  here 
in  1856  with  elaborate  and  highly  interesting  exercises.  David 
Dudley  Field  presided,  and  made  the  introductory  address.  The 
principal  address  was  given  by  Professor  Albert  Hopkins,  and 
occupied  an  hour  and  a  half  in  its  delivery.  His  theme  was,  of 
course,  the  haystack ;  and  he  subdivided  it  into,  —  (1)  the  times  of 
the  haystack ;  (2)  the  men  of  the  haystack ;  (3)  their  relations  to 
the  problem  of  the  ages ;  and  (4)  our  relations  and  duties  to  the 
same  problem.  Short  and  significant  addresses  were  then  made  by 
ten  or  a  dozen  distinguished  men,  among  them  Governor  Briggs, 
President  of  the  American  Baptist  Missionary  Union.  Perhaps  the 
most  weighty  words  of  the  occasion  were  those  of  Rufus  Anderson, 
then  the  veteran  Secretary  of  the  American  Board.  A  part  of  these 
are  here  transcribed :  — 

Less  than  a  year  ago,  it  was  my  privilege  to  stand  on  the  site  of  Antioch, 
where  the  first  foreign  missionaries  received  their  special  designation  from  the 
Holy  Ghost.  This  historical  association  was  to  me  the  principal  charm  of  that 
beautiful  and  interesting  spot.  Next  to  Jerusalem  and  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  I  have 
most  pleasure  in  the  recollection  of  Antioch.  But  where  am  I  now  ?  The  moun- 
tains yonder  are  not  ranges  of  Lebanon,  nor  Is  yonder  stream  the  Orontes.  We 
are  met  in  the  New  World.  The  historical  events  we  commemorate  occurred 
within  the  memory  of  some  of  us.  Nevertheless  they  are  important,  and  have 
and  will  have  a  place  on  the  historic  page.  And  they  make  this,  rather  than 
any  and  all  other  places,  the  Antioch  of  our  Western  hemisphere. 

We  may  not  claim,  that  the  foreign  missionary  spirit  in  our  American 

2/B 


370  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

churches  had  its  first  development  here.  The  -proof  is  ample  that  it  had  not. 
But,  so  far  as  my  own  researches  have  gone,  the  first  personal  consecrations  to 
the  work  of  effecting  missions  among  foreign  heathen  nations  were  here.  Here 
the  Holy  Ghost  made  the  first  visible  separations  of  men  in  this  country  for  the 
foreign  work  whereto  he  had  called  them.  The  first  observable  rill  of  the  stream 
of  American  missionaries,  which  has  gone  on  swelling  until  now,  issued  just  on 
this  spot ;  and  I  am  thankful  the  spot  has  been  so  well  identified,  and  is  so 
convenient  of  access,  and  withal  so  beautiful ;  and  that  it  has  now  been  secured 
and  consecrated  as  a  permanent  memorial.  The  development  and  result  of  this 
movement  meet  our  reasonable  wishes.  Samuel  J.  Mills  rests  near  the  shores 
of  Africa.  The  grave  of  James  Richards  I  saw  in  Ceylon.  Gordon  Hall  sleeps 
among  the  Mahrattas  of  Western  India.  Hall  died  young ;  but  a  life  of  rare 
and  consistent  devotedness,  illustrated  by  noble  exhibitions  of  talent,  give  him 
a  place  in  the  highest  rank  of  missionaries. 

The  American  Board  of  Commissioners  for  Foreign  Missions  had  its  origin 
in  the  desire  and  request  of  young  men  of  the  Andover  Seminary,  including 
those  just  named,  to  be  sent  abroad  as  missionaries.  These  two  things  stand  in 
the  immediate  relation  of  cause  and  effect.  I  am  also  persuaded,  that  the  form- 
ing of  the  "  Society  of  Brethren  "  here  in  this  college  in  September,  1808,  before 
even  the  conversion  of  Dr.  Judson,  and  its  removal  to  Andover  Seminary  early 
in  1810,  or  sooner,  had  much  to  do,  by  its  weekly  conferences  and  prayers,  in 
maturing  the  plans  of  its  members.  Its  leading  object  indeed,  as  we  are  assured, 
was  "  so  to  operate  on  the  public  mind  as  to  lead  to  the  formation  of  a  mission- 
ary society."  And  its  members  corresponded  on  this  subject  with  the  men  who 
actually  became  the  founders  of  the  American  Board. 

In  leaving  now  this  topic  of  the  haystack  and  of  American  foreign 
missions,  we  must  not  forget  to  do  ample  justice  to  the  Common- 
wealth of  Massachusetts  in  its  constantly  recurring  gifts  to  the 
College  in  its  times  of  need.  While  the  last  war  with  England  was 
still  raging  the  Legislature  passed  an  act,  Feb.  24,  1814,  "  for  the 
Encouragement  of  Literature,  Piety  and  Morality  and  the  Useful 
Arts  and  Sciences,"  and  appropriated  the  taxes  due  to  the  Common- 
wealth from  the  Massachusetts  Bank,  "for  the  ten  years  next  to 
come,"  to  Harvard,  Williams,  and  Bowdoin.  Of  this  fund  Williams 
received  "three  sixteenth  parts,"  which  amounted  to  $30,000.  In 
1859  the  State  gave  this  College  $25,000,  and  in  1868,  $75,000.  The 
total  of  all  legislative  gifts  is  $153,500,  from  the  beginning  until 
now. 

In  the  same  college  class  with  Samuel  J.  Mills  and  Harvey 
Loomis,  namely,  the  class  of  1809,  was  graduated  the  first  uncom- 
monly distinguished  man  that  the  college  sent  forth  among  its  alumni. 
This  was  a  Hartford  boy  whose  name  was  Samuel  A.  Talcott. 
He  had  in  his  veins  some  of  the  best  blood  of  Connecticut.  His 
ancestor,  John  Talcott,  emigrated  from  England  to  Cambridge  in 
1632,  and  was  in  the  original  party  that  followed  or  made  the  old 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE    TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       371 

"Bay  Path"  to  Hartford,  and  settled  that  place  in  1636.  The 
second  John  Talcott  greatly  distinguished  himself  throughout  New 
England  as  a  military  leader  in  King  Philip's  Indian  War  of  1676. 
His  son,  Joseph  Talcott,  was  Governor  of  Connecticut  from- 1725  to 
1741,  the  year  of  his  death.  The  blood  of  John  Ledyard,  the  world- 
famous  traveller,  and  of  Colonel  William  Ledyard,  the  Revolutionary 
hero,  mingled  with  other  strains  in  this  Hartford  lad,  to  the  end  of 
making  even  his  childhood  precocious  and  remarkable.  He  entered 
as  a  Sophomore  here  at  sixteen,  and  was  graduated  at  the  head  of 
his  class  at  nineteen,  and  took  the  valedictory  on  every  ground  as  a 
matter  of  course.  But  even  as  a  boy  he  had  contracted  the  habit  of 
drinking  intoxicants.  These  were  always  for  sale  at  every  tavern, 
and  were  exposed  for  social  purposes  on  almost  every  private  side- 
board. Deacon  Benjamin  Skinner  in  all  those  years  kept  the  tavern 
just  north  of  the  Hoosac,  which  had  been  built  and  kept  by  Colonel 
Simonds,  who  was  his  father-in-law.  Young  Talcott  probably  boarded 
over  there,  as  had  Thomas  Robbins  and  many  another  Connecticut 
student  before  him.  At  any  rate,  Talcott  before  his  graduation 
became  engaged  to  Rachel  Skinner,  as  Robbins  had  been  temporarily 
engaged  to  Alice  Skinner,  her  sister.  This  tavern  in  those  days  (it 
is  still  standing)  was  a  favorite  place  for  parties  and  dancing  and 
drinking.  The  Mansion  House,  close  by  the  church  in  which  the 
commencements  were  held,  was  equally  open  at  all  times  for  similar 
purposes.  As  the  exercises  of  commencement  were  going  forward 
in  1809,  and  the  afternoon  wearing  away  toward  the  valedictory, 
two  or  three  friends  of  Talcott  found  him  intoxicated,  —  too  intoxi- 
cated to  appear  on  the  stage.  No  time  was  to  be  lost.  One  of  them 
took  strongly  hold  of  each  arm  and  trotted  him  down  the  street 
toward  the  Green  River  and  back  again,  as  fast  as  they  could 
go.  He  was  almost  immediately  thereafter  called  upon  the  stage, 
and  delivered  his  oration  with  the  accompanying  valedictory  with 
unequalled  facility  and  eloquence.  It  has  been  said  by  many  eye- 
and  ear-witnesses  that  no  such  exquisite  performance  had  ever  been 
witnessed  upon  the  stage  before. 

He  married  Miss  Skinner  in  the  autumn  of  1809,  and  began  the 
study  of  law  immediately  with  Thomas  R.  Gold  of  Oneida  County. 
We  shall  allow  in  a  moment  a  classmate  and  friend  to  relate  how  he 
took  hold  of  that  study,  and  how  he  adorned  that  profession.  John 
Ledyard  Talcott  was  the  only  son  of  the  first  marriage,  and  he  too 
became  a  distinguished  lawyer  of  Buffalo.  From  a  second  marriage 
there  was  one  son,  Thomas  Grosvenor  Talcott,  long  a  prominent 
citizen  of  Hartford.  While  the  wretched  drinking  habit  did  not 


372  WILLIAMSTOWN  AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

prevent  Talcott's  rapid  rise  to  the  high  places  of  his  profession,  it 
pulled  away  steadily  at  his  eminence  till  it  levelled  it,  and  brought 
him  down  to  his  grave  in  1836.  The  late  Governor  Briggs  of  Mas- 
sachusetts used  to  tell  in  his  fervent  temperance  lectures,  and  often 
in  private  conversation  also,  of  a  call  he  made  on  President  Van 
Buren  at  the  White  House  not  long  after  the  death  of  Attorney- 
General  Talcott,  when  the  talk  turned  on  that  official  of  the  State  of 
New  York,  and  the  President  showed  to  him  a  picture  of  his  friend, 
and  expatiated  on  the  extreme  brilliancy  of  his  career  at  the  bar. 
He  also  mentioned  the  fact,  that  twice  at  least  the  Supreme  Court  of 
the  United  States  had  felt  obliged  to  adjourn  from  day  to  day  solely 
on  account  of  the  unfitness  of  condition  to  plead  before  them  in  im- 
portant cases  of  the  lawyer,  who  had  come  to  Washington  on  purpose 
to  do  this. 
W.  H.  Dillingham,  a  classmate  and  friend  of  Talcott's,  said  of  him :  — 

This  was  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  men  of  the  age ;  and  it  is  fitting  that 
one  who  knew  him  intimately  from  boyhood  should  speak  of  his  noble  qualities 
as  they  deserve.  He  was  born  at  Hartford,  of  a  distinguished  family,  one  of  his 
paternal  ancestors  having  been  governor  of  Connecticut,  and  being  connected  on 
his  mother's  side  with  Ledyard,  the  traveller,  and  Col.  Ledyard,  who  so  gallantly 
defended  Fort  Groton  in  the  war  of  the  Revolution.  He  lost  his  father  while 
yet  a  boy,  and  he  received  his  early  education  from  a  clergyman  of  East  Windsor, 
and  afterwards  at  the  Academy  in  Colchester. 

He  entered  Williams  College  as  a  Sophomore  in  1806,  and  graduated  in  1809, 
at  the  age  of  nineteen.  During  this  period  and  at  this  early  age,  all  those 
extraordinary  qualities  were  developed  which  marked  his  career,  and  so  greatly 
distinguished  him  in  after  life,  —  towering  genius  and  profound  investigation  ; 
astonishing  facility  in  acquiring  knowledge,  and  a  memory  which  never  lost 
what  it  had  once  acquired  ;  surpassing  eloquence  as  a  writer  and  speaker ;  a 
mind  which  could  grasp  and  master  whatever  was  most  difficult  in  the  abstruse 
sciences,  and  at  the  same  time  exhibiting  powers  of  imagination,  wit,  humor, 
raillery,  and  sarcasm,  which  have  been  rarely  equalled.  To  all  these  were  added 
the  advantages  of  a  commanding  person,  unrivalled  address,  a  head  and  eye  and 
countenance,  "  the  pattern  of  a  man."  He  was  in  all  respects  most  truly  one  of 
Nature's  noblemen.  His  heart  was  generous  to  a  fault,  and  he  had  a  soul  which 
knew  not  fear. 

He  was  no  sooner  admitted  to  practice  in  the  Supreme  Court  of  New  York, 
than  he  took  rank  with  the  oldest  and  ablest  men  of  that  distinguished  bar,  and 
was  appointed  attorney  general  of  the  State  before  he  attained  the  age  of  thirty. 
He  was  twice  reflected  to  this  office,  once  by  a  unanimous  vote  of  the  Legisla- 
ture, —  and  held  it  during  the  greater  part  of  nine  years. 

Talcott's  epitaph  to  the  memory  of  his  first  wife  has  seemed  to 
many  discerning  persons  one  of  the  finest  pieces  of  such  writing  in 
existence  :  — 


TOWN    AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       373 

HERE  RESTS  THE  BODY  or 
MRS.  KACHEL  TALCOTT, 

WHO  WAS  THE  WIFE  OF  SAMUEL  A.  TALCOTT 
AND  DAUGHTER  OF  BENJAMIN  AND  RACHEL  SKINNER 

SHE  WAS  SUDDENLY  CALLED  TO  ANOTHER  AND  WE 

TRUST  TO  A  BETTER  WORLD  ON  THE  18TH  DAY  OF  AUG. 

1817  IN  THE  33D  YEAR  OF  HER  AGE 

HER  HUSBAND  HAS  CAUSED  THIS  STONE  TO  BE  ERECTED  TO  DESIGNATE 
THE  SPOT  WHERE  SHE  REPOSES  AND  NOT  IN  THE  UNNECESSARY 
ATTEMPT  TO  COMMEMORATE  HER  WORTH  FOR  WITH  THOSE 
WHO  KNEW  HER  (AND  PERHAPS  READER  THOU  ART  ONE) 

HER    VIRTUES    NEED    NO    REMEMBRANCER    AND    WITH    THOSE    WHO 
KNEW    HER   NOT    THE    SIMPLE    RECORDS    OF    TRUTH    WOULD    BE 
MISTAKEN   FOR   THE    LANGUAGE    OF   PANEGYRIC 

Besides  this  daughter  of  Deacon  Skinner  and  granddaughter  of 
Colonel  Simonds  thus  beautifully  commemorated,  and  besides  the 
eldest  daughter  of  the  family,  Alice  Kobinson,  already  fully  charac- 
terized on  a  previous  page  of  this  volume,  the  youngest  daughter, 
Harriet,  must  now  receive  a  few  pleasant  words  at  our  hands.  She 
married  Austin  E.  Wing,  an  alumnus  of  the  College  in  1814.  Wing 
was  a  lad  from  Conway,  and  after  his  marriage  located  in  Detroit 
as  a  lawyer,  and  later  in  Monroe,  Michigan.  He  represented  the 
Territory  of  Michigan  in  Congress  from  1827  to  1832.  During 
President  Folk's  administration  he  was  Marshal  of  the  United 
States  for  the  State  of  Michigan.  Durfee  says  of  him:  "He  was 
bold,  energetic,  and  fearless,  ardent  in  his  feelings  and  friendships, 
of  considerable  mental  ability,  great  executive  capacity,  and  com- 
manding influence."  In  1828  Deacon  Skinner  made  a  journey  to 
Monroe  from  Williamstown,  whether  only  on  a  visit  to  his  daughter, 
Mrs.  Wing,  or  to  make  a  new  home  for  himself  in  his  old  age,  has 
not  been  clearly  ascertained ;  but  he  died  and  was  buried  there  in 
the  course  of  that  year ;  and  is  said  to  have  spent  his  latest  breath 
in  prayer  for  his  two  dissipated  sons  in  South  Williamstown, 
William  and  Harry,  who  lived  much  of  the  time  with  their  half- 
sister,  Mrs.  Blair,  and  with  their  aunt,  Mrs.  Charles  Sabin,  who  was 
Mehitable  Skinner,  a  sister  of  the  Deacon.  Harry  Skinner,  after 
years  of  intemperance,  reformed,  and  married  a  widow,  who  in  early 
life  had  been  his  sweetheart,  but  who  dared  not  marry  him  then 
on  account  of  his  habits.  He  too  went  West  in  his  later  life,  and 
became  a  Methodist  exhorter,  steady  and  respectable.  William  also 
reformed  after  his  father's  death,  but  was  never  able  to  rally  his 
powers  into  a  life  of  much  usefulness.  Both  of  these  men  are 


374  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

mentioned  in  an  uncomplimentary  manner  in  the  last  will  and 
testament  of  their  grandfather,  Colonel  Benjamin  Simonds. 

The  four  other  sons  of  Deacon  Skinner,  all  three  of  his  sons-in- 
law,  and  two  of  his  grandsons,  were  graduates  of  Williams  College. 
All  nine  became  lawyers,  and  all  were  distinguished  men  in  their 
day  and  generation.  Mrs.  Harriet  Skinner  Wing  died  in  1836,  and 
lies  buried  beside  her  father  in  the  cemetery  at  Monroe.  She  left 
two  daughters,  Mrs.  Mitchell  and  Mrs.  Whittier,  both  educated  here 
at  the  East  and  both  still  living  at  the  present  writing  in  Hillsdale, 
Michigan.  These  sisters  have  still  in  their  possession  a  quaint  old 
dress  belonging  to  their  mother,  bought  and  made  in  Boston,  while 
she  was  on  a  visit  there  at  her  uncle's,  General  T.  J.  Skinner,  about 
ninety  years  ago,  before  his  financial  and  moral  fall.  Deacon 
Skinner  left  behind  him  those  permanent  memorials,  which  com- 
monly belong  to  a  warm-hearted  and  unselfish  and  consecrated  life. 
Though  not  highly  educated  in  books,  he  was  a  good  public  reader, 
and  when  Judge  Daniel  Dewey  was  not  available  to  the  congrega- 
tion in  that  capacity,  he  used  to  read  on  Sundays  in  the  absence  of 
a  minister  the  printed  sermon,  as  the  usage  was  in  those  days.  The 
credible  tradition  has  nevertheless  come  down  to  our  own  times,  that 
the  printed  word  "  microscope,"  then  comparatively  new,  proved  on 
one  pulpit  occasion  too  difficult  for  his  powers  of  pronunciation. 

It  is  time  now  to  recur  to  Ebenezer  Fitch,  the  first  president  of 
College,  and  to  follow  him  to  the  close  of  his  honorable  career  as 
such,  and  very  briefly  also  to  the  end  of  his  life,  which  came  in 
March,  1833.  We  left  him  on  a  former  page  making  probably  the 
greatest  mistake  of  his  official  life,  in  refusing  to  sustain  Professor 
Olds  and  the  two  tutors  in  an  act  of  college  discipline,  which  he 
himself  had  led  them  in  appointing,  —  alleging  in  his  own  behalf 
that  he  had  not  fully  understood  the  circumstances  and  conditions. 
Instead  of  taking  his  own  leading  share  of  the  blame  for  precipi- 
tancy (if  there  were  any),  and  so  relieving  his  colleagues  for  the 
assumption  of  a  similar  share  of  their  own,  he  tried  hard  to  pull 
himself  out  of  all  responsibility  in  the  premises,  and  so  left  them 
in  the  lurch,  that  they  felt  compelled  to  resign  their  places  at  once. 
This  necessitated  a  college  recess  of  four  weeks.  In  the  meantime 
three  new  tutors  were  secured,  two  of  whom  proved  to  be  excellent 
and  popular  teachers,  and  the  College  went  on,  This  was  in  1808. 
In  1810  Tutor  Chester  Dewey  was  appointed  a  professor,  and  con- 
tinued to  draw  toward  himself  the  confidence  of  the  students  in  a 
remarkable  degree,  until  his  own  resignation  under  a  peculiar  set 
of  circumstances  in  1827.  But  President  Fitch  never  seemed  to 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       375 

recover  his  own  moral  hold  after  the  fiasco  of  1808.  There  was 
no  immediate  falling  off  in  the  number  of  students  in  attendance; 
there  were  no  marked  manifestations  of  his  unpopularity  on  the 
ground,  but  there  was  something  all  the  while  in  the  way  of  favor 
and  influence  working  away  from  him  as  toward  Professor  Dewey. 
The  requisite  conditions  of  ability  and  kindness  being  presupposed, 
it  is  always  easier  for  a  young  man  to  gain  and  hold  a  genuine 
popularity  in  college  instruction  and  government,  than  for  an  older 
man  to  do  this.  Dewey  gradually  became  a  successful  college 
preacher  and  religious  worker  as  well  as  a  technical  teacher,  in 
contrast  with  the  older  and  slower  and  less  vital  methods  of  the 
president  in  class-room  and  pulpit;  the  trustees  (some  of  them) 
noticed  on  occasion  the  failing  tact  and  lessening  grip  of  the  presi- 
dent, and  he  slowly  became  conscious  of  it  himself;  and  then,  as 
is  usual  and  inevitable,  followed  the  buzz  in  college  and  town  and 
county,  —  those  under-breath  prophecies  which  alway  fulfil  them- 
selves, —  that  some  change  is  impending  and  necessary. 

A  much  larger  proportion  of  college  students  in  those  times  than 
at  present  entered  rather  at  the  beginning  of  the  Sophomore  year 
than  of  the  Freshman  year.  Most  of  those  then  entering  here  were 
fitted,  not  as  now  in  preparatory  schools,  but  by  country  ministers, 
themselves  graduates  of  this  College  or  of  Yale,  who  were  usually 
fairly  able  to  fit  boys  for  the  second  stage  of  the  curriculum  as  then 
narrowly  constituted  both  at  New  Haven  and  here.  As  a  single 
example  of  this  custom,  Moses  Hallock,  an  alumnus  of  Yale  in  1788, 
and  settled  in  the  ministry  of  Plainfield  in  Hampshire  County  in 
1792,  fitted  for  college  not  only  two  of  his  own  sons,  Gerard  and 
William  A.,  both  of  whom  were  graduated  here  in  1819,  and  both  of 
whom  became  distinguished  men  in  matters  of  public  activity  and 
benevolence,  but  also  an  almost  constant  succession  of  other  students 
both  before  and  after  that  date,  until  about  1830.  The  decline  in 
the  influence  of  President  Fitch  from  1810  to  1815  (the  date  of  his 
resignation)  became  manifest  in  the  lessening  number  of  students 
entering  and  graduating.  The  average  number  of  graduates  in  the 
seven  years  preceding  and  including  1811,  was  twenty-seven ;  while 
the  average  for  the  six  years,  succeeding  that  date  was  only  twenty. 
The  years  of  smallest  entrance  were  1813,  1814,  and  1815.  Had  it 
not  been  for  Moses  Hallock  and  his  "  school  of  the  prophets "  in 
rugged  Plainfield,  the  College  would  have  dwindled  to  a  small  point. 
It  was  said  by  Judge  C.  A.  Dewey,  himself  a  graduate  of  1811,  that 
fully  half  or  more  of  the  entries  in  one  of  those  three  years  were 
from  Moses  Hallock,  "  who  never  forsook  us."  It  is  probable,  how- 


376  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

ever,  that  some  allowance  should  also  be  made  for  the  falling  off  in 
entries  and  graduates  during  this  period,  on  account  of  the  excite- 
ments and  disasters  of  the  second  war  with  England,  falling  in  those 
years.  The  town  and  the  county  were  strongly  Democratic,  favoring 
the  war ;  the  College  authorities  were  strongly  Federalist,  opposing 
the  war. 

Dr.  Fitch  was  in  his  sixtieth  year  when  he  left  Williamstown. 
He  had  always  led  a  life  of  care  and  anxiety.  His  early  failure  as 
a  merchant  in  New  Haven  had  left  its  legacies  with  him,  both  sub- 
jective and  objective.  The  objective  legacy  was  a  debt,  that  cast 
its  shadow  over  him  for  many  years.  His  natural  disposition  was 
sanguine  and  buoyant ;  he  was  more  hopeful  for  the  future  than 
the  true  state  of  things  would  warrant;  at  least  five  times  in  the 
course  of  his  life  kind  friends  came  forward  to  relieve  him  in  whole 
or  in  part  from  the  burdens  of  almost  constantly  recurring  debts ; 
yet  care  and  anxiety  of  course  accompanied  their  contracting  and 
their  pressure;  he  became  used  to  being  in  debt,  which  is  a  great 
misfortune  to  any  man;  and  he  maintained  throughout  his  life  a 
sort  of  half  happy-go-lucky  and  half  trust-in-Providence  demeanor, 
which  doubtless  added  an  agreeable  aspect  to  his  society  and  author- 
ity, but  which  certainly  detracted  from  his  manliness  and  dominance 
over  affairs.  It  has  already  been  stated,  that  he  married  a  widow 
(an  old  flame  of  his)  with  two  children,  whom  he  adopted  and  reared 
with  his  own  numerous  progeny.  His  income  was  insufficient  to 
maintain  and  educate  these  in  the  style  to  which  he  had  been  accus- 
tomed ;  and  he  had  neither  the  financial  foresight  nor  the  force  of 
will  to  compel  outgoes  to  come  under  income. 

At  a  meeting  of  the  trustees  held  May  2,  1815,  the  following  vote 
was  unanimously  passed :  — 

Whereas,  The  Rev.  President  Fitch  has  signified  to  this  Board  his  determina- 
tion to  resign  his  office  of  President  at  the  ensuing  Commencement ;  and  whereas, 
in  consequence  of  the  state  of  the  funds,  the  Corporation  have  not  been  able  to 
give  him  such  a  salary  as  his  situation  and  the  increased  expenses  of  living  for 
years  past  have  required  ;  —  Voted,  That  there  be  granted  to  the  Eev.  Dr.  Fitch 
the  sum  of  twenty  two  hundred  dollars ;  one  thousand  thereof  to  be  paid  him  in 
the  month  of  October  next ;  six  hundred  thereof  in  six  months  from  that  time, 
and  the  residue  in  one  year  from  October  next. 

By  permission  of  the  trustees,  President  Fitch  immediately  left 
the  College  for  the  summer,  his  regular  salary  continuing  until  the 
fall.  Meanwhile  Professor  Dewey  discharged  the  duties  of  the 
president  to  universal  acceptance.  Fitch  returned  in  August,  pre- 
sided at  the  Commencement  exercises,  helped  to  induct  the  new 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       37T 

professor,  Ebenezer  Kellogg,  into  office  as  Professor  of  Languages, 
and  remained  in  town  but  a  short  time  in  order  to  officially  receive 
his  successor  in  the  presidency,  and  then  took  his  departure  with 
his  family  for  West  Bloomfield,  New  York,  to  which  place  he  had 
already  been  called  as  pastor  over  a  small  Presbyterian  church.  He 
soon  began  to  feel  and  to  exhibit  the  enfeebling  effects  of  old  age. 
He  continued,  however,  to  discharge  the  regular  and  arduous  duties 
of  a  pastor  there  for  twelve  year's.  His  labors  appear  to  have  been 
abundantly  blessed.  In  a  farewell  discourse  to  his  people,  delivered 
in  November,  1827,  he  himself  states  some  of  the  visible  results  of 
his  pastorate :  — 

At  the  time  of  my  installation,  Nov.  29,  1815,  this  church  consisted  of  forty- 
eight  members.  Of  these,  four  have  since  died,  five  have  been  excommunicated, 
and  seventeen  dismissed.  One  has  never  since  been  in  town,  and,  whether  living 
or  not,  I  do  not  know ;  another  has  been  absent  several  years,  though  both,  if 
living,  still  retain  their  relation  to  this  church  ;  leaving  now  in  town  only  twenty 
of  the  original  members. 

Since  my  installation,  one  hundred  and  ninety  persons  have  been  received  as 
members  of  this  church,  one  hundred  and  forty -five  of  them  upon  their  public 
profession  of  faith  in  Christ,  and  forty-four  were  received  by  letters  of  recom- 
mendation from  sister  churches.  Of  the  whole  number,  one  hundred  and  ninety, 
received  since  my  installation,  thirteen  have  died,  four  have  been  excommuni- 
cated, one  was  restored,  and  sixty-two  regularly  dismissed.  The  whole  number 
of  members  now  in  the  church  is  one  hundred  and  thirty-three  ;  twenty  of  these, 
however,  have  removed  so  far  from  this  town  as  not  to  be  able  to  worship  with 
us  on  the  Sabbath,  or  to  attend  the  communion  seasons  of  the  church.  During 
my  ministry,  fifty-seven  adults  and  one  hundred  and  fifty  children  have  been 
baptized.  During  the  same  time  two  hundred  and  four  persons  have  died  in 
West  Bloomfield,  being,  on  the  average  of  the  twelve  years  of  my  ministry,  sev- 
enteen each  year ;  twenty  of  them  have  died  during  a  little  less  than  eleven 
months  of  the  present  year. 

In  reviewing  the  scenes  and  events  of  my  twelve  years1  ministry  in  this  place, 
I  find  many  things  to  regret  and  deplore  ;  and  some  which  ought  to  excite  my 
warmest  gratitude  and  yours,  and  call  forth  our  united  praise  and  thanksgiving 
to  God.  I  have  great  reason  to  regret  the  deficiencies  and  imperfections  which 
have  attended  my  public  services  ;  and  my  want  of  more  zeal,  fervor  and  faith- 
fulness in  discharging  the  various  and  important  duties  of  the  pastoral  and  min- 
isterial office  ;  and  that  so  little  success  has  attended  my  labors.  For  my  own 
sinful  deficiencies  I  ought  to  be  humbled,  and  I  desire  to  be  humbled,  before 
God  and  before  you. 

I  see  reason,  also,  to  deplore  some  events  which  have  taken  place  in  this 
society;  particularly  and  especially  the  introduction  and  prevalence  of  an 
unscriptural  opinion  and  dangerous  error  respecting  a  most  important  point  of 
doctrine,  the  real  divinity  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  This  opinion  supposes  him 
to  be  an  inferior,  subordinate,  and  dependent  God,  deprives  him  of  his  real 
divinity,  and  degrades  him  to  the  rank  of  a  creature.  It,  of  course,  destroys 


378  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

his  atonement,  and  leaves  the  perishing  sinner  without  help  or  hope.  By  the 
introduction  and  prevalence  of  this  heresy,  and  by  the  death  and  removal  of  a 
number  of  able  members  of  the  church  and  congregation,  the  ability  of  the 
society  to  support  the  gospel  is  materially  diminished. 

The  next  year  after  his  dismissal  from  the  active  duties  of  the 
ministry  in  West  Bloomfield,  that  is,  in  the  summer  of  1828,  and  in 
the  seventy-second  year  of  his  age,  in  company  with  his  wife,  he 
visited  New  England.  He  called  at  William  stown  and  Pittsfield, 
and  proceeded  as  far  east  as  Boston,  and  on  his  return  took  Canter- 
bury and  Norwich  and  New  Haven  in  his  way.  It  was  his  last  visit 
to  the  scenes  of  his  childhood,  and  of  his  principal  labors ;  and  is 
said  to  have  been  a  source  of  much  satisfaction  to  him  during  the 
remainder  of  his  days.  A  letter  written  by  H.  H.  Childs  of  Pitts- 
field  to  Calvin  Durfee  in  1843,  gives  the  recollections  of  the  former 
respecting  this  visit.  Childs  was  of  the  class  of  1802,  and  Durfee  of 
the  class  of  1825. 

BOSTON,  Feb.  11,  1843. 

JRev.  and  Dear  Sir :  It  gave  me  great  pleasure  to  learn  that  you  had  prepared 
for  publication  a  sketch  of  the  life  and  character  of  the  good  Dr.  Fitch,  —  the 
venerable  instructor  of  my  youth.  It  gave  me  a  melancholy  pleasure  to  meet 
him,  in  the  fall  of  1828,  at  that  advanced  period  of  life  when  of  necessity  the 
powers  of  body  and  mind  were  gradually  failing.  He  seemed,  however,  cheer- 
ful and  pleasant,  and  was  very  happy  in  meeting  some  of  his  former  pupils  and 
friends.  He  evidently  felt  that  he  had  nearly  finished  his  course  on  earth.  He 
exhibited,  however,  a  calm  resignation  to  the  will  of  his  heavenly  Father,  and 
expressed  a  confident  hope  of  a  glorious  immortality.  This  strong  hope  gave  an 
unusual  brightness  to  a  face  naturally  beaming  with  kindness  and  benignity.  I 
well  recollect  the  deep  impression,  which  his  visit  left  on  my  mind,  that  I  should 
see  his  face  no  more.  It  was  his  last  visit  to  Berkshire.  His  friends  were  all 
happy  to  see  him  again,  and  he  apparently  received  much  comfort  and  joy  in 
their  society.  Much  of  his  conversation  related  to  occurrences  of  bygone  days, 
the  mention  of  which  interested  and  animated  him  much.  As  a  token  of  the 
respect  which  we  entertained  for  our  venerable  President,  a  few  friends  in  Pitts- 
field  presented  him  with  some  mementoes  of  their  esteem,  which  he  kindly  and 
gratefully  received,  and  which  consisted  of  a  suit  of  clothes,  and  something  over 
a  hundred  dollars  in  money.  Permit  me  again  to  express  my  high  gratification 
that  you  have  prepared  for  the  press  a  work  which  will  perpetuate  the  memory 
of  a  great  and  good  man.  Please  accept  my  kindest  regards. 

With  much  respect,  Yours  truly 

H.  H.  CHILDS. 

A  couple  of  years  before  this  his  visit  to  the  eastward,  he  himself 
had  received  a  visit  at  Bloomfield,  the  record  of  which  is  an  honor 
to  human  nature,  and  perhaps  equally  creditable  under  all  the  cir- 
cumstances to  the  visitor  and  the  visited.  In  the  class  that  was 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       379 

graduated  at  Williams  College  in  1806,  was  a  nephew  of  Mrs.  Fitch, 
named  G.  H.  Backus.  He  was  poor  while  in  college,  and  most  of 
his  expenses  had  been  defrayed  by  his  uncle,  the  president,  who 
could  but  ill  afford  to  do  this  in  justice  to  his  creditors.  On  taking 
leave  of  Williamstown  at  Commencement,  the  young  man  assured 
his  uncle,  that,  if  ever  he  should  be  able  to  do  it,  he  would  remu- 
nerate him  for  his  kindness.  Backus  became  a  successful  lawyer  in 
Eichmond,  Virginia ;  and  twenty  years  after  his  graduation,  appeared 
at  Bloomfield  at  nightfall.  He  was  not  recognized  at  first,  but  soon 
gladdened  the  hearts  of  the  old  people  by  an  artfully  delayed  self- 
introduction.  After  tea  the  visitor  turned  the  conversation  on  the 
matter  of  their  present  indebtedness.  Evidences  of  this  in  the  form 
of  several  notes  of  hand,  and  a  memorandum  of  a  mortgage  on  the 
dwelling-house,  all  held  by  persons  in  the  immediate  vicinity,  were 
sorrowfully  produced,  and  allowed  to  lie  on  the  table  over  night. 
Eising  long  before  the  old  people,  the  lawyer  took  a  stroll  over  the 
little  village,  and  returned  to  breakfast  with  a  sprightliness  which 
was  an  old  characteristic,  and  which  brought  smiles  upon  features  to 
which  they  had  long  been  comparative  strangers.  Taking  from  his 
breast-pocket  the  papers  they  had  canvassed  the  evening  before,  he 
laid  them  before  his  uncle,  and  said  substantially,  "  There  is  every 
note  you  owe  paid,  every  debt  receipted,  and  the  mortgage  on  your 
house  cancelled  ;  in  the  bank  of  the  neighboring  town  I  shall  place 
$2000,  the  interest  of  which  you  shall  have  as  long  as  either  of  you 
lives,  when  it  shall  revert  to  me."  The  old  gentleman  recounted 
these  facts  to  Josiah  W.  Canning  of  the  class  of  1803,  who  was 
living  in  Williamstown  at  the  time  of  the  visit  but  just  now  referred 
to.  E.  W.  B.  Canning,  his  son,  of  the  class  of  1834,  passed  the 
anecdote  down  to  those  who  are  still  living. 

The  recollections  of  many  of  his  college  pupils  in  relation  to  Presi- 
dent Eitch  were  gathered  many  years  after  his  death  by  Calvin 
Durfee  and  others.  The  readers  of  the  present  pages  are  likely 
to  be  struck  by  the  kindly  and  even  reverential  tone  of  these 
recollections.  They  are  to  be  taken  of  course  with  those  grains 
of  reservation  that  belong  inherently  to  that  class  of  testimonies. 
What  is  seen  through  a  vista  reaching  back  to  one's  youth,  connect- 
ing with  classmates  and  companions  the  like  of  whom  were  never 
seen  by  others,  and  revealing  the  outline  of  elders  and  sages  wiser 
and  better  than  anything  the  present  can  show,  always  catches 
gleams  and  halos  and  crowns  of  softened  light.  Those  whose  duty 
it  is  to  make  just  estimates  and  comparisons  that  will  wear,  naturally 
yield  allowances  to  such  tendencies  as  these.  The  materials  are  ample 


380  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

for  a  sound  and  lasting  judgment  on  Ebenezer  Fitch.  His  intellec- 
tual abilities  were  only  moderate ;  his  enthusiasms  for  learning  were 
always  chastened ;  he  never  took  the  risks  for  righteousness  which 
strong,  good  men  ever  take ;  he  blazed  no  paths  for  future  progress 
either  in  education  or  religion;  he  looked  benevolently  and  even 
paternally  upon  the  young  men  of  his  day  seeking  an  education  in 
the  small  institution  over  which  he  presided,  but  he  was  able  to  give 
them  no  strong  and  lasting  impulses  along  their  chosen  course,  such 
as  the  born  teacher  always  imparts ;  and,  owing  to  his  own  lack  of 
vital  individuality,  he  could  neither  recognize '» nor  stimulate  the 
natural  bent  and  individual  traits  of  those  students,  who  are  always 
and  everywhere  the  best  worth  educating. 

But  lest  we  do  or  even  seem  to  do  the  slightest  injustice  by  these 
deliberate  judgments  to  the  memory  of  a  good  man  gone  to  his 
reward,  there  will  now  be  appended  two  or  three  testimonies  by 
different  pupils  under  very  diverse  circumstances  and  at  widely 
different  times.  Professor  Dewey,  who,  as  student  and  fellow- 
teacher,  was  intimately  associated  with  him  for  ten  or  eleven 
years,  and  who  exemplified  in  the  last  half  of  that  time,  what  has 
been  repeatedly  and  strikingly  exemplified  on  this  ground  since, 
that  a  professor  of  sound  mind  and  warm  heart  in  a  good  depart- 
ment adapted  to  him,  is  under  no  disadvantage  whatever  as  com- 
pared with  a  president  in  gaining  and  holding  intellectual  and  moral 
power  over  the  students,  gave  express  credit,  as  one  of  the  causes  of 
the  powerful  revival  of  religion  in  the  summer  term  of  1815,  to  the 
preaching  of  President  Fitch  in  the  weeks  just  preceding  his  leaving 
the  College,  which,  said  he,  "was  more  than  commonly  pungent." 
John  Nelson,  who  became  a  fellow-tutor  with  Dewey  in  1808,  wrote : 
"  I  shall  never  forget  the  first  interview  which  I  had  with  the  vener- 
able President  Fitch.  I  entered  college  young  and  inexperienced,  and 
with  an  overpowering  dread  of  so  high  a  dignitary  as  I  then  supposed 
the  president  of  a  college  must  be.  It  was  with  a  trembling  step 
that  I  entered  the  study  of  Dr.  Fitch  with  my  credentials  in  hand ; 
but  there  was  something  so  kind,  so  cordial,  so  fatherly  in  his  greet- 
ings, that  my  heart  went  forth  to  him  at  once  as  to  a  guardian  friend 
in  whom  I  could  safely  trust.  Nor  did  I  ever  find  anything  in  the 
spirit,  the  conduct,  or  the  bearing  of  my  venerated  president,  which 
weakened  or  in  any  way  effaced  those  early  impressions.  On  the 
contrary,  while  he  faithfully  maintained  the  discipline  of  college,  I 
ever  found  him  ready  to  extend  to  all  both  the  care  and  kindness  of 
an  affectionate  guardian  and  friend.  But  I  did  not  fully  appreciate 
the  domestic,  the  social,  and  the  Christian,  as  well  as  the  official  ex- 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       381 

cellences  of  Dr.  Fitch,  till  at  a  subsequent  period  I  became  more 
intimately  associated  with  him  as  a  member  of  the  College  faculty, 
and  a  boarder  in  his  family.  During  the  two  years  in  which  I  sus- 
tained these  relations  to  him,  I  was  more  and  more  impressed  with 
the  rare  excellences  which  composed  his  character.  His  attachment 
and  kindness  to  his  numerous  family  I  found  to  be  almost  unex- 
ampled. His  benevolence  to  the  poor  and  suffering  flowed  forth  in 
one  continued  stream.  His  hospitality  seemed  to  be  unbounded 
Christian  hospitality.  His  intercourse  with  his  friends  was  cheer- 
ful, free,  and  yet  characterized  by  an  all-pervading  spirit  of  piety. 
As  the  head  of  a  college,  Dr.  Fitch  was  diligent,  faithful,  and  efficient. 
As  an  instructor  he  was  clear,  safe,  and,  to  a  good  degree,  able.  As 
a  preacher  he  was  profitable  and  interesting,  and  sometimes  power- 
ful. Had  he  been  less  modest,  less  retiring,  less  at  home,  his  reputa- 
tion, no  doubt,  would  have  stood  much  higher." 

John  Woodbridge,  of  the  class  of  1804,  and  long  time  a  distin- 
guished minister  of  Hadley,  wrote  in  his  old  age  of  Dr.  Fitch  as 
follows :  —  "I  knew  him  only  as  the  presiding  officer  and  teacher, 
but  I  could  bear  witness  to  the  kindness  of  his  heart  when  I  was 
in  trouble.  For  his  counsel  and  encouragement,  given  in  my  early 
years,  I  owe  him  a  debt  of  gratitude.  If  he  had  any  fault  as  a 
teacher  and  disciplinarian,  it  was  the  excess  of  lenity,  more  than 
needless  severity.  He  was,  perhaps,  sometimes  too  irresolute  and 
wavering  for  the  full  maintenance  of  his  authority.  His  menace 
might  have  been  sometimes  more  terrible  than  the  execution.  He 
might  in  some  cases  have  entreated  when  a  command  was  necessary. 
He  might  occasionally  have  wept  when  he  ought  to  have  inflicted 
punishment.  This,  at  least,  was  said  by  some  not  very  friendly  to 
his  administration." 

In  the  summer  of  1864,  at  the  suggestion  of  some  of  the  relatives 
of  Dr.  Fitch,  and  through  the  instrumentality  of  his  biographer, 
Calvin  Durfee,  the  remains  of  the  first  president  were  brought  to 
Williamstown,  and  interred  in  the  College  cemetery  under  an  appro- 
priate monument  procured  by  subscriptions  of  some  of  the  alumni 
of  the  College.  There  was  a  pleasant  ceremony  on  this  occasion,  and 
Judge  H.  W.  Bishop  of  Lenox,  a  graduate  of  the  college  in  1817, 
whose  recollections  were  only  of  the  last  year  or  two  of  Fitch's  presi- 
dency, made  the  touching  address  that  follows,  with  the  presentation 
of  which  we  take  our  leave  of  the  first  president  of  Williams  College. 

In  the  little  box  around  which  we  are  standing  are  the  ashes  of  an  eminently 
good  and  useful  man.  They  are  all  that  remain  on  earth  of  him  who  first  gave 
form  and  vitality  to  the  institution  whose  buildings  crown  the  elevations  of  this 


382  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

valley,  and  from  which  so  many  have  gone  out  to  enlighten  and  elevate  mankind. 
Among  those  here,  I  am  told,  I  am  the  only  one  who  was  a  member  of  college 
during  his  presidency.  Of  his  own  and  the  succeeding  generation,  few  remain. 
There  are  impressions  made  upon  the  heart  which  time  cannot  efface.  The 
relics  before  us  bring  back  again,  in  full  force,  the  sentiments  of  reverence 
which  the  living  presence  inspired.  I  see  his  dignified  form  again,  his  grave 
and  benignant  features,  his  courteous  demeanor,  his  happy  smile,  and  feel  again 
the  veneration  which  the  lapse  of  half  a  century  has  not  extinguished.  In  Sep- 
tember, 1814,  I  entered  college.  Dr.  Fitch  left  it  in  September  of  the  year 
following.  I  knew  him  only  as  a  presiding  officer.  As  such,  he  made  the 
acquaintance  of  the  students  of  the  several  classes.  He  regarded  them  as  his 
children,  and  his  government  of  them  was  that  of  a  father.  He  was  coercive, 
reluctantly  and  judiciously  coercive,  when  persuasive  kindness  failed,  and  only 
then.  He  mingled  with  his  pupils  with  cheerful,  serene  familiarity.  His  man- 
ners were  those  which  high  attainments  give  to  a  good  heart  and  refined 
breeding. 

He  was  a  Christian  gentleman.  In  the  devotional  exercises  of  the  college  he 
was  impressively  earnest  and  solemn.  The  supremacy  and  authority  of  divine 
truths,  as  revealed,  were  earnestly  enforced.  No  one  who  heard  him  discourse 
upon  their  relative  importance  will  ever  forget  how  he  placed  them  high  above 
all  scientific  and  literary  attainments,  and  his  urgent  advocacy  for  their  diffusion 
throughout  the  world.  He  dwelt  with  peculiar  delight  upon  Christian  missions, 
the  good  they  had  wrought,  and  their  prospects.  Initiated  by  such  a  man,  it  is  no 
wonder  that  this  college  stands  preeminent  for  its  missionary  zeal,  — that  Mills, 
and  Hall,  and  James  Richards  should  have  become  what  they  were,  under  the 
inspiring  teachings  of  one  so  able  and  so  devoted  to  the  spread  of  the  gospel.' 
The  impress  which  he  made  in  this  respect  upon  the  college  still  lasts.  This  is 
most  obvious  to  those  who  knew  it  early  and  know  it  now.  May  the  mantle 
cast  upon  it  by  him  whose  bones  are  here,  cover  it  forever  ! 

I  have  always  regarded  Dr.  Fitch  as  the  real  founder  of  this  institution,  — 
that  had  he  not  been,  it  would  not  have  existed  as  it  now  does.  He  came  here 
early,  —  a  ripe  scholar,  apt,  and  eminently  qualified  to  teach.  He  was  thor- 
oughly equal  to  impart  all  that  an  education  then  thought  liberal  required. 
No  collegiate  institution  was  near ;  increasing  population  and  intelligence 
demanded  one.  He  was  qualified  to  supervise  and  control  it.  The  mate- 
rials for  its  inception  were  at  hand.  He  suggested  their  use,  and,  in  a  good 
measure,  directed  their  application.  May  he  not,  therefore,  be  permitted  to 
share,  without  impairing,  the  just  fame  of  him  whose  munificence  is  acknowl- 
edged by  the  name  with  which  the  institution  has  been  christened  ? 

I  retain  with  a  good  degree  of  distinctness  the  impression  which  his  preaching 
made  upon  my  mind,  and  the  characteristics  of  his  eloquence.  His  sermons 
were  no  academic  discourses,  polished  and  elaborate,  of  lofty  style  and  glowing 
imagery,  challenging  for  the  speaker  the  admiration  of  his  audience.  He  spoke 
for  truth's  sake,  not  for  his  own.  He  loved  the  truth  better  than  he  loved  himself. 
He  preached  it,  that  others  might  be  brought  to  love  it.  This  was  the  end  of 
his  preaching.  To  that  end  all  his  forces  were  directed.  His  sermons  were  full 
of  the  deep  sensibilities  of  his  own  pure  and  affectionate  nature,  made  active  by 
the  clear  conviction  of  the  truths  which  he  enforced.  He  seemed  impressed  with 
the  belief  that  his  audience  were  to  be  influenced  and  drawn  to  the  truth  through 


TOWN    AND    COLLEJE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       383 

the  affections,  —  that,  the  heart  once  touched,  the  reason  ceases  to  cavil,  and  the 
•will  becomes  submissive.  In  a  word,  his  was  the  eloquence  of  Christian  love, 
purifying  all  that  is  tender,  affectionate,  and  holy  in  the  heart. 

To  you,  sir,  whose  active  and  disinterested  devotion  to  the  college,  founded 
in  no  small  measure  by  the  good  and  learned  man  whose  name  and  deeds  we 
hope  to  perpetuate,  I  tender  my  cordial  thanks  and  congratulations.  You  have 
brought  from  a  distance,  to  be  buried  here  amidst  the  scenes  of  his  usefulness, 
all  that  is  material  which  is  left  of  him.  We  now  bury  "these  sacred  relics" 
at  the  foot  of  the  very  appropriate  monumental  marble  which  you  have  caused 
to  be  erected,  and  on  which  you  have  written  his  name  and  character.  This 
was  due  to  his  memory,  to  the  college  whose  first  president  he  was,  and  is 
worthy  of  one  enrolled  among  her  steadfast  and  devoted  sons. 

In  the  name  of  the  few  surviving  pupils  of  President  Fitch,  I  thank  you  for 
this  manifestation  of  your  appreciation  of  his  worth,  and  recognition  of  his  emi- 
nent services  in  the  cause  of  science,  humanity,  and  Christian  civilization. 

Two  sons  of  President  Fitch  were  graduated  at  the  institution, 
Mason  Cogswell  in  1815,  who  settled  as  a  lawyer  in  Virginia ;  and 
Charles  in  1818,  who  was  educated  in  theology  at  Princeton,  and 
became  an  obscure  minister  in  several  of  the  Western  States.  Be- 
fore his  graduation  he  contracted  an  engagement  of  marriage  with 
a  young  lady  in  Williamstown,  belonging  to  a  prosperous  and  promi- 
nent family,  whom  he  afterwards  deserted  in  a  manner  thought  by 
her  and  others  to  be  dishonorable.  Some  years  afterward  he  re- 
turned to  town,  and  earnestly  sought  an  interview  and  understand- 
ing with  the  lady  he  had  slighted,  who  refused  even  to  see  him. 
Tradition  has  it,  that  some  of  his  college  classmates  had  persuaded 
him  that  he  ought  to  marry  a  woman  with  a  handsome  property, 
who  could  afford  to  buy  him  a  fine  library  and  give  him  a  good 
send-off  into  the  ministry.  He  never  found  any  such  woman,  nor 
did  he  ever  gain  any  such  send-off.  The  lady,  however,  in  due 
time  found  an  excellent  husband,  who  brought  to  her  a  large  prop- 
erty and  a  good  name.  Their  son  became  an  alumnus  of  the  College 
in  1859. 

Mason  Cogswell  Fitch  had  a  son  named  William,  who  was 
educated  at  Princeton,  and  became  a  Presbyterian  clergyman  of 
repute  in  Louisville,  Kentucky,  and  died  young.  In  February, 
1896,  while  on  a  visit  at  Princeton,  the  present  writer  made  the 
acquaintance  of  a  Mrs.  Hale,  who  was  a  daughter  of  this  Kev. 
William  Fitch,  and  so  a  great-granddaughter  of  Ebenezer  Fitch. 
Mrs.  Hale  was  the  mistress  of  a  good  old-fashioned  farmhouse, 
situated  on  what  has  long  been  called  the  "Mercer  Road,"  and 
flanked  on  three  sides  by  a  large  and  level  and  fertile  farm,  on 
which,  not  very  far  from  the  house,  General  Hugh  Mercer  of  the 


384  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

Revolutionary  army  was  mortally  wounded  during  the  battle  of 
Princeton.  The  brave  Scotchman  fell  under  several  musket-ball 
wounds  and  particularly  a  bayonet-thrust  in  the  breast,  and  was 
left  on  the  field  for  dead.  Being  discovered  alive,  he  was  taken 
to  this  very  farmhouse,  in  wrhich  he  died  after  a  week  of  extreme 
sufferings.  Mrs.  Hale  showed  to  the  writer  the  well-authenticated 
blood-stains  upon  the  floor  of  the  room  into  which  he  was  brought 
from  the  field.  The  day  was  January  3,  1777.  Trained  to  the 
medical  profession  in  the  University  of  Aberdeen,  his  native  city, 
and  having  been  in  the  battle  of  Culloden  as  an  assistant  surgeon, 
and  himself  severely  wounded  as  a  captain  and  companion  of  Wash- 
ington in  Braddock's  battle  at  the  Monongahela,  he  knew  well  what 
battle-wounds  were,  and  pointing  to  his  breast,  he  said  to  his  aid-de- 
camp, Major  Lewis,  "This  is  what  will  kill  me  —  not  the  others.'' 
His  funeral  in  Philadelphia  is  said  to  have  been  attended  by  thirty 
thousand  people,  and  his  grave  at  Laurel  Hill  was  crowned  by  a 
monument  to  his  memory  in  1840. 

We  come  now  to  the  second  and  far  more  serious  crisis  in  the 
affairs  of  the  College  than  that  one  in  1808  and  following,  in  the 
course  of  which  the  College  was  transiently  stripped  of  all  its 
teachers,  save  one,  and  even  this  one  went  forward  thereafter  with 
lessened  and  constantly  lessening  influence.  At  the  meeting  of  the 
trustees  in  May,  1815,  the  same  meeting  at  which  they  accepted 
the  resignation  of  Dr.  Fitch  and  granted  him  a  liberal  gratuity,  this 
motion  was  introduced  and  carried,  namely,  "  That  a  committee  of 
six  persons  be  appointed  to  take  into  consideration  the  removal  of 
the  College  to  some  other  part  of  the  Commonwealth ;  to  make  all 
necessary  inquiries,  which  have  a  bearing  on  the  subject,  and  report 
at  the  next  meeting."  This  committee  consisted  of :  — 

THEOPHILUS  PACKARD  of  Shelburne 
THADDEUS  POMEROY     of  Stockbridge 
JOSEPH  LYMAN  of  Northampton 

SAMUEL  SHEPARD          of  Lenox 
DANIEL  NOBLE  of   Williamstown 

JOSEPH  WOODBRIDGE    of  Stockbridge. 

What  did  this  motion  and  committee-appointment  mean  ?  It 
meant,  that  an  opinion  had  been  springing  up  and  spreading  in 
various  quarters  mostly  east  of  the  Hoosac  Mountain  and  along  the 
Connecticut  River,  to  the  effect,  that  the  location  of  the  College  in 
Williamstown  was  unfortunate,  that  the  place  was  inaccessible,  that 
the  population  of  the  town  and  its  neighboring  territory  was  small 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       385 

and  unlikely  to  increase,  and  that  a  college  situated  in  the  central 
part  of  the  western  half  of  Massachusetts,  instead  of  one  in  its 
extreme  northwestern  corner,  away  from  the  centres  of  population 
and  influence,  and  separated  from  them  by  an  immense  mountain 
wall,  could  be  easily  established  and  prosperously  maintained,  espe- 
cially if  the  plant  already  set  in  Williamstown  could  be  transferred 
over  that  barrier  and  placed  as  a  nucleus  in  some  town  on  or  near 
the  Connecticut  Kiver,  accessible  from  a  large  and  homogeneous 
circle  of  populous  and  prosperous  towns.  Precisely  when  and 
wh^re  this  talk  began,  it  is  neither  possible  nor  helpful  to  find  out. 
It  is  certain  that  the  first  public  expression  of  it  was  had  in  the 
trustees'  meeting  at  Williamstown  in  May,  1815.  The  trustee  who 
made  the  motion  for  a  committee  of  inquiry,  and  who  became  there- 
after the  strongest  champion  for  the  removal,  was  Theophilus 
Packard  of  Shelburne.  Shelburne  is  east  of  the  Hoosacs.  He 
became  a  trustee  in  1810.  He  climbed  over  the  mountain  from 
the  upper  Deerfield  to  the  upper  Hoosac  twice  a  year  for  many 
years.  It  is  certain  that  the  gradually  developing  consequences 
of  the  unfortunate  occurrences  in  1808  stimulated,  even  if  they  did 
not  originate,  the  talk  for  removal.  It  is  certain  that  President 
Fitch  himself  came  to  believe  that  it  was  the  situation  of  the  College 
rather  than  his  own  loosening  hold  upon  it,  that  caused  in  good  part 
its  lessening  numbers  and  lowered  prestige.  Of  that,  of  course,  he 
was  not  a  good  judge ;  but  it  is  certain  that,  at  the  time  of  his  resig- 
nation, a  considerable  majority  of  the  trustees  had  come  to  share  in 
this  opinion,  and  that  some  of  them  held  it  more  firmly  than  he  did. 
The  practical  point  of  much  importance  to  a  correct  judgment  of 
the  bitter  controversies  that  came  afterwards  is,  that  at  the  outset 
nobody  from  abroad  solicited  Williams  College  to  move  itself  over 
the  mountain,  but  on  the  contrary  all  the  initiatories  were  taken 
and  maintained  here  by  and  among  the  highest  officials  of  the 
Institution. 

The  report  of  the  committee  of  six  trustees  was  given  in  at  the 
regular  September  meeting,  and  ran  as  follows:  "That  a  removal 
of  Williams  College  from  Williamstown  is  inexpedient  at  the  pres- 
ent time  and  under  existing  circumstances."  Such  a  report  settled 
nothing.  The  emphasis  is  obviously  on  the  qualifying  clauses, 
rather  than  on  the  main  proposition;  but  different  persons  under- 
stood the  report  in  quite  diverse  senses.  It  only  served  as  a  bone 
of  contention  and  a  spring  of  bitterness.  What  were  the  "  present 
circumstances"  under  which  it  was  deemed  "inexpedient"  to  re- 
move the  College  "at  the  present  time"?  The  main  circumstance 
2c 


386  WILLIAMSTOWN  AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

of  the  present  inexpediency  was  the  presence  in  William stown  for 
inauguration  of  a  new  president  of  the  College,  chosen  to  succeed 
Dr.  Fitch  !  And  who  was  he  ?  Under  what  circumstances  had  he 
been  elected  ?  And  with  what  understanding  and  conditions  had  he 
accepted  the  trust  ? 

The  2d  of  May,  1815,  was  indeed  a  fateful  day  in  the  history 
of  college  education  in  western  Massachusetts.  The  origins  of  Am- 
herst  College  were  as  much  enwrapped  in  that  meeting  of  the  trus- 
tees in  Williamstown,  as  were  the  destinies  of  the  older  College  for 
at  least  two  decades  to  come.  Three  apparently  distinct  actions  of 
the  board  upon  that  day  had  widespread  and  epoch-making  conse- 
quences, of  which  not  one  of  that  body  had  at  the  time  even  a  glim- 
mer. The  withdrawal  of  Dr.  Fitch  in  good  heart  under  their  liberal 
benefactions ;  the  raising  of  the  committee  of  six  out  of  their  own 
number  to  inquire  and  report  on  the  expediency  of  a  new  location 
of  the  College  to  the  eastward ;  and  the  conditional  election  of  two 
men  to  the  presidency,  raising  at  the  same  time  the  salary  from  the 
hitherto  uniform  $1000  to  $1400  a  year,  —  contributed  in  the  sequel 
to  make  that  meeting  the  most  memorable  one  in  the  century. 
Leonard  Woods  of  Andover  was  chosen  the  new  president,  in  case- 
he  would  accept,  and  Hyde  of  the  board  was  appointed  as  a  com- 
mittee to  notify  him;  and  Zephaniah  Swift  Moore,  then  of  Dart- 
mouth College,  was  contingently  chosen,  should  Woods  decline,  and 
Packard  of  the  board  was  in  that  case  to  notify  Moore.  Woods- 
declined,  and  Moore  accepted. 

We  must  take  the  measure  as  well  as  we  can  of  this  man  Moore, 
as  he  appeared  at  Williamstown  in  September,  to  be  graciously  in- 
ducted into  his  office  by  his  predecessor,  —  the  last  official  service 
of  the  latter  to  the  College.  The  predominant,  if  not  the  exclusive,, 
strain  of  blood  in  the  new  president  was  that  of  the  Scotch-Irish  in 
New  England.  On  a  still  extant  parchment  hanging  on  a  wall  in 
the  capitol  building  at  Concord,  there  are  315  names  subscribed 
to  a  memorial  sent  over  to  Governor  Shute  of  Massachusetts  in  the 
spring  of  1718  from  Londonderry  in  Ireland,  expressing  the  desire 
of  the  subscribers  and  of  others  to  emigrate  to  that  colony,  provided 
they  could  obtain  from  his  Excellency  suitable  encouragement. 
The  following  is  the  prologue  to  the  precious  list  of  names. 

To  His  Excellency  the  Right  Honourable  Collonel  Samuel  Suitte  Govenour  of 
New  England. 

We  whose  names  are  underwritten,  Inhabitants  of  ye  North  of  Ireland,  Doe 
in  our  own  names,  and  in  the  names  of  many  others  our  Neighbours,  Gentle- 
men, Ministers,  Farmers  and  Tradesmen  Commissionate  and  appoint  our  trusty 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE  TILL  THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       387 

and  well  beloved  Friend,  the  Reverend  Mr.  William  Boyd  of  Macasky,  to  His 
Excellency  the  Right  Honourable  Collonel  Samuel  Suitte  Govenour  of  New  Eng- 
land, and  to  assure  His  Excellency  of  our  sincere  and  hearty  Inclination  to 
Transport  ourselves  to  that  very  excellent  and  renowned  Plantation  upon  our 
obtaining  from  his  Excellency  suitable  encouragement.  And  further  to  act  and 
Doe  in  our  Names  as  his  Prudence  shall  direct.  Given  under  our  hands  this 
26th  day  of  March,  Annog.  Dom.  1718. 

Among  these  names  occur  the  four  following  in  the  following 
order,  but  each  widely  separated  from  the  rest  in  the  list  itself : 
John  Muar,  John  Moor,  Thomas  Moore,  and  James  Moore,  Jr. 
Besides  these  three  varieties  of  spelling  the  same  name,  another 
prevailed  after  the  immigration  among  some  of  these  families, 
namely  Mooar.  The  writer's  college  intimate  and  lifelong  friend, 
George  Mooar  of  the  Williams  class  of  1851,  who  spent  his  life  in 
California  as  a  preacher  and  theological  instructor,  was  out  of  one 
of  these  families  settled  in  Andover,  Massachusetts.  Zephaniah 
Swift  Moore,  the  second  president  of  Williams  College,  was  from 
another  of  these  Scotch-Irish  families.  This  fact  and  relationship, 
although  it  has  never  before  been  noted  of  him,  was  of  very  consid- 
erable significance  in  him  personally  and  in  his  whole  course  and 
career  in  life.  For  these  Scotch-Irish  people,  of  whom  he  was  and 
among  whom  he  lived,  possessed  certain  marked  peculiarities,  which 
distinguished  them  sharply  for  two  or  three  generations  and  more  or 
less  distinctly  till  the  present  time,  from  the  descendants  of  the 
Pilgrim  and  Puritan  English  throughout  New  England.  The  immi- 
grants of  1718  —  about  one  hundred  families  of  them  at  that  time  — 
landed  in  Boston  in  August,  and  about  one-third  of  them  went 
directly  to  Worcester  for  settlement ;  somewhat  less  than  one-third 
of  them  tarried  in  Boston  and  settled  in  the  towns  adjacent,  particu- 
larly in  Andover ;  and  something  more  than  one-third  of  them,  after 
a  winter  in  Maine  where  certain  straggling  families  chose  to  make 
their  permanent  home,  sailed  back  in  the  spring  and  up  the  Merri- 
mac  River  and  settled  a  large  tract  in  southern  New  Hampshire, 
which  they  named  Londonderry. 

These  people  were  almost  purely  Scotch  in  origin,  but  they  had 
lived  as  Protestant  settlers. for  several  generations  in  the  north  of 
Ireland,  and  acquired  in  their  isolated  and  peculiar  situation  certain 
traits  of  character,  which  distinguished  them  alike  from  their  Celtic 
neighbors  in  Ireland,  from  their  contemporaries  in  Scotland,  and 
from  the  English  people  generally  whether  at  home  or  in  colony. 
They  were  fond  of  thinking  and  saying,  that  they  combined  some  of 
the  best  traits  both  of  the  Scotch  and  the  Irish.  Two  features  made 


388  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

them  very  obnoxious  at  first  to  their  neighbors  in  New  England. 
They  were  at  least  called  Irish,  and  they  were  very  stiff  Presbyte- 
rians. The  frame  of  their  new  meeting-house  in  Worcester  was 
burned  down  in  the  night  by  a  mob  of  their  Christian  brethren  of 
the  Qld  South  Church.  They  were  indignant,  but  they  Avere  help- 
less. The  majority  of  them  before  long  packed  up  their  duds,  and 
migrated  elsewhere,  particularly  to  Pelham,  which  joins  Amherst. 
This  mutual  repugnance  between  the  old-timers  and  the  new-comers 
naturally  prevented  intermarriages  between  the  two,  so  long  as  it 
continued.  This  rather  served  to  emphasize  the  distinctive  traits  of 
each  party. 

On  the  score  of  general  intelligence  there  was  little  or  nothing  to 
choose  as  between  the  two.  Of  the  315  names  on  the  Shute  parch- 
ment all  but  thirteen  are  firm  autographs,  —  only  these  thirteen 
"  make  their  mark."  It  may  well  be  doubted  whether  a  like  pro- 
portion of  literacy  could  at  that  time  have  been  found  in  any  other 
community  of  common  people  on  the  British  Isles.  It  is  a  hard 
task  to  express  in  words  even  one's  own  conception  of  the  essential 
differences  between  these  large  bodies  of  Christians  as  they  gradu- 
ally became  interfused  rather  than  assimilated  with  each  other 
throughout  New  England.  The  writer  is  conscious  of  no  prejudices 
for  or  against  either  of  them.  On  the  paternal  side  he  is  straight 
from  London  citizens  and  Puritan  immigrants,  —  all  English ;  while 
on  the  maternal  side  there  is  no  straighter  Scotch-Irishman  living. 
So  far  as  he  knows,  no  writer  hitherto  has  ever  essayed  to  point  out 
categorically  the  differences  in  question.  He  thinks  he  cannot  be 
far  wrong  in  propounding,  that  the  Scotch-Irish  Presbyterians  had 
a  moral  advantage  over  their  neighbors  of  the  English  and  Puritan 
descent,  — 

1.  In  inquisitiveness  into  the  nature  of  men  and  things,  and  in 
quick  and  penetrating  intellectual  activity  in  general. 

2.  In   strength   of  personal   conviction  on   almost   all   subjects, 
and  a  persistency  of  purpose  through  thick  and  thin,  often  amount- 
ing to   obstinacy  in  common   things   and   to   bigotry   in   religious 
things. 

3.  In  a  sense  of  humor,  and  a  readiness  of  repartee,  which  is  a 
modern  Irish  trait  also,  and  which  these  people  possessed  in  such 
a  degree  and  breadth  as  marked  alike  the  social  meetings  of  their 
ministers  and  the  greetings  on  the  road  and  everywhere  of  their 
poorest  and  most  illiterate.    These  people  indeed  took  life  seriously, 
—  too  seriously,  —  but  they  enlivened  it  at  many  points,  as  scores 
of  well-attested  anecdotes  display. 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL  THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       389 

On  the  other  hand,  the  more  purely  English  portion  of  the  popu- 
lation contrasted  very  favorably  with  the  other,  — 

1.  In  personal  habits  and  general  customs  of  cleanliness,  and  in 
all  the  amenities  of  social  life. 

2.  In  the  knack  of  acquiring  and  maintaining  property,  and  in 
the  somewhat  corresponding  knack  of  gaining  and  holding  political 
influence  as  well  in  the  Colonies  as  in  the  later  States.     The  Scotch- 
Irish  hated  privileges  granted  by  law  to  favored  classes.     Hence 
they  were  Anti-Federalists  and  later  Democrats  almost  to  a  man. 
The  English  conscience  in  New  England  did  not  scruple  to  wrest 
justice  by  law  from  dissentients  in  behalf  of  the  church  and  from 
the  many  in  behalf  of  the  privileged  few. 

3.  In  the  point  of  discerning  the  best  locations  for  permanent 
settlement,  and  then  remaining  stationary,  and  thus  gaining  the 
prestige  that  comes  with  time  and  a  local  ancestry.     The  Scotch- 
Irish  families  migrated  a  good  deal  from  place  to  place.     Individu- 
als and  single  families  scattered  sooner  or  later  into  almost  every 
town  in  northern  New  England.     Their  chief  mass   remained  in 
southern  New  Hampshire.     In  Massachusetts,  Andover  and  Bland- 
ford  and  Colerain  and  Pelham  and  Worcester  continued  to  be  pretty 
distinctively  Scotch-Irish  towns. 

Lieutenant  Judah  Moore  was  the  father  of  Zephaniah  Swift 
Moore.  He  lived  at  the  time  of  his  son's  birth,  namely,  1770,  in 
Palmer,  another  of  the  Massachusetts  towns  owing  its  origin  wholly, 
like  Blandford  and  Colerain,  to  Scotch-Irish  families.  As  early  as 
1730  these  people  established  a  church  in  Palmer,  which  of  course 
took  on  a  Presbyterian  form,  and  almost  of  course  (considering  a 
minor  characteristic  of  the  people)  became  a  centre  of  small  but 
persistent  quarrels  —  tempests  in  a  teapot.  There  is  much  curious 
reading  in  the  early  records  of  this  church,  which  does  not  now 
particularly  concern  us,  but  we  will  give  a  single  entry  as  a  sort  of 
sample. 

At  a  meeting  of  ye  Inhabitants  of  this  District,  Legally  Convened  and  assem- 
bled at  ye  Public  Meeting  House  in  said  place,  ye  Meeting  being  opened,  Andrew 
Rutherford  was  chosen  Moderator.  On  the  third  article  in  ye  warrant  for  said 
Meeting,  voted  that  Mr.  Kniblows  be  allowed  four  pounds,  Sixteen  Shillings, 
which  is  eight  Shillings,  Lawful  money,  for  each  Sermon  he  Preached  on  Sab- 
bath Days,  in  this  District,  Except  three  Sermons  which  we  can  prove  he  preached 
other  men's  works. 

In  the  years  preceding  the  outbreak  of  the  Kevolution,  when  it 
is  certain  that  Judah  Moore  was  a  settled  resident  of  the  place,  the 
people  of  Palmer  felt  their  spirit  in  common  with  the  other  settle- 


390  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

ments  of  the  Colony,  and  voted,  "that  this  district  will  by  all 
prudent  means  endeavor  to  discountenance  the  use  of  foreign  super- 
fluities, and  to  encourage  the  manufactures  of  the  whole  continent 
in  general,  and  of  this  province  in  particular."  The  second  article 
in  the  warrant  for  a  public  meeting  to  be  held  in  the  "  public  meet- 
ing-house," June  17,  1776,  reads  as  follows:  —  "To  advise  and 
instruct  the  representative  of  this  town,  whether,  should  the  honor- 
able Congress,  for  the  safety  of  the  Colonies  declare  them  indepen- 
dent of  Great  Britain,  they,  the  said  inhabitants,  will  engage  with 
their  lives  and  fortunes  to  support  them  in  the  measures,  agreeable 
to  and  in  compliance  with  the  resolve  of  the  General  Court." 
Palmer  furnished  its  proportion  of  the  men  and  means  for  the  war, 
and  performed  its  part  toward  securing  that  independence  for 
which  it  made  so  prompt  and  early  a  declaration.  If  there  were 
any  Tories  among  the  Scotch-Irish  in  New  England  during  the  war, 
they  have  left  little  or  no  trace  of  themselves  as  such.  John  Stark, 
who  was  the  most  distinguished  man  of  that  race  in  that  generation, 
had  no  difficulty  in  enlisting  a  regiment  consisting  mostly  of  these 
people  in  southern  New  Hampshire,  and  under  the  sole  authority 
of  that  State,  for  the  national  battle  of  Bennington. 

There  is  no  evidence  or  probability  that  "Leftenant"  Judah 
Moore  was  in  the  battle  of  Bennington;  where  his  Eevolutionary 
service  in  connection  with  other  Palmer  men  was  rendered,  we  do 
not  know ;  but  the  proof  is  positive  that  he  migrated  the  next  year 
with  his  family  to  Wilmington,  Vermont,  and  made  a  permanent 
settlement  there.  Wilmington  is  seventeen  miles  to  the  east  of 
Bennington.  Some  of  the  New  Hampshire  soldiers  passed  through 
it  on  their  way  thither,  and  liked  its  position  at  the  junction  of  the 
two  head  streams  of  the  Deerfield  Eiver,  and  later  returned  to  it  to 
settle  and  abide.  It  is  more  than  probable  that  some  other  Scotch- 
Irish  families  from  Palmer  moved  to  Wilmington  with  the  Moores, 
and  that  the  family  of  Colonel  Thomson  was  one  of  these.  Colonel 
Thomson  at  any  rate  was  an  intimate  adviser  of  the  father  in  Wil- 
mington, and  long  afterward  an  earnest  coadjutor  of  the  son  in 
Amherst.  This  son  was  in  his  eighth  year  when  the  father  migrated 
to  Vermont  in  1778.  In  those  rough  times  and  in  that  new  town, 
his  opportunities  for  schooling  were  meagre  indeed.  He  worked 
hard  on  the  farm  for  ten  years,  at  the  same  time  exhibiting  from  his 
early  childhood  an  uncommon  inquisitiveness  of  mind  and  a  great 
thirst  for  knowledge.  He  availed  himself  with  eagerness  of  every 
opportunity,  whether  at  home  or  at  the  district  schools.  When  in  or 
nearing  his  eighteenth  year,  he  besought  his  parents  if  he  might  not 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL    THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.        391 

go  to  college.  Judah  and  Mary  Moore,  always  much  esteemed  for 
their  intelligence  and  integrity  and  piety,  could  not  see  how  it  would 
be  possible  for  them  to  send  their  boy  to  college.  In  their  resources 
they  were  but  common  farmers.  The  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  though  framed,  had  not  yet  gone  into  operation.  Political 
matters  in  Vermont  were  at  that  time  strangely  mixed  and  unsettled. 
The  future  could  not  be  discerned. 

In  his  own  perplexity  and  in  his  son's  eagerness,  Judah  Moore 
consulted  his  old  friend  Colonel  Thomson.  "Let  him  go  if  he 
wants  to,  you  will  get  along  without  it  and  find  no  trouble."  About 
five  years  later  Thomson  met  the  father  on  his  way  to  Hanover  to 
see  his  son  graduated,  and  said  to  him,  —  «  Well,  how  do  you  come 
out  ?  as  well  as  I  said  you  would  ?  "  Keplied  the  other,  "  Oh  !  when 
I  have  sold  my  old  oxen,  I  guess  I  shall  be  able  to  pay  all  the  bills !  " 
The  self-denials  and  sacrifices  of  parents  and  child,  accompanying 
and  conditioning  the  education  of  the  latter,  helped  to  prepare  him 
in  an  essential  point  to  become  the  president  of  two  collegiate  insti- 
tutions, in  which  most  of  the  students  were  to  be  poor. 

In  the  meantime,  if  Z.  S.  M.  were  to  go  to  college,  he  must  first 
go  somewhere  to  acquire  the  rudiments  of  Latin  and  Greek.  For- 
tunately for  him  and  for  a  few  others  in  the  region  of  southern  Ver- 
mont, there  had  been  incorporated  in  Bennington  as  early  as  1780  an 
academic  school,  called  "  Clio  Hall,"  not  destined  to  a  long  life,  and 
affording  but  slim  facilities  for  preparation  for  college.  In  1817, 
the  "  Union  Academy "  was  incorporated  in  Bennington,  that  had 
for  about  forty  years  a  useful  and  honorable  career.  Such  as  it  was, 
Clio  Hall  furnished  to  young  Moore  for  a  short  time  some  instruction 
in  his  preparatory  studies.  The  neighborly  relations  between  Ben- 
nington and  Williamstown  were  at  that  time  much  more  intimate 
than  at  present;  and  Moore  while  there  must  have  heard  a  good 
deal  about  what  was  then  going  on  here.  About  the  time  he  left 
his  home  for  Dartmouth  College  in  the  early  part  of  1789,  the  foun- 
dations for  the  Free  School  and  a  part  of  the  superstructure  also 
were  laid,  and  several  attempts  had  been  made  and  abandoned  to 
penetrate  the  limestone  ledge  for  a  well  of  water.  Just  about  the 
time  when  he  returned  to  Hanover  for  the  beginning  of  his  Sopho- 
more year,  the  Free  School  was  opened  for  pupils,  and  many  Ver- 
mont boys  immediately  availed  themselves  of  its  opportunities. 
When  Moore  was  graduated  in  1793  at  Dartmouth,  Williams  was 
already  incorporated  as  a  college.  Whatever  he  may  then  have 
known  of  what  was  going  on  here,  it  is  unlikely  that  he  ever  sur- 
mised what  a  great  and  honorable  part  he  himself  was  to  play  on 


392  W1LLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

this  ground.  His  class  at  Dartmouth,  were  graduated  thirty-nine  in 
number.  Only  three  of  these  names  are  printed  in  the  Triennial  in 
small  capitals,  the  token  of  unusual  distinction,  namely ;  Samuel 
Bell,  Governor  and  United  States  Senator  of  New  Hampshire,  Z.  S. 
Moore,  a  professor  in  one  college,  president  in  another,  and  founder 
of  a  third,  and  Erastus  Boot,  Lieutenant-Governor  of  New  York  and 
Chief  Justice  of  its  Court  of  Appeals.  Several  of  Moore's  class- 
mates were  Scotch-Irishmen  like  himself,  particularly  Samuel  Bell 
and  Asa  McFarland.  As  was  natural  under  the  circumstances,  im- 
mediately after  his  graduation  Moore  took  for  one  year  the  academy 
at  Londonderry,  then  the  great  hive  of  his  race.  As  he  felt  in  him 
the  impulse  to  teach,  so  he  felt  in  him  the  impulse  to  preach.  The 
two  are  at  bottom  one,  and  in  the  case  of  any  individual  who  feels 
both  impulses  in  their  strength,  it  depends  on  providential  circum- 
stances which  shall  predominate  in  practice.  Moore  then  went  for 
two  years  to  Somers,  Connecticut,  to  the  Rev.  Dr.  Backus  to  learn  the 
art  of  preaching.  Some  knowledge  of  Hebrew  was  then  supposed  to 
be  necessary  in  order  to  proclaim  acceptably  the  Gospel  in  English. 
It  is  possible  that  Moore  had  studied  Hebrew  somewhat  in  Hanover ; 
at  any  rate  he  studied  it  in  Somers ;  and,  after  having  been  settled 
in  the  ministry  for  eleven  years  in  Leicester,  during  all  of  which 
time  he  was  a  trustee  and  part  of  the  time  principal  of  Leicester 
Academy,  he  was  called  back  to  Dartmouth  as  Professor  of  the  Latin, 
Greek,  and  Hebrew  languages.  This  was  in  1811. 

It  is  plain  to  any  one  tracing  his  career  with  care,  that  Moore 
could  never  have  become  the  man  he  was  in  the  later  and  more 
important  exigencies  of  his  life,  had  he  not  had  abundant  experience 
as  a  preacher  and  pastor.  The  teacher  in  him  was  destined  to  out- 
strip at  length  the  preacher  and  pastor;  but  he  had  native  and 
acquired  gifts  for  these  also,  which  all  the  better  fitted  him  to  per- 
form the  gigantic  tasks  of  his  later  life.  No  sooner  was  he  licensed 
to  preach  in  1796,  than  he  began  to  exhibit  in  the  pulpit  those  rare 
analytical  and  expositive  and  hortatory  powers  that  were  so  much 
prized  in  the  New  England  of  his  time.  He  had  a  strong  and  strik- 
ing face,  as  any  one  can  see  in  the  steel-plate  impression  of  him  in 
Tyler's  "History  of  Amherst  College,"  page  seventy-three.  He  is 
said  to  have  had  very  little  action  in  the  pulpit ;  and  yet  there  was 
an  impressiveness  in  his  manner  that  fixed  and  held  the  attention  of 
his  hearers.  His  voice,  though  not  loud,  was  clear  and  pleasant, 
and  in  animated  conversation  and  in  the  pulpit  pitched  upon  the 
tenor  key.  In  the  more  hortatory  portions  of  his  discourse,  his 
utterance  became  more  rapid,  and  the  sound  of  his  voice  shrill  and 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       393 

tremulous,  showing  that  he  felt  deeply  the  force  of  the  sentiments 
he  uttered. 

In  person  he  was  somewhat  above  the  middling  height,  and  came 
earlier  than  most  men  to  his  maximum  weight,  some  240  pounds, 
which  he  kept  through  life,  and  yet  never  appeared  to  be  specially 
corpulent.  His  firm  and  closely  knit  frame  and  muscle  gave  him 
nothing  of  the  air  of  obesity.  He  always  wore  what  is  called  the 
"  continental  costume,"  that  is,  breeches  and  long  hose,  which  were 
particularly  becoming  to  his  person,  and  which  the  clerical  profes- 
sion retained  the  use  of  longer  than  gentlemen  generally.  He  was 
uniformly  extremely  neat  in  his  dress.  He  was  fond  of  music  and 
an  agreeable  singer.  His  sense  of  humor  in  others,  and  the  ability 
to  exemplify  it  himself  on  occasion  and  in  a  quiet  way,  made 
him  an  agreeable  companion,  even  with  children,  of  whom  he  had 
none  of  his  own,  with  students,  and  with  the  gravest  of  men  in 
council. 

After  being  licensed  to  preach,  Moore  occupied  several  pulpits 
with  rare  acceptance,  particularly  those  in  Tolland,  Connecticut,  and 
Peterborough,  New  Hampshire,  and  declined  several  nattering  calls 
to  settle.  Peterborough  was  a  Scotch-Irish  town,  and  his  relations 
to  those  people  continued  intimate.  His  first  publication  was  a 
Thanksgiving  sermon  preached  there  in  1796.  Providence  had  not 
yet  thrown  in  his  way  a  life  companion  and  helpmate,  and  it  was 
not  the  fashion  in  those  days  for  ministers  to  settle  until  that  con- 
junction had  been  consummated.  He  used  humorously  to  relate 
how  the  whole  future  course  of  his  life  hinged  on  an  apparent  acci- 
dent which  was  at  the  time  grievously  disappointing  to  him.  He 
was  visiting  in  Sutton  (near  Worcester)  his  sister,  the  wife  of  Rev. 
Mr.  Mills,  and  was  detained  there  several  days  beyond  the  intended 
period  of  his  visit  by  the  accidental  lameness  of  his  horse.  While 
chafing  under  the  delay,  a  Miss  Phebe  Drury  from  Auburn,  which 
joins  Worcester  on  the  south,  a  friend  of  his  sister's  family,  came  to 
make  them  a  little  visit.  Somehow  he  was  able  to  while  away  the 
time  better  while  his  horse  was  getting  well.  In  some  connection 
with  this,  the  horse  having  recovered,  he  was  able  not  long  after  to 
ride  to  Auburn  for  a  little  visit.  These  peregrinations  became 
known  to  the  people  of  Leicester,  which  joins  Worcester  on  the 
west,  and  as  they  were  then  without  a  pastor,  they  applied  to  him 
to  supply  their  pulpit,  which  led  to  his  settlement  over  that  parish 
in  January,  1798,  taking  with  him  Miss  Drury,  already  become  Mrs. 
Moore. 

It  so  happened,  that  Ebenezer  Adams,  Dartmouth  College  1791, 


394  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

two  years  before  Moore,  was  then  teaching  the  academy  in  Leicester, 
which  he  continued  till  1806.  The  two  men  renewed  old  acquaint- 
ance and  now  became  fast  friends.  The  pastor  became  deeply  inter- 
ested in  the  academy,  in  which  he  taught  more  or  less  from  time  to 
time  in  conjunction  with  his  preaching ;  and  the  teacher  both  per- 
ceived and  drew  out  under  the  clerical  habit  of  the  other  his  strong 
pedagogical  impulses  and  powers.  Adams  went  back  to  Hanover  in 
1809  as  Professor  of  Languages.  Two  years  later  he  was  trans- 
ferred to  the  chair  of  mathematics  and  natural  philosophy ;  and  he 
had  influence  enough  over  the  trustees  to  secure  the  election  of 
Moore  to  his  own  vacated  place,  and  over  Moore  to  secure  his  accept- 
ance of  the  same.  So  it  was  that  Moore  went  to  Dartmouth  after  a 
successful  pastorate  of  almost  thirteen  years.  The  elements  were 
so  mixed  in  him  as  in  almost  no  other  man,  that  one  could  scarcely 
say  whether  he  were  superior  as  preacher  or  teacher.  The  late 
Governor  Emory  Washburn,  a  native  of  Leicester  in  1800,  who  fitted 
for  college  at  the  academy  there,  who  entered  Dartmouth  in  1813, 
because  both  Adams  and  Moore  were  professors  there,  and  who  came 
to  Williams  in  1815,  because  Moore  came  here  then  as  president, 
gives  competent  and  delightful  testimony  at  once  to  the  pastor  of 
his  childhood  and  to  the  college  president  of  his  choice. 

My  acquaintance  with  him  commenced  with  my  earliest  childhood  and  con- 
tinued to  the  time  of  his  death,  — a  period  of  some  twenty  years.  A  portion  of 
that  time  was  spent  in  his  family,  and  the  kindness  which  he  always  manifested 
towards  me,  warrants  me  in  saying  that  I  knew  him  well.  At  the  commence- 
ment of  this  period,  he  was  pastor  of  the  church  in  Leicester,  and  I  am  scarcely 
able  to  say  of  which  I  now  retain  the  liveliest  remembrance,  the  kindly  greeting 
and  pleasant  smile  with  which  he  recognized  me  in  the  street,  his  cheerful  and 
entertaining  conversation  to  which  I  listened  in  his  visits  at  my  mother's  house, 
the  plain,  simple  and  hopeful  manner  in  which  he  used  to  address  us  children  in 
his  visits  to  the  Schools,  or  his  solemn  and  impressive  services  on  the  Sabbath. 
The  effect  produced  upon  my  young  mind  by  the  latter  could  not  have  been  the 
result  merely  of  his  grave  dignified  manner,  the  pleasant  musical  voice,  or  the 
unaffected,  earnest  style  of  his  delivery,  though  in  all  these  respects  he  had  few 
superiors.  His  sermons  were  always  full  of  thought,  simply  and  neatly  ex- 
pressed, with  that  clearness  of  arrangement  which  commanded  the  attention  and 
impressed  the  memory  of  even  young  and  uncultivated  minds.  The  impressions 
of  childhood  were  but  strengthened  upon  a  more  familiar  acquaintance  with  him 
in  after  life,  especially  as  an  officer  of  college.  He  was  a  man  of  the  most  sys- 
tematic and  untiring  industry.  Every  duty  had  its  place  and  was  sure  of  being 
performed  at  its  appropriate  time. 

His  manners  were  quiet  and  dignified,  and  always  self-possessed.  He  was 
never  boisterous,  even  when  most  deeply  excited  or  when  administering  the 
sharpest  rebuke  in  the  way  of  college  discipline  or  personal  censure.  Yet  with 
all  this  forbearance  of  manner,  no  man  ever  possessed  a  firmer  spirit  or  a  more 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       395 

uncompromising  resolution  of  purpose  in  whatever  concerned  a  matter  of  right. 
He  was  calm  and  deliberate  in  forming  his  judgment ;  but  when  formed,  he  acted 
up  to  it,  in  everything  involving  principle,  regardless  of  personal  consequences. 
His  qualities  as  a  college  officer  were  of  a  very  high  order.  That  suavity  that 
attracted  the  love,  was  mingled  with  a  consistent  dignity  which  commanded  the 
respect,  of  his  pupils ;  while  a  remarkably  quick  perception  of  the  personal  traits 
of  character  in  others,  enabled  him  to  adapt  his  deportment  to  whatever  emer- 
gencies might  arise.  Incidents  might  be  referred  to  of  his  ready  power  in 
quelling  the  excited  passions  that  sometimes  disturb  college  life,  as  well  as  in 
subduing  refractory  spirits  on  occasions  where  individual  discipline  had  become 
necessary. 

His  favorite  branch  of  instruction  was  metaphysics,  and  he  was  especially 
familiar  with  the  writers  of  the  Scotch  school  upon  that  subject.  But  whatever 
subject  he  taught,  he  made  himself  accurately  and  critically  acquainted  with  all 
its  details  and  leading  text-books.  Dr.  Moore  was  a  delightful  companion  in  his 
own  family.  He  was  uniformly  cheerful,  kind,  and  observant  to  all.  Though 
he  had  no  children  of  his  own,  he  made  his  house  a  pleasant  resort  for  friends  of 
any  age.  And  I  should  be  doing  injustice  to  her  who  shared  and  promoted  the 
attractions  of  his  home,  if  I  should  omit  to  recognize  the  harmony  and  confidence 
which  always  subsisted  between  the  heads  of  that  family.  He  had  a  pleasant 
countenance,  a  mild,  penetrating  eye,  with  rather  heavy  eyebrows,  a  finely 
formed  head  without  any  particularly  marked  developments,  a  mouth  with  that 
compact  outline  that  denotes  energy,  and  a  smile,  that,  while  it  relaxed  this  into 
playfulness,  lighted  up  his  eye  into  an  expression  of  mirth,  though  he  never  in- 
dulged in  boisterous  merriment. 

Emerson  Davis,  who  was  graduated  in  1821  under  President  Moore, 
and  who  became  in  1833  a  trustee  of  the  College,  holding  that  place 
with  unusual  fidelity  to  its  duties  till  his  death  in  1866,  who  was  the 
fifth  and  last  vice-president  of  the  College,  and  who  spent  his  entire 
graduate  life  (except  a  brief  tutorship  here)  in  Westfield  as  either  a 
teacher  or  pastor,  communicated  in  1849  his  recollections  of  Dr. 
Moore  as  follows :  — 

You  have  requested  me  to  give  you  my  impressions  and  recollections  of  Presi- 
dent Moore.  They  are  all  exceedingly  pleasant ;  and  yet  I  must  say  he  was  a 
man  of  such  equanimity  of  temper  and  uniformity  of  life,  that  I  am  unable  to 
single  out  one  act  or  saying  of  his  that  produced  a  deeper  impression  than 
others. 

My  first  introduction  to  him  was  in  the  spring  of  1818,  when  I  was  ushered 
into  his  study  with  a  letter  of,  recommendation  for  admission  to  Williams 
College.  It  was  to  me  a  fearful  moment ;  but  the  cordial  manner  in  which  I 
was  received,  and  his  kind  inquiries  after  his  friend  who  had  furnished  me  with 
a  letter,  made  me  at  once  easy  in  his  presence.  I  found  that  he  had  the  heart 
of  a  man  ;  and  through  an  acquaintance  of  several  years  to  the  time  of  his  death, 
he  manifested  the  same  kindness  and  cordiality  that  he  did  the  first  time  I  saw 
him.  He  was  a  man  of  medium  stature,  rather  corpulent,  his  complexion  sallow, 
the  top  of  his  head  nearly  bald,  there  being  a  slight  sprinkling  of  hair  between 


396  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

the  forehead  and  crown.  His  voice,  though  not  loud,  was  clear  and  pleasant,  and 
in  animated  conversation  and  in  the  pulpit,  pitched  upon  the  tenor  key.  He  was 
dignified  in  his  appearance,  serious  in  his  aspect,  instructive  and  agreeable  in 
his  conversation,  kind  and  benevolent  in  his  feelings,  modest  and  unassuming  in 
his  manners,  deliberate  and  cautious  in  coming  to  a  conclusion,  but  firm  and 
determined  when  his  position  was  taken.  If  a  student  had  at  any  time  spoken 
against  him,  he  would  have  been  regarded  as  a  rebel  against  law  and  order.  In 
managing  cases  of  discipline  he  was  calm  and  entirely  self-possessed.  When  he 
felt  constrained  to  reprove  students,  either  in  the  recitation  room  or  chapel,  he 
usually  prefaced  his  remarks  by  addressing  them  as,  "Young  gentlemen"; 
probably  that  they  might  the  more  readily  perceive  the  impropriety  of  their 
conduct. 

In  preaching,  he  had  very  little  action  ;  and  yet  there  was  an  impressiveness 
in  his  manner  that  fixed  the  attention  of  his  hearers.  In  the  more  animated 
parts  of  his  discourse,  his  utterance  became  more  rapid,  and  the  sound  of  his 
voice  shrill  and  tremulous,  showing  that  he  felt  deeply  the  force  of  the  senti- 
ments he  uttered.  In  his  religious  views,  I  know  not  that  he  differed  from  the 
great  mass  of  the  orthodox  clergy  of  New  England  of  his  day. 

Probably  enough  has  now  been  said,  and  enough  been  directly 
quoted  from  his  contemporaries  who  knew  him  personally,  to  give 
the  reader  a  distinct  and  correct  idea  of  the  man  and  president; 
but  there  is  yet  another  letter  at  hand,  which  will  now  be  quoted 
entire,  fully  as  much  for  the  sake  of  the  light  that  it  throws  upon 
the  memory  of  the  writer  of  it,  as  for  the  sake  of  any  additional 
gleams  coming  therefrom  to  illuminate  the  subject  of  it.  Ebenezer 
Emmons,  a  graduate  of  the  College  in  1818,  and  very  intimately 
connected  with  it  in  one  way  and  another  thereafter  until  his  death 
in  1863  in  North  Carolina,  who  was  one  year  a  student  under  Presi- 
dent Fitch  and  three  years  under  President  Moore,  wrote  a  letter 
in  1855  in  response  to  a  request  for  his  recollections  of  the  latter, 
which  presents  in  an  interesting  way  several  phases  of  the  College 
and  of  individuals  connected  with  it  while  he  was  a  student.  The 
letter  runs  as  follows :  — 

MY  DEAR  SIR  :  Instead  of  attempting  anything  like  an  outline  of  Dr.  Moore's 
character,  which  you  can  easily  obtain  from  other  sources,  I  take  the  liberty  to 
comply  with  your  request  by  stating  an  incident  in  his  administration  of  the 
College,  of  which  I  was  a  witness,  and  which  strikingly  illlustrated  some  of  his 
most  prominent  characteristics. 

The  incident  to  which  I  refer,  occurred  in  1816,  just  after  Dr.  Moore  entered 
upon  his  duties  as  President  of  Williams  College.  It  was  not  only  a  new  field 
to  him,  but  there  were  some  circumstances  that  rendered  his  entrance  upon  it 
peculiarly  embarrassing.  His  predecessor,  Dr.  Fitch,  though  in  many  respects 
an  admirable  man,  did  not  always  evince  the  highest  degree  of  firmness ;  and 
hence,  it  had  been  common  for  the  students,  when  his  decisions  were  not  in 
accordance  with  their  wishes,  to  make  an  effort,  and  generally  not  an  unsuc- 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       397 

cessful  one,  to  procure  their  reversal.  Dr.  Moore  came  to  the  College  when 
the  three  higher  classes  had  been  the  subjects  of  this  kind  of  training.  In  order 
to  give  governmental  efficiency  to  the  institution,  he  was  instrumental  in  effect- 
ing a  revision  of  its  laws,  and  in  introducing  certain  new  regulations,  which 
were  designed  to  secure  a  more  thorough  and  effective  discipline.  The  new 
regulations  took  effect  with  the  Sophomore  class,  of  which  I  was  a  member. 
The  class  numbered  twenty-one,  among  whom  were  several  who  have  since 
attained  to  high  distinction  in  the  different  walks  of  public  usefulness.  They 
felt  as  Sophomore  classes  are  very  apt  to  feel,  a  sufficiently  deep  sense  of  their 
own  importance  ;  and  this  was  probably  somewhat  increased  from  the  fact  that 
the  College  was  really  in  a  tottering  condition,  and  one  in  which  it  did  not  seem 
safe  to  enforce  very  stringent  regulations. 

A  copy  of  the  new  code  of  laws  was  given  to  each  pupil  on  his  entrance  into 
college,  and  soon  afterwards  he  was  summoned  into  the  president's  study,  and 
questioned  in  the  following  manner:  "  Have  you  read  the  laws  of  the  College  ?" 
"  Do  you  approve  of  them  ?  "  "  Will  you  obey  them?"  Of  course  an  affirma- 
tive answer  was  returned.  But  to  fix  the  matter  more  securely,  he  was  then 
required  to  affix  his  name  to  his  answer  in  a  book  prepared  for  that  purpose. 
Two-thirds  of  the  members  of  the  class  had  passed  through  this  ordeal,  attest- 
ing their  allegiance  to  the  College  government ;  but,  in  the  meantime,  this  new 
regulation  began  to  be  talked  about  as  an  oppressive  measure,  especially  in  its 
application  to  the  Sophomore  class.  The  feeling  that  it  was  derogatory  to  their 
dignity  began  to  run  high,  and,  under  the  excitement,  a  class-meeting  was  called 
to  decide  upon  the  measures  to  be  adopted  to  remedy  the  supposed  oppression 
under  which  the  class  labored,  and  especially  to  vindicate  its  honor  before  the 
other  classes.  At  this  meeting  speeches  were  made,  which,  in  point  of  spirit 
were  worthy  of  the  times  of  '76.  It  was  resolved  to  visit  the  president  in  a 
body,  making  a  committee  of  twenty-one,  with  Selah  Root  Arms  (now  a  highly 
respectable  clergyman),  for  our  chairman  and  chief  speaker.  The  president 
received  us  politely,  and  almost  immediately  gave  the  chairman  an  opportunity 
to  state  the  business  of  the  committee.  u  Young  gentlemen,"  said  he,  "what 
are  your  wishes  ?  You  must  surely  have  some  business  of  great  importance  to 
transact  with  me."  "We  have  come,  sir,"  replied  the  chairman,  "for  the 
purpose  of  getting  our  names  expunged  from  that  book,"  stepping  forward  at 
the  same  time  a  little  in  front  of  the  row,  and  placing  his  feet  squarely  upon 
the  floor.  "Oh,  indeed,"  said  the  president,  "I  am  sorry  for  that;  but  you 
are  no  doubt  willing  to  obey  the  laws  of  College."  "  Certainly,  sir,"  said  he  ; 
"but  then  our  names  are  upon  that  book."  "If  that  is  all,"  answered  the 
president,  "you  may  be  sure,  that  it  will  never  hurt  you."  "But,"  replied 
the  chairman,  "we  do  not  see  why  the  Sophomore  class  should  be  singled  out 
in  this  manner."  "That,"  said  the  president,  "is  of  little  consequence, — 
you  know  we  must  begin  somewhere ;  and  you  are  only  required  to  obey  the 
laws  of  College,  which  you  say  you  intend  to  do,  and  which  all  are  required 
to  do."  "  But,"  said  the  chairman,  " our  names  are  upon  that  book,"  — point- 
ing to  the  very  book  on  the  table  before  the  president,  —  "and  it  looks  badly 
that  we  should  be  singled  out  in  this  way,  when  the  Junior  and  Senior  classes 
are  allowed  an  exemption  from  the  rule."  "I  repeat,"  says  the  president, 
"we  must,  as  you  well  know,  begin  somewhere,  and  all  the  succeeding  classes 
will  be  required  to  conform  to  the  rule,  so  that  your  names  will  not  stand  alone 


398  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

upon  that  book."  Suffice  it  to  say,  it  was  evident  that  no  progress  could  be 
made,  and  the  Doctor's  manner  carried  more  weight  even  than  his  words.  It 
seemed  to  be  tacitly  admitted  that  our  case  was  a  hopeless  one  ;  and  besides 
we  had  become  quite  cooled  off  in  his  presence.  But  our  spokesman  made 
another  rally,  coming  directly  to  the  point,  —  "Must  we  understand  then  that 
our  names  shall  remain  upon  that  book?"  "  Certainly,"  said  the  Doctor, — 
his  benignant  face  becoming  momentarily  suffused  with  a  deeper  tint.  We  left 
his  presence  as  quickly  as  possible,  satisfied  that  no  impression  could  be  made 
upon  his  firmness  ;  and  his  polite  reception  and  gentle  bearing  had  quite  dis- 
armed us  of  all  personal  hostility. 

Dr.  Moore  was  consistent  in  his  measures  for  the  government  of  the  College, 
and  this  first  occasion  for  the  exercise  of  his  firmness  and  moderation  had  its 
influence  throughout  the  classes,  and  I  do  not  know  that  he  was  afterwards 
called  upon  to  exercise  those  admirable  qualities  in  a  similar  manner. 

Here  is  a  capital  touch  on  the  disciplinary  power  of  the  second 
president  by  a  competent  eye-witness,  and  one  also  who  had  had  the 
great  advantage  of  being  able  to  compare  him  in  this  respect  with 
the  first.  This  graphic  testimony  is  in  harmony  with  all  that  can  be 
learned  from  other  sources  about  the  two  men  at  this  point.  From 
all  the  accessible  evidence  combined  and  compared,  it  is  certain  that 
Moore  was  the  most  successful  disciplinarian  among  all  the  presi- 
dents of  Williams  during  the  first  century  of  the  College  ;  and  this 
proof  is  confirmed  by  the  little  that  can  be  learned  of  Moore  in 
this  regard  by  his  very  brief  presidency  at  Amherst.  He  was  well 
adapted  to  be  a  college  president  in  New  England  at  that  time.  His 
coming  here  was  beset  with  difficulties  of  formidable  proportions. 
No  year  of  his  stay  was  free  from  their  thickening  shadow.  After 
six  years  of  assiduous  labor  to  save  the  College  from  extinction,  he 
went  to  Amherst  in  obedience  to  a  call  from  thence,  and  in  exact 
accordance  with  the  terms  of  the  understanding  under  which  he 
came  here  in  the  first  instance.  Fifteen  of  the  students  went  with 
him.  The  local  opposition  to  his  going  at  all,  the  strenuous  efforts 
made  to  keep  him,  is  irrefragable  proof  that  he  had  done  what  he 
could,  and  that  he  had  done  a  great  deal. 

In  the  meantime,  his  reputation  as  a  teacher  and  preacher  was  ex- 
tending all  over  the  State.  In  1818  he  was  invited  to  preach  the 
Election  Sermon  in  Boston.  This  was  a  great  honor  in  those  times. 
It  was  a  summons  from  the  General  Court  to  give  them  instruction 
and  edification.  And  it  was  not  possible  for  them  to  go  farther  for 
their  preacher  within  the  limits  of  the  state.  William  stown  was 
just  upon  the  uttermost  bounds.  A  then  almost  impassable  moun- 
tain intervened  between  Williamstown  and  Boston.  How  did  the 
preacher  get  there,  and  get  back  again?  A  lively  tradition  in  the 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       399 

Smedley  family  makes  possible  an  answer  to  this  question  after  a 
wide  interval  of  years.  Levi  Smedley,  a  prosperous  farmer  on  the 
Green  River,  who  has  already  been  mentioned  in  a  previous  chapter, 
as  driving,  when  a  boy,  a  wagon  of  provisions  to  his  father,  Captain 
Nehemiah  Smedley,  the  next  day  after  the  battle  of  Bennington, 
was  the  first  citizen  of  Williamstown  to  provide  for  himself  and 
family  a  two-horse  vehicle,  then  called  a  "  swell-body  hack " ;  and 
the  president  invited  the  deacon  to  drive  him  to  Boston  and  back  in 
the  new  carriage,  and  to  be  his  guest  and  companion  while  there. 
The  deacon  lived  until  1849 ;  and  used  to  be  fond  of  relating  to  his 
family  incidents  of  the  agreeable  journey,  and  topics  of  the  agreeable 
conversation  of  the  president,  something  of  the  novelties  of  the  city, 
and  something  also  of  the  formalities  and  impressiveness  of  the 
Election  Sermon.  This  sermon  was  printed  by  order  of  the  General 
Court.  All  the  people  of  the  town,  and  the  friends  of  the  little 
struggling  College,  were  proud  of  the  compliment  thus  paid  to  their 
popular  president. 

The  aggregate  number  of  students  graduated  in  the  six  classes 
under  Dr.  Moore  was  ninety-two,  and  the  average  fifteen.  The 
average  of  the  first  three  years  was  fourteen,  and  of  the  last  three, 
sixteen.  This  indicates  no  great  growth  on  the  whole.  There 
would,  undoubtedly,  have  been  a  much  greater  growth,  had  the 
minds  of  the  trustees  and  of  the  public  been  settled  that  the  College 
was  to  remain  in  Williamstown.  That  question,  however,  not  only 
continued  an  open  one,  but  also  seemed  to  open  more  and  more 
towards  the  east.  Moore's  inaugural  discourse  in  1815  was  not  pub- 
lished, as  it  ought  to  have  been,  but  it  has  been  credibly  described  as 
an  able  and  finished  production,  and  as  credibly  asserted  (and  never 
denied)  to  have  contained  an  expression  of  his  views  in  favor  of  the 
removal  of  the  College.  His  position  was  unequivocal  from  start  to 
finish.  His  heart  was  over  the  mountain  among  his  kinsmen  on 
Taoth  sides  of  the  Connecticut,  his  judgment  was  fixed  that  the 
College  could  not  flourish  in  this  narrow  valley,  and  his  expressions 
never  wavered  in  regard  to  its  removal. 

At  the  Commencement  in  1818,  just  as  the  Board  of  Trustees  were 
about  to  adjourn,  one  of  their  own  number,  Packard  of  Shelburne, 
acting  as  an  agent  for  Amherst  Academy,  presented  a  petition  re- 
questing the  board  to  unite  the  College  with  a  proposed  institution 
to  be  located  in  the  town  of  Amherst.  Dr.  Moore  declared  himself 
to  be  favorable  to  such  a  project.  But  the  trustees  were  not  ready. 
They  made  answer  to  the  petition  by  this  vote,  "That  the  trustees 
of  Amherst  Academy  have  leave  to  withdraw  the  communication 


400  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

which  they  have  submitted  to  this  Board."  As  soon  as  this  vote  was 
passed,  Packard  predicted  to  his  fellow-members  that  the  board 
would  be  summoned  to  attend  an  extra  meeting  in  less  than  three 
months ;  which  happened,  as  he  said ;  and  when  convened  in  Novem- 
ber, the  president  immediately  submitted  to  them  a  proposition  for 
the  removal  of  the  College,  connected  with  the  expression  of  his 
purpose  to  resign  the  office  of  president  unless  the  proposition 
should  be  sustained.  He  stated  at  length  that,  at  the  time  he 
accepted  the  presidency,  he  had  no  idea  that  the  College  was  to 
remain  at  Williamstown,  but  had  all  the  while  supposed  it  was  to 
be  removed  to  some  place  in  Hampshire  County.  His  statements 
and  his  manner  of  stating  them  had  doubtless  much  influence  on 
the  action  of  the  trustees,  expressed  by  the  following  vote,  nine  out 
of  twelve  voting  in  the  affirmative,  —  Jones  of  Adams,  and  Noble  of 
Williamstown,  and  Glezen  of  Stockbridge,  alone  voting  nay. 

Resolved,  That  it  is  expedient  to  remove  Williams  College  to  some  more 
central  part  of  the  State,  whenever  sufficient  funds  can  be  obtained  to  defray 
the  necessary  expenses  incurred,  and  the  losses  sustained  by  removal,  and  to 
secure  the  prosperity  of  the  College,  and  when  a  fair  prospect  shall  be  presented 
of  obtaining  for  the  institution  the  united  support  and  patronage  of  the  friends 
of  literature  and  religion  in  the  western  part  of  the  Commonwealth,  and  when 
the  General  Court  shall  give  their  assent  to  the  measure. 

At  the  same  meeting,  "  in  order  to  guide  the  Trustees  in  determin- 
ing to  which  place  the  college  shall  be  removed,  and  to  produce 
harmony  and  union,"  a  committee  consisting  of  Chancellor  James 
Kent  of  New  York,  Judge  Nathaniel  Smith  of  Connecticut,  and  the 
E-ev.  Seth  Payson  of  New  Hampshire,  was  appointed  and  requested 
"  to  visit  the  towns  in  Hampshire  County,  and  determine  the  place 
to  which  the  college  shall  be  removed ;  the  Trustees  pledging  them- 
selves to  abide  by  their  decision,  provided  the  requisite  sum  be 
raised."  The  board  then  adjourned  to  meet  at  Pittsfield  the  next 
May,  at  which  time  and  place  this  distinguished  committee  reported 
that  the  proper  place  to  remove  to  was  Northampton.  The  board 
itself  at  the  same  time  prepared  an  address  to  the  public,  which  was 
printed  and  extensively  circulated,  setting  forth  the  reasons  for  the 
intended  removal,  and  requesting  donations  to  increase  the  funds  and 
to  promote  generally  the  prosperity  of  the  College  at  its  new  location, 
namely,  at  Northampton.  The  gist  of  this  address  of  reasons  is  in 
the  following  paragraph :  — 

That,  since  its  establishment  in  1793,  other  colleges  have  sprung  up  about  it, 
and  had  almost  wholly  withdrawn  the  patronage  it  had  formerly  received  from 
the  North  and  West.  That,  owing  to  the  want  of  support,  its  funds  have  become 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       401 

so  reduced  that  the  income  falls  short  of  the  expenditures,  and  the  trustees,  for 
this  reason,  are  unable  to  maintain  the  institution  in  its  present  state,  and  enable 
it  to  compete  with  other  colleges.  These  circumstances  have  induced  the  Trustees, 
after  mature  reflection  and  deliberation,  to  think  a  removal  of  the  college  to  a 
situation  more  central  and  more  easy  of  access  necessary  to  its  support  and 
continuance  in  usefulness. 

It  was  now  the  springtime  of  1819.  The  ball  was  opened.  It  is 
needful  to  notice  that  all  action  hitherto  had  been  the  action  of  the 
Board  of  Trustees  upon  this  ground.  They  had  taken  the  initiative 
in  May,  1815.  They  had  followed  it  up  from  time  to  time  as  their 
records  show.  There  was  in  existence  no  party  of  the  other  part. 
Just  four  years  later  they  took  of  their  own  motion  the  strong  action 
now  described.  They  issued  a  public  address,  announcing  their  deter- 
mination, on  certain  specified  conditions,  to  remove  the  College  to  the 
eastward,  to  the  end  of  its  own  upbuilding.  Their  motives  were 
pure,  their  opinions  were  strong,  and  all  their  actions  open  and  above 
board.  It  was  in  the  discussion  and  agitation  that  followed  for  two 
full  years,  in  which  everybody  in  the  two  counties  became  intensely 
interested,  that  parties  were  formed,  ill  blood  engendered,  crimi- 
nations and  recriminations  passed,  and  at  last  the  impression  pro- 
duced, not  even  yet  absolutely  dissipated,  that,  somehow  or  other, 
Hampshire  had  stolen  a  march  on  Berkshire,  had  purloined  some- 
thing, had  gotten  by  indirection  something  that  belonged  to  the 
other.  Under  this  impression  the  really  spotless  memory  of  Presi- 
dent Moore  has  been  shadowed.  In  behalf  of  his  own  freedom  from 
any  such  prejudice,  the  present  writer  can  appeal  to  his  direct 
agency  many  years  ago  in  helping  to  affix  the  designation  "Mt 
Moore"  to  the  peak  next  south  of  Greylock,  as  the  name  "Mt. 
Fitch  "  had  been  previously  affixed  by  the  Hopkins  Alpine  Club  to 
the  peak  next  north  of  Greylock,  in  the  same  gigantic  line.1 

Every  vehicle  of  expression  was  employed,  —  published  letters, 
printed  pamphlets,  newspaper  editorials,  and  oral  speech  without 
end,  —  as  the  discussion  waxed  warm  on  both  sides.  In  August, 
1819,  a  large  convention  of  Hampshire  people  was  held  in  North- 
ampton to  take  measures  to  effect  the  removal  of  the  College  to 
Hampshire.  Dr.  Moore  presided  over  this  meeting,  and  resolutions 
were  adopted  in  favor  of  the  removal,  and  committees  appointed  to 
solicit  subscriptions  for  that  purpose.  In  October  following,  a  large 
convention  of  Berkshire  gentlemen  was  held  in  Pittsfield,  over  which 
William  Walker,  then  and  for  twenty-five  years  Judge  of  Probate 
for  Berkshire,  presided,  for  the  purpose  of  expressing  the  views  and 
1  See  Origins  in  Williamstown,  p.  31. 

2D 


402  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

feelings  of  the  county  in  opposition  to  the  removal.  Resolutions  to 
this  effect,  and  an  address  to  the  public,  were  reported  and  adopted. 
The  core  of  the  resolutions,  and  also  of  the  address,  are  herewith 
literally  transcribed. 

It  is  the  opinion  of  this  meeting  that  nothing  is  necessary  to  preserve  for  Wil- 
liams College,  in  its  present  location,  the  character  of  a  highly  respectable  and 
useful  institution,  but  the  cordial  cooperation  of  the  friends  of  literature,  science, 
and  religion,  in  the  western  section  of  the  State. 

If  the  removal  of  the  College  should  result  in  some  peculiar  losses,  —  if  some 
widows  and  men  of  wealth  were  to  suffer  by  it,  —  these  losses  might  be  endured ; 
but  we  know  not  what  would  restore  to  the  community  that  confidence  that 
sweetens  life  and  binds  society  together  ;  nor  where  would  be  found  that  balm 
which  would  heal  the  wounds  which  this  measure  would  inflict. 

A  month  later,  that  is  to  say,  in  November,  1819,  a  meeting  of  the 
trustees  in  Williamstown  passed  two  votes,  both  of  which  had  far- 
reaching  consequences,  that  could  not  have  been  at  all  divined  at  the 
time.  The  first  of  these  votes  made  a  proposition  to  the  trustees 
of  Amherst  Academy,  started  in  1815  and  incorporated  in  1816,  re- 
questing them  to  unite  their  charitable  funds  with  those  of  the  Col- 
lege, in  case  it  were  removed  to  Northampton.  This  proposition 
received  a  prompt  rejection,  unless  the  transferred  location  were, 
changed  to  Amherst.  It  was  no  longer,  accordingly,  a  question 
merely  as  between  Berkshire  and  Hampshire,  —  it  had  already  be- 
come a  sort  of  triangular  question  with  Williamstown  at  the  apex 
and  Amherst  and  Northampton  at  either  end  of  the  base  line.  Nor 
was  it  then,  nor  did  it  ever  afterward  become,  a  simply  local  ques- 
tion. The  founders  and  sustainers  of  Amherst  Academy,  the  same 
class  of  men  and  largely  the  same  men  as  the  founders  and  sustain- 
ers of  Amherst  College,  were  not  altogether  the  same  sort  of  men  in 
race,  in  religion,  in  persistency,  as  the  men  who  founded  and  sus- 
tained the  Free  School  and  the  College  in  Williamstown,  or  the  men 
in  Northampton  and  elsewhere  in  Hampshire  County,  who  would 
have  gathered  to  the  support  of  the  College,  had  it  actually  become 
established  in  Northampton.  In  Professor  Tyler's  excellent  history 
of  Amherst  College,  published  in  1873,  there  are  a  number  of  expres- 
sions that  would  be  mysterious  enough,  were  it  not  for  the  present 
explanation,  of  which,  perhaps,  he  was  not  then  fully  possessed. 
For  example,  this  sentence  on  page  34,  relating  to  the  charter  of  the 
Academy,  —  "having  been  delayed  by  opposition  in  Amherst,  and 
in  the  neighboring  towns,  of  the  same  kind  and  partly  from  the  very 
same  sources  as  that  which  the  college  encountered  in  later  years." 
Why  should  the  charter  of  Amherst  Academy  have  encountered 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL    THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       403 

opposition  in  Amherst  in  1815  ?  or  "  in  the  neighboring  towns "  ? 
And  why  should  this  have  been  of  the  same  kind  and  from  the  same 
sources  as  that  encountered  by  the  college  ?  This  must  have  been, 
and  was,  something  more  permanent  and  powerful  in  human  nature 
than  questions  of  mere  locality  ever  become.  Take  another  example 
from  the  text  on  page  71,  and  particularly  from  the  note  to  the  pas- 
sage :  "  President  Moore  and  Professor  Estabrooke,  having  publicly 
signified  their  acceptance  and  their  assent  to  the  Confession  of  Faith 
which  had  been  prepared  for  the  occasion,  were  then  solemnly  in- 
ducted into  their  respective  offices."  "  Of  this  Confession  of  Faith 
I  find  no  record,  except  that  it  was  reported  to  the  trustees  by  a 
committee  appointed  for  the  purpose  immediately  previous  to  the 
inauguration.  The  committee  consisted  of  Z.  S.  Moore,  Thomas 
Snell,  and  Daniel  A.  Clark."  Why  should  there  have  been  a  special 
Confession  of  Faith  "  prepared  for  the  occasion  "  ?  Why  was  it  not 
published  at  the  time  ?  And  why  is  there  "  no  record  "  or  trace  of 
it  to  be  found  at  the  present  time  ?  Good  answers  are  at  hand  to  all 
these  questions,  and  they  will  be  given  incidentally  a  little  farther 
on.  The  only  point  to  be  specially  noted  here  is,  that  the  trustees 
of  Amherst  Academy  in  1819,  three  years  after  their  incorporation, 
had  sufficient  self-respect  and  esprit  de  corps  to  dictate  terms  both  to 
their  neighbors  in  Northampton  and  to  their  possible  coadjutors  in 
William  stown. 

The  second,  and  even  more  important,  vote  passed  by  the  Williams 
trustees  at  the  same  time  with  the  other,  was,  that,  "  It  is  expedient 
to  petition  the  Legislature  for  permission  to  remove  Williams  College 
to  Northampton."  And  a  committee  was  chosen  to  present  the  peti- 
tion to  the  Legislature.  This  place  for  the  removal  had  been  agreed 
upon  by  their  own  Kent  commission ;  and  they  had  promised  before- 
hand to  abide  by  the  decision.  Moreover,  fifty  thousand  dollars  had 
been  subscribed  in  a  short  time  by  the  people  of  Hampshire  and 
adjoining  counties,  to  defray  the  expenses  which  would  be  incurred 
and  the  losses  sustained  by  the  removal.  This  fact  went  along  with 
the  petition  to  Boston.  This  petition  and  the  accompanying  docu- 
ments were  presented  to  both  branches  of  the  Legislature  on  Jan. 
17,  1820,  and  referred  to  a  joint  committee  of  both  Houses.  The 
same  day  and  to  the  same  joint  committee  was  presented  and  re- 
ferred the  remonstrance  of  the  town  of  Williamstown  against  the 
removal  of  the  College.  This  remonstrance  was  drawn  up  by 
Charles  A.  Dewey,  a  native  of  Williamstown,  a  graduate  of  the 
College  in  1811,  a  citizen  and  lawyer  of  the  town  till  1826,  a  trustee 
of  the  College  from  1824  to  1866,  and  a  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court 


404  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

of  the  State  from  1837  till  his  death  in  1866.  The  remonstrance 
was  passed  upon  and  unanimously  voted  for  at  a  legal  meeting 
of  the  inhabitants  of  William  stown,  holden  Dec.  27,  1819;  this 
action  attested  and  vouched  for  "as  expressive  of  the  feelings  of 
the  inhabitants  of  this  town,"  by  STEPHEN  HOSFORD,  Town  Clerk. 
A  subscription,  amounting  to  $17,500,  raised  upon  their  own  respon- 
sibility by  the  inhabitants  of  the  town  and  county,  in  terms  to  be 
paid  in  the  course  of  ten  years  to  the  College  funds  in  case  of  non- 
removal,  was  laid  before  the  Legislature  at  the  same  time  with  the 
remonstrance,  and  taken  into  consideration  by  the  joint  committee, 
to  which  the  whole  matter  and  all  papers  relating  to  it  were  referred. 
As  the  petition  itself  had  gone  to  the  General  Court  as  the  action 
of  the  Board  of  Trustees  by  a  vote  of  nine  to  three,  the  minority 
thought  it  proper  to  send  a  memorandum  to  Boston,  giving  the 
grounds  of  their  dissent  from  the  action  of  the  majority.  This 
memorandum  was  drawn  up  by  Daniel  Noble,  and  signed  by  him, 
by  Israel  Jones,  and  Levi  Glezen,  the  three  minority  trustees. 
Daniel  Noble  was  also  a  native  of  William  stown,  an  own  cousin 
of  Charles  A.  Dewey,  a  graduate  of  the  College  in  1796,  the  first 
alumnus  of  the  College  placed  upon  its  Board  of  Trustees,  in  1809, 
and  continued  as  such  till  his  death  in  1830,  a  citizen  and  lawyer 
of  the  town,  and  treasurer  of  the  College  from  1814  till  1830.  In 
sending  this  memorandum  to  Glezen  for  signature,  Noble  wrote  to 
him  a  letter,  which  is  worthy  to  be  preserved  and  perpetuated. 

WILLIAMSTOWN,  Jan.  7,  1820. 
MY  DEAR  SIR  : 

I  find  the  public  are  expecting  a  Memorial  from  the  minority  of  the  Corpora- 
tion, in  the  case  of  the  petition  to  remove  Williams  College.  I  should  have  been 
much  gratified  to  have  had  this  written  by  yourself ;  but  not  being  able  to  see 
you,  I  have  availed  myself  of  a  few  hours1  leisure,  amidst  my  almost  unceasing 
calls,  to  place  on  paper  a  few  of  my  thoughts  in  the  shape  of  a  Memorial  to  the 
Legislature.  I  have  been  less  particular  than  I  should  have  been  had  we  not 
had  a  very  full  memorial  from  this  town,  in  which  the  subjects  are  discussed  in 
detail ;  and  this  town  memorial  is  to  be  printed.  I  wish  you  to  examine  the 
memorial  which  I  send  you,  and  put  your  own  name  .to  it.  You  will  please 
leave  room  for  Esquire  Jones's  name,  yours  second,  and  mine  third  and  last. 

We  feel  in  tolerably  good  spirits  as  to  the  College  question.  We  mean  fairly 
and  honorably  to  discharge  our  duty,  and  be  prepared  for  any  result.  There 
has,  on  the  whole,  been  a  noble  spirit  of  liberality  manifested  on  the  occasion. 
Whatever  shall  be  the  issue,  I  trust  we  shall  retain  a  high  sense  of  gratitude  to 
our  friends,  in  various  directions,  for  the  part  they  have  taken  upon  this  in- 
teresting occasion. 

I  am  very  respectfully  yours, 

DANIEL  NOBLE. 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       405 

All  these  formal  documents,  together  with  accompanying  papers, 
and  particularly,  as  it  would  seem  from  their  report,  a  sketch  of 
the  early  history  of  the  College  written  for  the  Massachusetts  His- 
torical Society  by  President  Fitch  in  1802,  were  put  into  the  hands 
of  the  joint  committee,  consisting  of  four  able  members  of  the  House 
and  three  of  the  Senate,  on  the  17th  of  January.  On  the  1st  of 
February,  their  report  was  rendered  to  the  two  branches  of  the 
Legislature.  The  Senate  approved  the  report  on  Feb.  8,  by  a 
vote  of  31  to  5 ;  and  the  House  concurred  on  Feb.  14,  by  a  vote 
of  120  to  25.  This  was  quick  work,  even  for  those  working 
times.  That  it  was  good  and  thorough  work,  any  one  may  satisfy 
himself  by  reading  the  report,  which  is  much  too  long  for  insertion 
here,  since  it  would  occupy  some  fourteen  or  fifteen  of  these  pages. 

The  two  questions  to  which  the  committee  addressed  themselves, 
and  both  of  which  they  fully  discussed,  although  it  would  seem  as 
if  the  first  were  more  fit  for  a  judicial  than  a  legislative  body,  were : 
first,  Is  it  legal  to  remove  the  College  ?  and,  second,  Is  it  expedient 
to  remove  the  College?  The  celebrated  Dartmouth  College  case, 
involving  essentially  the  same  point  as  that  involved  in  the  first 
question,  had  been  adjudicated  in  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  just  one  year  before,  Chief  Justice  Marshall  voicing  the  deci- 
sion of  that  court  in  February,  1819,  and  sustaining  Daniel  Webster's 
novel  and  always  much-questioned  plea;  namely,  that  a  gift  to  a 
charitable  institution  of  learning  is  a  "contract,"  in  the  sense  of 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  between  donor  and  trustees. 
To  impair  the  obligation  of  a  contract  by  any  law  of  any  State  is 
forbidden  by  the  national  Constitution.  That  this  construction  and 
judgment  influenced  the  minds  of  the  committee  is  plain,  although 
they  make  no  verbal  reference  to  it,  because  they  say :  — 

The  committee  have  supposed  it  to  be  their  duty  to  notice  that  Woodbridge 
Little  of  Pittsfield,  and  some  persons  in  Williamstown,  and  some  in  Vermont, 
and  some  in  the  State  of  New  York,  have  made  donations  to  Williams  College  ; 
and  the  committee  suppose  that  they  ought  not  to  disregard  the  presumption  that 
the  location  of  this  seminary  constituted  some  part  of  the  motive  to  this  bounty, 
and  the  committee  cannot  but  doubt  the  justice  of  removing,  and  consequently 
the  power  to  remove  this  seminary  to  any  place  not  contemplated  by  such  donors, 
to  be  the  site  of  the  future  use  of  their  charities.  The  committee  have  expressed 
this  opinion  on  the  law  with  the  most  unaffected  diffidence.  But  they  have 
thought  it  their  duty  to  express  some  opinion  hereon,  because  the  two  Houses 
must  judge  of,  and  decide  upon,  the  legal  principles  which  arise  on  this  petition, 
since  this  is  not  a  case,  as  the  committee  believe,  in  which  the  opinion  of  the 
Supreme  Judicial  Court  may  be  required.  The  [Massachusetts]  Constitution 
authorizes  the  aid  of  such  opinions,  only  in  cases  where  no  private  rights  are 


406  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

involved.  It  is  apparent  that  this  subject  relates  to  parties  who  may,  hereafter, 
possibly  become  suitors  in  that  court,  and  whose  rights  cannot  be  judged  of 
until  they  are  first  heard. 

The  sailing  of  the  committee  on  the  second  question,  namely,  the 
expediency  of  the  proposed  removal,  was  on  smoother  and  securer 
seas.  If  the  question  had  been  at  the  beginning,  whether  Williams- 
town  or  Northampton  were  the  better  place,  in  which  to  found  a  new 
college,  the  opinions  even  then  of  well-informed  and  honest  men 
might  fairly  enough  have  differed;  notwithstanding  the  general 
concession  of  the  advantages  of  Northampton,  in  point  of  its  central 
position  on  the  Connecticut,  the  denser  population  in  and  around  it, 
superior  facilities  of  access,  and  the  attractions  and  stimulus  of 
larger  numbers  of  educated  men ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  it  might 
well  have  been  urged,  that  a  relative  seclusion  is  favorable  to  literary 
proficiency,  and  to  purity  of  morals,  and  that  an  education  at  a 
smaller  expenditure  of  money  was  more  likely  to  be  attainable  at 
Williamstown.  But  the  present  question  is  much  distinct  from  that. 
Par  other  elements  enter  in  than  a  mere  Then  and  Now. 

The  committee  are  of  opinion,  that  so  important  a  measure  as  the  removal  of 
Williams  College  ought  not  to  take  place  without  a  reasonable  and  unembarrassed 
conviction,  that  some  great  benefit  will  result  therefrom  not  attainable  in  the 
present  location.  The  committee  are  by  no  means  satisfied  that  mere  location 
determines  the  degree  of  estimation  and  respect  in  which  any  literary  institution 
may  be  held.  It  is  reputation  that  constitutes  the  attraction,  and  this  is  founded 
on  the  modes  and  means  of  instruction  ;  and  though  it  might  be  a  very  interest- 
ing question  whether  $50,000  or  $100,000  should  be  originally  expended  at 
Northampton  or  Williamstown,  yet  considering  the  length  of  time  which  has 
elapsed  since  the  establishment  of  Williams  College  in  the  place  where  it  is, 
that  a  considerable  part  of  its  funds  were  given  in  contemplation  of  its  perma- 
nancy  there,  and  considering  too  that  no  change  of  very  imposing  cast  is  likely  to 
be  effected  immediately,  or  before  the  lapse  of  some  years,  in  the  future  useful- 
ness of  the  institution,  if  at  all,  by  removal,  the  committee  come  to  the  result, 
that  it  is  neither  lawful  nor  expedient  to  grant  the  prayer  of  the  petition  ;  and 
for  these  reasons  respectfully  report,  that  the  petitioners  have  leave  to  withdraw 
their  petition. 

The  speech  of  Josiah  Quincy  in  the  State  Senate  made  in  behalf 
of  this  report  of  the  joint  committee  has  fortunately  come  down  to 
us  in  manuscript  and  entire.  The  year  before  his  death,  that  is,  in 
1863,  Quincy  sent  his  speech  with  the  accompanying  documents  to 
President  Hopkins,  as  a  matter  of  curiosity,  saying,  "  The  documents 
are  precisely  as  I  found  them  among  my  papers  folded  forty  years 
ago.'7  The  committee  of  the  trustees  sent  down  with  their  petition 
were  apparently  present  at  the  debate.  Quincy  hit  them  a  good  rap 


TOWN    AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       407 

in  the  course  of  his  argument,  which  doubtless  largely  contributed 
to  the  majority  in  the  Senate  defeating  the  removal.  We  extract 
a  short  paragraph :  — 

The  trustees  came  all  the  way  to  Boston  to  make  confession  of  a  great  crime. 
They  tell  us  that  so  long  ago  as  1793  they  perverted  the  Free  School  Fund,  which 
the  donor  designed  for  the  use  of  the  poor  people  of  Williamstown,  to  the  use 
of  their  college,  that  it  was  a  great  violation  of  a  sacred  trust.  It  is  very  strange 
that  these  trustees  all  of  a  sudden  should  be  filled  with  so  great  a  compunction 
on  the  subject  of  returning  these  funds  when  all  concerned  are  satisfied  with 
their  possessing  them.  What  can  be  the  object  of  this  extraordinary  penitential 
confession  ?  Do  they  want  absolution  ?  No,  that  is  not  what  they  want. 
What  can  be  their  object  ?  In  consideration  of  their  confessing  one  crime,  they 
ask  your  indulgence  to  be  permitted  to  commit  another.  They  tell  you  in  so 
many  words  that  we  have  for  seven  and  twenty  years  been  perverting  to  our  own 
use  and  contrary  to  the  will  of  the  donor  one  half  of  our  present  funds,  in  con- 
sideration of  which  we  pray  liberty  to  abscond  with  the  residue  I 

This  well-reasoned  report  of  the  joint  committee  of  the  Legislature, 
approved  by  large  majorities  in  both  branches,  brought  the  agitation 
for  the  removal  of  Williams  College  to  a  dead  standstill.  All  parties 
to  the  controversy  had  taken-  the  ground  distinctly,  that  but  one 
college  was  needed  or  could  be  sustained  in  western  Massachusetts. 
Williams  had  now  been  established  twenty-five  years.  Its  founda- 
tions could  not  be  legally  removed.  Therefore,  ran  the  expected  and 
partially  drawn  inference,  that  the  western  end  of  the  State  will  now 
unite  to  sustain  the  college  already  formed  on  its  extreme  border,  as 
the  rest  of  the  State  had  already  gathered  around  Cambridge,  on  its 
extreme  eastern  border.  The  people  of  Northampton  and  its  vicinity 
on  the  river  took  this  general  view  of  the  case,  then,  and  for  long 
after,  showing  a  strong  disposition  to  patronize  the  western  college. 
But  the  general  phases  of  the  question  soon  broadened  from  out  the 
mere  matter  of  place  and  moderate  foundations  already  laid  to  the 
westward,  and  developed  considerations  of  race  and  religion  and 
even  of  theology.  Scotch-Irish  Presbyterians  settled  in  Worcester 
in  1718  in  large  numbers,  and  thence  and  by  gradual  accretions  from 
their  sort  of  folks  in  the  north  of  Ireland  diffused  themselves  over 
the  whole  of  western  Massachusetts,  —  sometimes  going  in  colonies 
so  as  to  constitute  townships,  as  in  the  case  of  Pelham  (which  is 
next  to  Amherst)  and  Colerain  and  Palmer  (which  are  in  the 
neighborhood) ;  and  sometimes  migrating  in  smaller  groups  for  con- 
tiguous new  settlements,  and  more  rarely  as  individual  families  or 
farmers.  Their  names  do  not  shine  so  much  as  subscribers  to  the 
"  Charity  Fund  "  connected  with  Amherst  Academy,  which  became 


408  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

the  basis  of  Amherst  College,  because  they  were  too  poor  for  the 
most  part  for  subscriptions  and  payments  in  money. 

But  when  it  came  to  the  erection  of  the  first  college  building  in 
1820,  still  standing  on  the  ground  as  "  South  College,"  and  labor  and 
materials  and  provisions  for  the  workmen  were  solicited  by  the  com- 
mittee, their  opportunity  had  come.  "  The  stone  for  the  foundation 
was  brought  chiefly  from  Pelham  by  gratuitous  labor,  and  provisions 
for  the  workmen  were  furnished  by  voluntary  contributions.  Dona- 
tions of  lime,  sand,  lumber,  materials  of  all  kinds,  flowed  in  from 
every  quarter.  Teams  for  hauling,  and  men  for  handling  and  tend- 
ing, and  unskilled  labor  of  every  sort,  were  provided  in  abundance. 
Whatever  could  be  contributed  gratuitously  was  furnished  without 
money  and  without  price.  The  people  not  only  contributed  in  kind, 
but  turned  out  in  person,  and  sometimes  camped  on  the  ground  and 
labored  day  and  night,  for  they  had  a  mind  to  work  like  the  Jews 
in  building  their  temple,  and  they  felt  that  they  too  were  building 
the  Lord's  house."  Noah  Webster,  the  lexicographer,  then  a  citizen 
of  Amherst,  and  president  of  the  board  of  building,  an  eye-witness, 
and  a  man  never  given  to  exaggerations,  used  this  language :  "  Not- 
withstanding the  building  committee- had  no  funds  for  erecting  the 
building,  not  even  a  cent,  except  what  were  to  be  derived  from 
gratuities  in  labor,  materials,  and  provisions,  yet  they  prosecuted 
the  work  with  untiring  diligence.  Kepeatedly  during  the  progress 
of  the  work,  their  materials  were  exhausted,  and  they  were  obliged 
to  notify  the  president  of  the  board,  that  they  could  proceed  no 
further.  On  these  occasions  the  president  called  together  the 
trustees,  or  a  number  of  them,  who  by  subscriptions  of  their  own, 
and  by  renewed  solicitations  for  voluntary  contributions,  enabled 
the  committee  to  prosecute  the  work.  And  such  were  the  exertions 
of  the  board,  the  committee,  and  the  friends  of  the  Institution,  that 
on  the  ninetieth  day  from  the  laying  of  the  corner-stone,  the  roof 
timbers  were  erected  on  the  building." 

In  early  May,  1821,  at  a  meeting  of  the  Trustees  of  Amherst 
Academy,  it  "Voted  unanimously  that  the  Eev.  Zephaniah  Swift 
Moore  be,  and  he  is  hereby  elected  President  of  the  Charity  Institu- 
tion in  this  town.  Voted  that  the  permanent  salary  of  the  President 
of  this  Institution  for  his  services  as  President  and.  Professor  of 
Theology  and  Moral  Philosophy  be  $1200,  and  that  he  is  entitled  to 
the  usual  perquisites." 

In  early  June,  in  his  letter  of  acceptance,  dated  at  Williamstown, 
President  Moore  says :  "  Previous  to  receiving  any  notice  of  your 
appointment  I  had  made  up  my  mind  to  resign  my  office  in  this 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.      409 

College  next  Commencement.  Providence  had  clearly  made  it  con- 
sistent with  my  duty  to  leave  then,  if  not  sooner.  I  have  ascertained, 
so  far  as  I  have  had  opportunity,  the  opinion  of  those  who  are  the 
friends  of  evangelical  truth  with  respect  to  the  necessity,  prospects, 
and  usefulness  of  such  an  Institution  as  that  contemplated  at  Am- 
herst.  I  have  much  reason  to  believe  there  is  extensively  an 
agreement  on  this  subject.  In  my  own  opinion,  no  subject  has 
higher  claims  on  the  charity  and  benevolent  efforts  of  the  Christian 
community  than  the  education  of  pious  young  men  for  the  gospel 
ministry.  Their  classical  education  should  be  thorough,  and  I 
should  be  wholly  averse  to  becoming  united  with  any  institution 
which  proposes  to  give  a  classical  education  inferior  to  that  given  in 
any  of  the  Colleges  in  New  England.  On  this  subject  I  am  assured 
your  opinion  is  the  same  as  my  own,  and  that  you  have  determined 
that  the  course  of  study  in  the  Institution  to  which  you  have  invited 
me  shall  not  be  inferior  to  that  in  the  Colleges  of  New  England.  I 
am  also  assured  that  you  will  make  provision  for  the  admission  of 
those  who  are  not  indigent,  and  who  may  wish  to  obtain  a  classical 
education  in  the  Institution." 

Dr.  Moore  had  left  town  in  the  spring  vacation,  without  a  thought 
of  any  such  thing  on  the  part  of  the  students  as  their  losing  their 
president,  least  of  all  to  Amherst.  Almost  all  of  them  had  a  high 
veneration  for  him.  As  it  was  settled  that  the  College  could  not  be 
legally  moved  from  Williamstown,  it  had  never  apparently  occurred 
to  them  that  the  president  would  move  away  without  it.  At  the 
commencement  of  the  summer  term,  almost  immediately  after  writ- 
ing the  above  letter  of  acceptance,  he  came  into  the  chapel  and 
announced  to  the  students  that  he  had  received  such  an  invitation ; 
and  that  he  had  accepted  it,  with  the  provision  that  he  should 
perform  the  duties  of  his  office  at  Williamstown  till  the  ensuing 
Commencement,  and  then  remove  to  Amherst.  Said  an  eye-and- 
ear  witness :  "  This  fell  upon  the  students  like  a  thunderbolt. 
One  would  have  supposed,  from  the  strong  attachment  which  the 
students  felt  for  the  president,  that  the  whole  would  have  resolved 
in  a  body  to  follow  him.  There  came  up  at  once,  however,  a  division 
of  feeling  among  them.  The  students  then  numbered  about  eighty, 
of  whom  nearly  one-half  resolved  to  go  to  Amherst,  or  to  other 
colleges.  The  rest  determined  to  remain  at  Williamstown.  Some 
who  despaired  of  Williams  College  were  unwilling  to  go  to  Amherst, 
because  it  was  a  new  college,  and  could  not  of  course  afford  equal 
advantages  with  the  older  institutions.  Hence  they  went  to  other 
colleges ;  and  at  the  commencement  of  that  year  the  number  of 


410  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

students  in  Williams  College,  small  as  it  was  before,  was  diminished 
nearly  one-half."1 

During  this  last  term  of  Moore's  presidency  on  this  ground,  there 
was  much  more  debating  than  studying.  College  undergraduates 
are  generally  a  remarkably  consequential  set  of  men.  Like  Atlas, 
they  bear  the  world  upon  their  shoulders.  One  party  of  the  students 
thought  that  their  abandonment  of  the  College  would  destroy  it  as  a 
public  institution ;  and  the  other,  that  the  College  could  not  die  while 
it  enjoyed  their  own  powerful  presence  and  patronage.  Moore,  of 
course,  was  quietly  awaiting  the  time  of  his  demission.  It  was  not 
his  duty  or  purpose  to  interfere  essentially  with  the  semi-anarchy 
that  prevailed  in  College  throughout  the  summer  term.  It  was  no 
time  for  discipline  or  authority  while  college  foundations  were  break- 
ing up.  Studies  went  nominally  forward  in  all  the  classes.  At  the 
time  of  the  Senior  examination,  four  weeks  before  Commencement, 
when  always  a  part  of  the  trustees  came  together  to  examine  the 
class  preparatory  to  graduation,  the  venerable  Dr.  Hyde  of  Lee, 
then  and  for  twenty  years  the  vice-president  of  the  College,  called 
the  students  together  in  the  old  chapel  and  addressed  them.  Regret- 
ting the  loss  of  the  president  so  much  valued,  he  remarked  that, 
though  the  president  was  about  to  retire,  the  guardians  of  the  College 
would  remain ;  and  they  were  determined,  by  the  help  of  God,  that 
the  College  should  be  sustained.  This  declaration  by  such  a  cautious 
man  at  such  a  time  had  a  considerable  effect  in  restoring  hope  and 
zeal.  But  when  the  first  acts  of  the  trustees  at  this  meeting  and 
their  issue  became  known  the  clouds  returned  for  a  while.  As  their 
custom  had  been  previously  in  case  of  vacancy,  they  elected  two 
alternate  candidates  for  the  place,  Professor  Goodrich  of  Yale  and 
Professor  McCauley  of  Union  College.  Both  in  turn  declined.  The 
students  knew  nothing  of  any  further  action  of  the  trustees  in  order 
to  obtain  a  president  until  Commencement  Day. 

In  the  meantime,  prospects  011  College  ground  continued  gloomy 
enough.  President  Moore  was  remaining  simply  to  preside  at  the 
Commencement  exercises,  and  to  help  induct  his  successor,  if  one 
should  be  found.  Some  members  of  the  Senior  class  had  just  asked 
for  dismissions,  in  order  to  take  their  degrees  at  other  colleges ; 
others  were  now  wavering.  Under  these  disheartening  circum- 
stances, the  Senior  class  called  a  meeting  of  their  own  members  in  or- 
der to  determine  what  to  do.  This  proved  to  be,  probably,  the  most 
important  class-meeting  that  ever  was  holden  on  this  ground.  Two 
members  of  the  class,  Emerson  Davis  and  Erastus  C.  Benedict,  ad- 
1  Parsons  Cooke,  a  graduate  of  1822. 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       411 

dressed  the  class.  They  spoke  with  a  noble  determination  to  sus- 
tain, so  far  as  they  were  able,  the  honor  and  reputation  of  the  College 
at  all  hazards.  They  declared  their  intention  to  remain  and  to  have 
a  Commencement ;  that,  if  left  entirely  by  themselves,  they  would 
still  be  graduated  in  the  usual  manner ;  and  that,  if  necessary,  they 
would  perform  all  the  several  parts  which  had  been  allotted  to  their 
classmates.  When  was  ever  such  courage  and  resolve  under  thick 
difficulties  lost  upon  compeers  ?  They  rallied  to  a  man.  The  parts 
were  all  acceptably  rendered  by  those  to  whom  they  had  been  origi- 
nally assigned ;  fifteen  men  took  their  degrees  upon  the  stage  in  due 
form  at  the  hands  of  President  Moore,  and  in  the  presence  (as  it 
happened)  of  his  distinguished  successor. 

The  two  Seniors,  Benedict  and  Davis,  who  took  such  a  stand  at  the 
critical  moment  in  behalf  of  the  College,  lived  to  find  a  rich  and  long 
reward  upon  this  ground  for  their  youthful  and  enthusiastic  service. 
Both  became  tutors,  Davis  immediately  and  Benedict  two  years  after 
graduation.  Davis  became  a  trustee  in  1833,  and  in  that  capacity 
was  never  absent  from  the  Commencement,  nor  from  1845  when  he 
went  on  the  Standing  Committees  from  the  Senior  examination,  until 
his  death  in  1866.  He  was  vice-president  of  the  College  also,  fifth 
and  last,  from  1859  so  long  as  he  lived.  He  went  from  his  tutorship 
here  in  its  second  year  to  become  principal  of  the  Westfield  Academy, 
and  was  settled  in  a  lifelong  ministry  there  in  1836.  Being  rela- 
tively near  at  hand,  a  good  scholar  and  a  prudent  counsellor,  he 
was  relied  on  more  than  any  other  one  of  the  trustees  for  special 
attendance  and  for  special  service.  In  1861  he  presided  at  the  Com- 
mencement exercises  on  account  of  the  absence  of  President  Hop- 
kins in  Europe.  He  was  a  very  corpulent  man  in  person,  very 
considerate  in  counsel,  always  very  popular  in  Williamstown  as  well 
as  in  Westfield,  and  always  particularly  welcomed  and  honored  here 
by  his  classmate  and  colleague-trustee  from  1838,  Dr.  Henry  L. 
Sabin.  Benedict  too  became  a  trustee  of  the  college  in  1855,  and 
continued  active  and  faithful  as  such  till  his  death  in  1880.  He 
played  also  a  very  prominent  part  in  the  intellectual  and  professional 
and  educational  life  of  New  York  City  during  a  long  and  highly 
honored  career. 

That  Commencement  Day  of  1821  became  memorable  for  other 
reasons  than  these  just  referred  to  and  implied. 

(1)  It  was  the  time  of  the  first  steps  toward  the  formation  of  the 
Society  of  Alumni.  A  public  call  was  then  issued,  Aug.  25,  1821, 
in  the  following  terms:  "Williams  College.  A  meeting  of  the 
Alumni  of  Williams  College  will  be  held  at  the  College  Chapel,  Sept. 


412  WILLIAMSTOWN  AND    WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

5,  at  9  A.M.,  to  consider  the  expediency  of  forming  a  Society  of 
Alumni.  The  meeting  is  notified  at  the  request  of  a  number  of  gen- 
tlemen educated  at  the  institution,  who  are  desirous  that  the  true 
state  of  the  College  may  be  known  to  the  Alumni,  and  that  the  influ- 
ence and  patronage  of  those  it  has  educated  may  be  united  for  its 
support,  protection,  and  improvement.  A  general  meeting  is  re- 
quested." 

The  meeting  thus  notified  assembled  pursuant  thereto,  and  the  fol- 
lowing preamble  and  constitution  were  adopted :  — 

For  the  promotion  of  literature  and  good  fellowship  among  ourselves,  and 
the  better  to  advance  the  reputation  and  interests  of  our  Alma  Mater,  we  the 
subscribers,  graduates  of  Williams  College,  do  form  ourselves  into  a  society,  and 
adopt  the  following  constitution  : 

ART.  1.  This  Society  shall  be  called  the  Society  of  the  Alumni  of  Williams  Col- 
lege. 

ART.  2.  This  Society  shall  meet  annually  at  the  College,  at  the  time  of  the 
annual  Commencement. 

ART.  3.  An  address  shall  also  be  delivered  at  each  meeting  by  one  of  its  mem- 
bers chosen  for  that  purpose. 

ART.  4.  The  officers  of  this  Society  shall  consist  of  a  President,  Vice-President, 
Secretary,  and  an  Executive  Committee  of  three  members,  to  be 
chosen  by  ballot  at  the  annual  meeting.1 

Asa  Burbank,  class  of  1797,  was  the  first  president.  John  Wood- 
bridge,  class  of  1804,  delivered  the  first  oration  in  1823.  For  forty 
years  and  more  an  alumni  orator  seldom  failed  to  appear  at  Com- 
mencement; and  for  sixty  years  the  Society  itself  in  its  varied 
agencies  in  behalf  of  the  College,  and  especially  the  alumni  meet- 
ings at  Commencement,  were  the  most  efficient  and  far-reaching  and 
enjoyable  of  all  the  moral  forces  of  the  institution. 

(2)  It  was  also  Moore's  last  official  day  in  Williamstown.  He 
is  said  to  have  presided  and  to  have  performed  all  his  parts  with 
noticeable  dignity,  and  to  have  welcomed  upon  the  stage  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  afternoon  exercises  with  striking  decorum  a  man  taller 
than  himself  and  even  more  punctiliously  dressed,  and  better  calcu- 
lated every  way  to  impress  the  senses  and  imagination  of  a  crowd. 
This  was  Edward  Dorr  Griffin.  He  was  then  fifty-one  years  old,  at 
the  height  of  his  popularity  as  a  preacher  and  a  revivalist.  He  had 
been  quietly  elected  by  the  trustees  to  take  the  now  twice  rejected 
presidency,  and  had  come  on  to  see  for  himself  before  he  decided  the 

1  There  were  two  or  three  further  articles  of  little  consequence,  specifying  the 
duties  of  the  officers,  and  so  on. 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       413 

question.  He  looked  around  upon  the  interior  of  a  large  meeting- 
house full  in  body  and  galleries  with  common  people,  who  were 
attentively  listening  to  exercises  in  which  they  seemed  to  have  them- 
selves a  part.  He  saw  upon  the  stage  some  ten  or  twelve  venerable- 
looking  men,  who  were  charged  and  seemed  to  be  charged  with  heavy 
responsibilities  at  that  moment.  They  were  the  trustees.  The 
eldest  of  them  in  point  of  service  was  Alvan  Hyde  of  Lee,  then  vice- 
president  of  the  College,  and  feeling  more  the  weight  of  the  occasion 
than  any  one  else  present.  About  one-half  of  these  men  were  clergy- 
men, and  most  of  the  rest  were  lawyers.  No  one  of  them  all  went 
back  in  point  of  official  life  to  the  original  board  as  organized  in 
1793.  It  was  the  second  generation  of  trustees. 

Griffin  had  practised  for  many  years  the  art  of  being  consciously 
looked  at,  —  of  making  an  impression  upon  others  by  posture  and 
gesture  and  bearing.  Doubtless  on  that  decisive  afternoon  he 
scanned  with  eager  curiosity  the  words  and  actions  of  the  man 
whose  position  he  had  been  invited  to  assume.  Moore  and  Griffin 
were  both  born  the  same  year,  1770.  Both  were  corpulent  in  body, 
both  scrupulous  in  dress,  and  both  intellectual-looking.  But  Moore 
did  not  disclose  in  his  countenance  the  whole  of  his  mental  and 
moral  make-up  in  the  sense  in  which  Griffin  did.  Moore  was  by 
much  the  deeper  man.  On  this  afternoon,  when  they  saw  each  other 
at  close  quarters  for  the  first  and  last  time,  Moore  had  the  moral  ad- 
vantage over  Griffin,  not  only  in  securer  gifts  and  a  deeper  insight, 
but  also  in  a  more  settled  and  restful  spirit.  Griffin  had  never  been 
long  at  a  time  quiet  and  restful  in  his  work.  In  the  twenty  years 
just  then  preceding,  1801-21,  he  had  been  twice  settled  and  unset- 
tled in  the  gospel  ministry  in  Newark ;  inaugurated  as  Professor  of 
Sacred  Rhetoric  in  the  new  Theological  Seminary  at  Andover,  and 
had  shortly  resigned  and  quitted  the  place  in  a  kind  of  disgust ;  and 
had  been  both  installed  and  dismissed  as  a  pastor  of  the  Park  Street 
church  in  Boston.  Now  he  had  come  on  from  a  second  loosening  up 
of  his  ties  in  Newark,  in  order  to  see  whether  it  were  worth  his 
while  to  try  something  new  in  Williamstown. 

But  Moore  was  in  a  very  different  frame  of  mind.  He  had 
consciously  done  all  that  he  could  do,  and  probably  more  than  any 
other  living  man  could  have  done  in  the  time,  for  the  smitten 
Institution  upon  the  Hoosac.  He  had  spent  six  full  years  in  the 
very  fulness  of  his  powers  to  accomplish  that  for  Williams  which 
he  did  not  believe  at  the  outset  could  be  effectively  accomplished. 
He  had  succeeded  better  than  he  had  expected.  He  had  more  than 
satisfied  the  anticipations  of  his  colleagues  of  the  Board  of  Trustees. 


414  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

They  were  very  desirous  that  he  should  remain.  The  people  of  the 
town,  who  had  been  most  intimately  associated  with  the  College  in 
all  things,  and  with  whom  Moore  had  made  himself  pleasant  and 
popular  in  the  best  senses  of  those  words,  were  very  desirous  that 
he  should  pitch  his  tent  and  continue  to  dwell  with  them.  Besides 
various  personal  and  spiritual  reasons,  there  were  property  reasons 
a  plenty,  why  the  common  people  were  anxious  he  should  stay. 
The  value  of  their  farms  depended  very  largely  on  the  prosperity  of 
the  College.  Any  markets  for  their  products  outside  of  the  valley 
itself  were  distant  and  difficult  to  reach.  The  pecuniary  interests  of 
the  people  were  bound  up  in  their  pride  of  the  past  of  the  Free 
School  and  the  College,  and  in  their  hopes  of  the  future  of  these. 
Moore  had  done  his  best,  and  had  done  his  all ;  and  his  mind  was 
clear,  that  nothing  further  could  be  really  achieved  by  anybody  as 
towards  a  permanent  building  up  of  the  College. 

This  is  negative.  But  Moore  had  positive  grounds  of  good  cheer 
on  that  Commencement  Day,  which  probably  made  him  the  happiest 
man  upon  the  stage,  as  its  hours  wore  away.  He  had  received  and 
accepted  an  invitation  to  become  president  of  a  literary  and  religious 
institution,  whose  foundations  had  just  been  laid  by  and  among 
his  own  people,  the  peculiar  Scotch-Irish-American  Christians,  who 
were  just  entering  upon  the  second  century  of  their  individual  and 
corporate  existence  in  New  England ;  whose  tenets  were  and  were 
to  be  religious  in  a  commanding,  if  not  exclusive  sense,  not  even  as 
yet  aspired  to,  still  less  fairly  grasped  at,  in  the  older  institution 
bordering  on  and  accessible  to  and  already  colored  by  the  broader 
and  looser  principles  of  Dutch  New  York ;  and  whose  form  and 
superstructure  were  to  be  moulded  from  the  very  start  by  his  own 
skilful  and  experienced,  and  no  longer  hesitating  hands.  His  heart 
was  over  the  mountains.  His  kindred  were  there.  They  were  there, 
who  construed  the  vital  conditions  of  human  life  and  destiny  under 
somewhat  different  terms  —  "  ein  bischen  anderen  Wortern  "  —  than 
those  then  used  by  the  devout  descendants  in  New  England  of  the  Pil- 
grims and  the  Puritans.  There  is  a  sense  in  which  Amherst  College 
came  out  of  the  very  loins  of  Williams  through  this  great  and  good 
man,  Zephaniah  Swift  Moore ;  its  very  first  college  building,  for  ex- 
ample, was  and  remains  an  exact  copy  of  the  very  first  college 
building  in  Williamstown ;  while  there  is  another  sense,  in  which  the 
very  first  breathings  at  Amherst  and  its  most  persistent  and  character- 
istic spirit  from  that  day  to  this,  were  drawn  from  (as  it  were)  a 
different  and  a  deeper  lung  than  that  rising  and  falling  under  the 
inspirations  and  expirations  in  the  secluded  valley  to  the  westward. 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       415 

These  pages  have  no  call  to  delineate  in  detail  the  origins  and  the 
developments  at  Amherst.  That  work  has  already  been  admirably 
done  by  the  admirable  Professor  Tyler.  At  the  same  time  it  is  not  pos- 
sible for  any  one  to  gain  a  thorough  understanding  of  the  beginnings 
and  increasings  at  the  Hampshire  institution,  without  comprehend- 
ing their  radical  relations  with  the  previous  and  preparatory  happen- 
ings in  Berkshire.  Moore  is  common  property  in  the  two  counties. 
Each  has  perhaps  equal  summons  to  do  him  honor.  He  died  in 
Amherst  within  less  than  two  years  after  crossing  the  mountain 
from  Williamstown  in  company  with  Theophilus  Packard  the  day 
after  the  Commencement  of  1821.  His  widow  survived  him  there 
until  1857,  and  nourished  assiduously  the  property  he  left  by  will  to 
the  institution,  the  "  Moore  scholarships,"  so  called,  the  income  of 
which  is  steadily  increasing  by  putting  a  part  of  the  annual  interest 
to  the  principal,  and  the  number  of  the  beneficiaries,  college  candi- 
dates for  the  Christian  ministry,  is  increasing  also  from  time  to  time. 
There  never  was  any  real  and  rational  ground  for  a  feeling,  that  has 
been  traditionally  kept  up  in  Williamstown  almost  till  the  present 
time,  and  that  has  found  some  expression  in  books  and  pamphlets 
illustrative  of  Williams  College  history,  namely,  that  somehow  or 
other,  by  somebody  or  other,  the  older  institution  was  wronged  or 
worsted  by  the  newer  one  in  the  course  of  these  troubles  and  over- 
turnings.  There  is  evidence  that  no  unkind  feelings  have  ever  been 
cherished  at  Amherst  toward  Williams  under  color  of  those  early 
occurrences.1  Moore's  last  will  and  testament  throws  additional  light 
upon  the  pure  motives  of  the  man,  and  upon  the  extraordinary 
difficulties  surrounding  the  establishment  of  any  institution  at  all 
at  Amherst,  and  so  indirectly  upon  the  religious  fervor  and  the 
indomitable  perseverance  of  the  poor  people,  who,  humanly  speaking, 
created  it.  The  will  expressly  provided  that,  if  the  institution  should 
not  be  incorporated  by  the  Legislature  of  the  State,  to  which  incorpora- 
tion tremendous  opposition  had  already  been  developed  at  both  ends 
of  the  State  and  even  in  Northampton  and  other  leading  towns  in 
the  middle,  the  funds  should  be  diverted  into  another  charitable 
direction ;  and  further,  if  the  institution,  though  incorporated,  should 
ever  become  extinct,  or  should  not  give  a  thorough  course  of  classical 
education  like  the  other  colleges  of  New  England,  then  the  gift  was 
to  take  a  diverse  direction  altogether.  These  clauses  of  his  will  show 

1 1  am  glad  of  an  indirect  opportunity  of  acknowledging  the  courtesy  of  the  entire 
body  of  Amherst  students  in  inviting  me  to  lecture  before  them  on  the  subject  of 
Free  Trade.  A  more  intelligent  and  appreciative  audience  of  students  I  have  never 
addressed. 


416  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

(1)  the  high  estimate  that  Moore  put  upon  classical  education;  (2) 
his  uncertainty  whether  the  new  institution  would  be  incorporated, 
or  perpetuated,  even  if  it  were ;  and  (3)  the  absence  of  any  possible 
motive  of  selfish  aggrandizement  in  going  to  Amherst. 

A  few  days  after  this  notable  Commencement  of  1821,  the  word 
began  to  spread  from  lip  to  lip  in  Williamstown,  and  then  in  other 
towns  throughout  the  county  of  Berkshire,  that  Dr.  Griffin  had  ac- 
cepted the  presidency  at  Williams,  moved  thereto  largely  by  what  he 
had  seen  upon  that  stage  and  by  what  he  had  learned  in  talk  from 
trustees  and  others  on  the  spot.  It  was  good  news  indeed  to  Berk- 
shire folks.  It  lifted  the  spirits  of  every  farmer  and  church-goer  in 
Williamstown.  They  knew  indeed  very  little  about  the  requisites 
for  a  successful  college  president,  because  those  requisites  had  cer- 
tainly not  then  been  ascertained  by  anybody  scarcely  even  in  out- 
line ;  at  the  present  time  the  multiform  inductions  of  two  centuries 
in  New  England  have  not  yet  passed  over  into  firm  generalizations 
upon  this  subject;  for  the  risks  of  an  experiment  seem  to  attend 
and  overshadow  the  induction  of  each  new  college  president,  and  in 
at  least  one  half  of  the  cases  relative  failure  is  the  actual  result.  In 
those  early  days  the  chief  criterion  pointing  to  a  possible  college 
president  was  his  power  as  a  pulpit  orator.  That  striking  gift 
once  conceded,  boards  of  college  control  seemed  to  think  there  was 
no  need  of  looking  farther.  The  choice  of  Jonathan  Edwards  as 
president  of  the  college  at  Princeton  in  1757,  while  he  was  the  mis- 
sionary preacher  at  Stockbridge,  is  a  good  illustration  of  this  pre- 
vailing criterion ;  and  portions  of  his  own  reply  to  this  choice  and 
offer  from  Princeton  exhibit  more  sound  sense  of  the  actual  condi- 
tions of  success  in  an  average  college  president,  than  any  forty 
letters  known  to  the  writer  conveying  to  average  candidates  such 
choice  and  offer,  and  from  them  conveying  acceptance  of  these. 

STOCKBRIDGE,  Oct.  19,  1757. 
REV.  AND  HON.  GENTLEMEN, 

I  was  not  a  little  surprised,  on  receiving  the  unexpected  notice  of  your  having 
made  choice  of  me,  to  succeed  the  late  President  Burr,  as  the  Head  of  Nassau 
Hall. 

I  am  much  in  doubt,  whether  I  am  called  to  undertake  the  business,  which 
you  have  done  me  the  unmerited  honour  to  choose  me  for. 

The  chief  difficulties  in  my  mind,  in  the  way  of  accepting  this  difficult  and 
arduous  office,  are  these  two :  first,  my  own  defects,  unfitting  me  for  such  an 
undertaking,  many  of  which  are  generally  known  ;  besides  others,  of  which  my 
own  heart  is  conscious. 

I  have  a  constitution,  in  many  respects  peculiarly  unhappy,  attended  with 
flaccid  solids,  vapid,  sizy  and  scarce  fluids,  and  a  low  tide  of  spirits  ;  often  occa- 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.      417 

sioning  a  kind  of  childish  weakness  and  contemptibleness  of  speech,  presence 
and  demeanor,  with  a  disagreeable  dulness  and  stiffness,  much  unfiting  me  for 
conversation,  but  more  especially  for  the  government  of  a  college. 

This  makes  me  shrink  at  the  thoughts  of  taking  upon  me,  in  the  decline  of 
life,  such  a  new  and  great  business,  attended  with  such  a  multiplicity  of  cares, 
and  requiring  such  a  degree  of  activity,  alertness  and  spirit  of  government ; 
especially  as  succeeding  one  so  remarkably  well  qualified  in  these  respects 
[Burr  was  Edwards's  son-in-law],  giving  occasion  to  every  one  to  remark  the 
wide  difference. 

I  am  also  deficient  in  some  parts  of  learning,  particularly  in  Algebra,  and 
the  higher  parts  of  Mathematics,  and  in  the  Greek  Classics  ;  my  Greek  learning 
having  been  chiefly  in  the  New  Testament.  The  other  thing  is  this ;  that  my 
engaging  in  this  business  will  not  well  consist  with  those  views,  and  that  course 
of  employ  in  my  study,  which  have  long  engaged  and  swallowed  up  my  mind, 
and  been  the  chief  entertainment  and  delight  of  my  life. 

My  heart  is  so  much  in  these  studies,  that  I  cannot  find  it  in  my  heart  to  be 
willing  to  put  myself  into  an  incapacity  to  pursue  them  any  more  in  the  future 
part  of  my  life,  to  such  a  degree  as  I  must,  if  I  undertake  to  go  through  the  same 
course  of  employ,  in  the  office  of  president,  that  Mr.  Burr  did,  instructing  in  all 
the  languages,  and  taking  the  whole  care  of  the  instruction  of  one  of  the  classes,  in 
all  parts  of  learning,  besides  his  other  labors.  If  I  should  see  light  to  determine 
me  to  accept  the  place  offered  me,  I  should  be  willing  to  take  upon  me  the  work 
of  a  president,  so  far  as  it  consists  in  the  general  inspection  of  the  whole  society  ; 
and  to  be  subservient  to  the  school  as  to  their  order  and  methods  of  instruction, 
assisting,  myself,  in  the  immediate  instruction  of  the  arts  and  sciences,  (as  dis- 
cretion should  direct,  and  occasion  serve,  and  the  state  of  things  require,)  espe- 
cially of  the  senior  class ;  and  added  to  all,  should  be  willing  to  do  the  whole 
work  of  a  professor  of  divinity,  in  public  and  private  lectures,  proposing  ques- 
tions to  be  answered,  and  some  to  be  discussed  in  writing  and  free  conversation, 
in  meetings  of  graduates  and  others,  appointed  in  proper  seasons,  for  these  ends. 
It  would  be  now  out  of  my  way,  to  spend  time  in  a  constant  teaching  of  the 
languages  ;  unless  it  be  the  Hebrew  tongue  ;  which  I  should  be  willing  to  improve 
myself  in,  by  instructing  others. 

Edward  Dorr  Griffin,  when  he  was  chosen  president  of  Williams 
in  1821,  stood  in  a  high  and  just  repute  as  a  pulpit  orator.  So  far 
as  this  was  a  qualification  for  such  a  post  in  such  a  place  at  that 
time,  then  was  he  well  qualified  for  the  position.  He  had  gained  no 
other  reputation,  and  never  afterward  acquired  any  other.  His 
childhood  fell  in  the  troublous  times  of  the  Eevolution,  and  they 
were  nowhere  more  troublous  than  in  central  Connecticut.  His 
health  was  too  feeble  to  be  put  to  hard  work  on  the  farm  of  his 
well-to-do  father,  and  consequently  he  was  kept  almost  constantly 
at  school  till  he  entered  Yale  College  at  sixteen,  where  he  was 
graduated  in  1790.  Delicate  health  in  boyhood  did  not  prevent  his 
developing  a  gigantic  body  in  early  manhood,  full  six  feet  three  in 
height,  well  proportioned  throughout,  and  without  any  undue  obe- 

2E 


418  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

sity,  weighing  at  the  maximum  two  hundred  and  forty  pounds.  The 
only  feature  that  was  decidedly  lacking,  in  comparison  with  the 
rest,  was  the  nose ;  he  had  a  small  nose ;  and  this  was  significant  in 
his  case,  as  it  almost  invariably  is  in  others,  of  a  lack  of  certain 
manly  and  executive  qualities.  He  had  a  voice  of  immense  compass 
and  of  remarkable  melody :  he  could  bellow  like  a  bull  of  Bashan, 
if  he  only  had  occasion ;  and  he  could  pronounce  the  word  "  Meso- 
potamia "  with  almost  the  witchery  of  Whitefield  himself.  The 
effect  of  his  personal  presence  upon  strangers,  whether  singly  or  in 
crowds,  was  uniformly  impressive  to  a  high  degree ;  he  was  com- 
pletely conscious  of  this  fact,  and  had  a  good  right  to  be ;  and  he 
studied  constantly  for  himself,  and  came  to  be  an  excellent  critic  of 
others,  in  the  whole  region  of  oratorical  posture  and  gesture,  action, 
and  repose.  His  countenance  was  bright,  and  full  of  actual  or  pos- 
sible sympathy  with  audiences,  of  whatever  kind  and  under  what- 
ever dominating  emotions.  His  eyes  were  small  and  not  deeply  set 
in  the  head,  but  they  kindled  easily,  and,  under  provocation  of 
strong  thought  and  feeling,  into  great  brilliancy.  When  he  came 
to  Williamstown  in  1821,  the  hair  upon  his  lofty  head  was  as  white 
as  it  ever  afterward  became ;  and  there  was  accordingly  an  aspect 
of  venerableness  as  well  as  of  brooding  benignity  and  of  a  domina- 
ting personal  power,  that  helped  to  make  up  this  striking  impres- 
siveness. 

He  was  said  to  be  proficient  in  all  the  studies  of  his  college 
course,  and  to  have  been  graduated  with  honors ;  but  he  seems  to 
have  kept  up  no  studies  in  his  post-graduate  life  except  the  theo- 
logical ones;  and  indeed  "theology,"  so  called,  was  his  pride  and 
his  life-work,  and  he  had  no  doubt  that  the  Bible  held  the  data,  and 
his  own  mind  the  logical  power,  for  the  construction  of  a  complete 
statement  of  all  the  ways  of  God  with  man.  This  is  perhaps 
scarcely  to  be  wondered  at  in  his  case,  because  Jonathan  Edwards, 
a  man  beyond  all  comparison  with  Griffin  abler  and  humbler  and 
purer-minded,  had  written  a  half-century  before  what  he  called  a 
"History  of  the  Work  of  Redemption,  a  body  of  divinity  in  an  entire 
new  method,  being  thrown  into  the  form  of  a  history ;  beginning 
from  Eternity,  and  descending  from  thence  to  the  great  work  and 
successive  dispensations  of  the  infinitely  wise  God,  in  time ;  till  at 
last,  we  come  to  the  general  resurrection,  last  judgment,  and  con- 
summation of  all  things  ;  concluding  my  work,  with  the  consideration 
of  that  perfect  state  of  things,  which  shall  be  finally  settled,  to  last 
for  Eternity.  This  history  will  be  carried  on  with  regard  to  all 
three  worlds,  Heaven,  Earth  and  Hell ;  considering  the  connected, 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       419 

successive  events  and  alterations  in  each,  so  far  as  the  scriptures 
give  any  light."  This  extract  is  from  Edwards's  letter  to  the  trus- 
tees of  Princeton.  The  monstrous  and  baseless  assumptions  in  it 
of  ample  knowledge  of  the  "  three  worlds  "  and  of  the  two  Eterni- 
ties, spring  from  a  total  misunderstanding  of  the  origin  and  nature 
and  divine  purpose  of  the  Bible.  Griffin  had  no  more  question  of 
his  own  ability  to  construct  a  perfect  "Doctrine  of  Atonement," 
than  Edwards  had  of  his  to  write  (the  words  are  his  own)  "the 
most  beautiful  and  entertaining  History  of  Redemption."  When 
Nathaniel  Emmons,  an  older  and  more  profound  divine  than  Grif- 
fin, published  his  own  view  on  the  Atonement,  which  only  differed 
from  Griffin's  as  tweedledum  from  tweedledee,  the  latter  wrote  to 
the  former :  — 

MY  DEAR  BROTHER:  I  have  read  your  Sermon  on  the  Atonement,  and  have 
wept  over  it. 

Affectionately  Yours, 

E.  D.  GRIFFIN. 

To  which  Dr.  Emmons  replied  :  — 

DEAR  SIR  :  I  have  read  your  letter  and  laughed  at  it. 

Yours, 

NATH'L  EMMONS. 

It  ought,  perhaps,  to  be  added  in  passing,  for  we  have  no  concern 
with  the  "  theologies  "  of  that  time  or  of  any  time  except  as  they 
bear  on  the  fortunes  of  a  small  country  town  and  college,  that  these 
treatises  and  sermons,  and  scores  of  others  like  them,  sprung,  as  it 
were,  from  an  underlying  philosophy  now  discredited  everywhere, 
were  matters  of  mere  speculation,  having  very  little  reference  to  the 
words  of  our  blessed  Lord  and  particularly  to  the  words  of  His 
divine  prayer.  They  became,  accordingly,  the  wonder  of  an  hour. 
They  started  up  like  mushrooms  in  a  fertile  soil,  and  decayed  into  a 
speedy  forgetfulness. 

It  was  scarcely  known  at  all  at  the  time,  and  before  very  long  became 
a  point  of  little  consequence  to  anybody,  the  reason  why  Griffin  left 
after  only  two  years  Andover  Theological  Seminary  and  a  professor- 
ship, for  which  he  was  extremely  well  adapted,  namely,  the  chair  of 
Pulpit  Eloquence.  The  seminary  was  then  new,  Andover  Hill,  now 
so  charming,  was  then  a  rough  and  rocky  and  unsightly  place,  and 
the  school  was  located  there  largely  for  the  same  reason  that  a  col- 
lege was  located  at  Amherst,  namely,  that  it  might  be  in  the  midst 
of,  and  be  partially  supported  by,  devout  and  self-denying  Scotch- 
Irish-Americans.  William  Bartlett,  a  merchant  of  Salem,  who  is 
estimated  by  those  familiar  with  the  facts  to  have  given  $250,000 


420  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

to  start  and  forward  the  infant  seminary,  founded  the  professorship 
of  which  Griffin  was  the  first  incumbent,  and  generously  offered  to 
build  him  a  house.  Instead  of  hiring  an  architect  to  plan,  and  secur- 
ing a  contractor  to  construct,  a  proper  house  in  such  a  place  for 
such  a  purpose,  he  gave  his  professor  carte  blanche  to  build  the 
house  himself,  promising  to  foot  the  bills  as  they  came  in.  This  he 
did,  and  said  nothing,  as  their  aggregate  mounted  up  to  a  sum  per- 
haps three  times  greater  than  had  been  expected.  Griffin's  good 
taste  and  sound  judgment  as  a  builder  was  evidenced,  in  the  expen- 
sive levelling  and  preliminary  preparation  of  the  rocky  site,  and  in 
the  erection  of  a  house  that  still  remains  conspicuous  for  excellence 
among  the  Seminary  buildings;  but  his  thorough  architecture  at 
another's  expense  subjected  him  to  much  ridicule  in  connection  with 
some  personal  peculiarities,  and  so  made  Andover  an  unpleasant  place 
for  him  to  live  and  work  in.  The  students  were  reluctant  to  have 
him  leave  them,  for  they  prized  his  rhetorical  instructions  and  exam- 
ple. Park  Street  Church  in  Boston  was  then  a-building  with  a  view 
of  becoming  an  orthodox  bulwark  against  Unitarianism  and  other 
liberal  religious  opinions,  at  that  time  beginning  strongly  to  assert 
themselves  in  Boston.  Griffin  accepted  a  call  to  that  pastorate ;  and 
for  four  years  did  good  work  there  along  the  line  of  his  call,  when 
he  returned  to  Newark  as  a  pastor,  whence  he  came  to  Williams  as 
president  in  1821.  The  influences  that  induced  him  to  come  were 
not  merely  what  he  saw  and  heard  on  the  spot  at  the  Commencement 
time  of  that  year,  but  also,  as  is  verbally  stated  in  Sprague's  "  Annals 
of  the  American  Pulpit,"  "owing  chiefly  to  some  unpropitious  cir- 
cumstances which  had  prevented  the  growth  of  his  congregation  [in 
Newark],  and  rendered  them  unable  to  continue  to  him  a  competent 
support,  he  determined  to  accept  and  did  accept  this  appointment." 

His  reputation  as  a  preacher  enabled  him  to  anchor  most  of 
the  students  then  on  the  ground,  excepting  the  fifteen  who  went 
to  Amherst  with  Dr.  Moore,  and  to  attract  for  about  ten  years  a 
considerable  number,  who  would  not  probably  have  come  here  other- 
wise. The  people  of  the  town  were  greatly  favorable  to  his  presi- 
dency for  reasons  already  indicated  in  another  connection,  —  it 
would  be  likely  to  enhance  the  value  of  their  property,  and  it  would 
give  them  a  chance  to  hear  extraordinary  preaching  in  their  own 
meeting-house  one-third  of  the  time  during  each  college  year. 
Before  Dr.  Griffin  got  settled  in  the  president's  house  or  was 
formally  inducted  into  his  office,  a  set  of  circumstances  occurred 
that  drew  the  hearts  of  the  people  toward  him  in  a  striking  and 
unusual  manner.  He  thought  to  get  settled  in  the  summer  vacation 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       421 

and  to  begin  strong  at  the  opening  of  the  fall  term.  In  those  days 
the  journey  from  Newark  to  Williamstown  was  water  wise.  Having 
arrived  at  Troy,  his  eldest  daughter  was  taken  sick.  He  left  her 
there  with  her  mother,  and  proceeded  to  Williamstown  with  his 
other  daughter.  These  constituted  his  entire  family.  Keturning 
again  to  Troy  he  found  that  daughter  in  a  dangerous  condition  with 
the  typhus  fever.  While  he  was  waiting  upon  her  there,  the  other 
daughter  was  taken  sick  in  Williamstown,  first  with  the  measles 
and  then  with  a  bilious  fever,  which  threatened  her  life.  Having 
again  returned  to  Williamstown  for  the  care  of  her,  he  soon  received 
a  summons  to  go  back  to  Troy  in  the  expectation  to  see  his  eldest 
daughter  die.  When  he  came  the  doctor  told  him  that  if  she  sur- 
vived the  next  day,  she  would  be  liable  to  be  taken  every  half  hour 
for  three  weeks.  But  she  lived.  And  so  did  the  other.  It  was  full 
seven  weeks  from  the  time  when  his  family  were  separated  at  Troy, 
before  they  could  all  be  united  again  in  the  new  home.  In  the 
meantime  the  whole  town  was  moved.  These  trying  events  brought 
all,  both  in  the  College  and  in  the  town,  into  such  intimate  sympathy 
with  him  and  his,  that  all  seemed  to  become  but  one  family  in  the 
share  which  they  had  in  these  afflictions  of  a  stranger.  Having  been 
exhibited  to  them  as  one  of  themselves  in  these  most  vital  relations 
of  life,  they  were  prepared  to  receive  him  and  stand  up  for  him  and 
assist  him  when  afterward  exhibited  to  them  in  traits  and  peculiari- 
ties calculated  perhaps  to  excite  their  ridicule. 

Before  the  recovery  of  his  children  was  complete,  his  formal 
inauguration  into  the  office  of  president  of  the  College  took  place. 
We  are  indebted  to  an  eye-witness,  Parsons  Cooke,  then  a  member  of 
the  Senior  class  and  afterward  distinguished  as  a  preacher  and 
pastor  and  editor  of  a  religious  newspaper,  for  some  particulars  of 
this  inauguration  of  Dr.  Griffin,  the  third  in  a  series,  which  reached 
in  1881  its  sixth  number.  "  He  of  course  was  not  in  a  state  of  mind, 
nor  in  circumstances,  to  produce  a  labored  discourse  on  that  occasion. 
It  was  understood  that  he  was  only  to  make  a  few  offhand  remarks ; 
which  he  did,  and  which  were  of  course  well  received.  The  aspect 
of  the  scene  was  a  fit  emblem  of  the  previous  condition  of  the  College. 
It  was  one  of  those  dark,  chilly,  rainy  days,  which  the  word  Novem- 
ber suggests ;  when  a  handful  of  students,  forty-eight  all  told,  con- 
stituting the  whole  body  then  in  Williams  College,  gathered,  with  a 
few  of  the  people  of  the  town,  into  what  was  then  one  of  the  largest 
and  one  of  the  most  dreary  of  country  meeting-houses,  for  a  cere- 
monial which  requires  quite  different  circumstantials  to  render  it 
imposing.  After  his  short  address  had  been  delivered  the  forms  of 


422  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

his  induction  were  passed  through  on  the  part  of  the  Trustees.  The 
Professor  of  Languages  then  addressed  the  president,  in  Latin,  wel- 
coming him  to  his  position,  and  the  whole  was  closed  by  a  prayer  by 
the  late  Dr.  Shepard  of  Lenox,  the  sublime  roll  of  whose  utterance, 
after  more  than  thirty  years,  has  scarcely  ceased  its  reverberations 
in  our  ears." 

This  Dr.  Samuel  Shepard,  a  graduate  of  Yale  in  1793,  a  trustee 
from  1808,  and  from  1834  till  his  death  in  1846  the  vice-president 
of  the  College,  held  an  uncommonly  successful  pastorate  in  Lenox  for 
over  fifty  years.  "  He  exhibited  a  firm  flow  of  spirits."  Perhaps  his 
voice  was  not  more  remarkable  in  compass  and  mellowness  and  flexi- 
bility than  was  Dr.  Griffin's,  but  the  echoes  of  it  in  Berkshire  tradi- 
tion are  clearer  and  more  pleasing.  The  Professor  of  Languages, 
who  took  part  in  the  inauguration  on  that  chill  November  day,  was 
Ebenezer  Kellogg.  He  was  graduated  at  New  Haven  in  1810,  deliver- 
ing there,  like  Samuel  Shepard  before  him,  the  salutatory  oration 
at  Commencement.  He  was  the  fourth  person  to  be  selected  a  pro- 
fessor here,  Mackay  and  Olds  and  Dewey  having  in  that  order  been 
elected  before  1815,  when  Kellogg  began  what  proved  to  be  a  thirty 
years'  professorship  in  the  ancient  languages.  Eleven  years  after 
this  he  married  a  wife,  and  moved  out  of  the  northeast  corner  room 
of  the  old  West  College,  second  story,  into  a  house  that  stood  a  little 
west  on  the  Main  Street  of  the  old  president's  house.  So  long  as  he 
roomed  in  West  College,  he  made  it  a  point  to  call  at  all  the  occupied 
rooms  in  that  building  at  least  once  a  day,  in  order  to  see  whether 
the  students  were  in  their  rooms,  and  attending  to  their  studies. 
This  infinitesimal  supervision  of  his  gave  him  the  nickname  of 
P  K,  which  is,  the  requisite  vowels  being  supplied,  "Peek"  He 
was  a  man  of  small  person,  conscientiously  devoted  to  small  duties, 
and  wholly  unfitted  to  inspire  in  his  students  any  enthusiasm  for  the 
Latin  and  Greek  languages,  of  which  he  was  a  routine  and  only 
rudimentary  master.  If  he  had  intelligently  spent  a  part  of  his 
time  wasted  in  useless  and  unwelcome  visits,  in  studying  his  own 
lessons  day  by  day  in  order  to  bring  out  something  from  the  text 
fresh  and  interesting  to  the  minds  of  his  pupils,  at  the  same  time 
teaching  them  to  respect  him  as  a  living  teacher  making  constant 
progress  himself,  and  as  a  manly  man  able  and  willing  to  trust  a 
class  of  students  until  he  found  out  who  of  them  (if  any)  were 
untrustworthy,  he  would  have  helped  to  make  the  six  years  of 
Moore's  presidency  less  dreary,  and  have  contributed  to  make  that 
worthy  official  more  hopeful  than  he  was  of  the  success  of  the 
College  on  this  ground. 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL    THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       423 

It  is  plain  enough  from  the  obituary  discourse  of  Mark  Hopkins, 
preached  in  October,  1846,  just  after  the  death  of  Professor  Kellogg, 
that  the  latter  had  many  merits  as  a  college  officer.  "  Very  pleasant 
hast  thou  been  unto  me"  was  the  text  of  that  discourse.  In  his 
relations  to  his  colleagues  he  was  perhaps  all  that  could  be  desired. 
If  odium  were  to  be  incurred  by  college  discipline,  he  was  always 
ready  to  take  his  full  share  of  it.  He  was  faithful  in  counsel,  prudent 
in  action,  patient  in  investigation,  supporting  in  his  small  and  cautious 
way  each  of  the  three  presidents  with  whom  he  served.  But  the 
first  and  dominating  duties  of  a  college  professor  are  to  the  individ- 
uals and  classes  whom  he  is  called  on  to  instruct.  Unless  he  can 
gain  their  confidence  as  an  individual  seeking  solely  their  good, 
secure  their  personal  respect  for  his  intelligence  and  ability  and  in- 
dependence, and  inspire  in  their  minds,  little  by  little  and  increas- 
ingly, some  enthusiasm  in  the  studies  they  are  pursuing  together,  he 
makes  of  necessity  a  failure  in  his  professorship.  Many  times  has 
this  been  exemplified  upon  this  ground.  The  true  and  only  primary 
constituents  of  a  college  teacher  are  his  pupils.  Unless  he  can  gain 
substantially  and  after  a  fair  trial  their  suffrages  in  good  will  and  in 
a  sense  of  obligation  to  him  for  good  and  steady  impulses  received, 
he  will  remain  a  non-elect  in  his  college  position,  no  matter  how  use- 
ful he  may  be  to  his  colleagues  in  relations  outside  of  the  class-room, 
or  how  faithfully  he  may  pick  up  the  hundred-and-one  things  that 
need  to  be  done,  and  that  belong  to  no  one  in  particular  to  do. 
"  Very  pleasant  hast  thou  been  unto  us,"  is  the  verdict  from  the  lips 
of  his  pupils,  that  at  once  acquits  the  college  teacher  of  the  minor 
faults  and  infidelities  which  belong  to  all  men,  and  marks  him  out  a 
true  success  in  the  essentials  of  his  position. 

It  has  often  been  repeated  of  Professor  Kellogg,  in  substance, 
that  the  students  respected  him  more  after  they  had  left  college, 
than  when  they  were  under  his  immediate  instruction  and  inspec- 
tion. The  proverb  has  been  quoted  in  application  to  him :  "  He  that 
rebuketh  a  man,  afterwards  shall  find  more  favor  than  he  that 
flattereth  with  his  tongue."  In  the  deliberate  judgment  of  the 
present  writer,  there  is  a  harmful  fallacy  in  the  more  or  less  current 
expression  and  implication,  that  if  a  college  officer  perform  faithfully 
his  whole  duty  to  the  college,  he  must  expect  to  be  unpopular  with 
the  students,  and  wait  for  his  reward  (so  far  as  they  are  concerned) 
until  they  are  out  of  sight  and  hearing.  The  reverse  of  all  this  is 
much  nearer  the  truth.  Everything  turns  on  what  is  his  whole  duty 
to  the  college.  His  primary  and  essential  duty  to  the  college,  to 
which  everything  else  is  subsidiary  and  incidental,  comes  within  the 


424  WILLIAMSTOWK   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

circuit  of  his  own  lecture-room.  He  is  always  to  remember,  that  each 
of  his  pupils  has  the  same  right  and  impulse  and  opportunity  to 
ascertain  what  manner  of  spirit  he  is  of,  that  he  has  to  find  out  and 
pass  judgment  upon  each  of  his  pupils  seriatim.  Their  sharp  eyes 
are  rightfully  upon  him  from  the  first  meeting  till  the  last ;  they  are 
under  no  disadvantage  as  compared  with  him  in  coming  to  slow  and 
sound  conclusions  as  to  mutual  motives  and  character;  perhaps  they 
are  young  together,  and  if  so,  all  the  surer  is  the  mutual  understand- 
ing between  teacher  and  pupils.  Many  professors  forget  this,  or 
never  stop  to  think  of  it  in  its  bearings  upon  themselves,  and  pass 
their  swift  judgments  upon  their  pupils,  as  if  they  had  the  mo- 
nopoly along  this  line  of  impression  and  conclusion,  and  as  if  they 
could  hold  themselves  inscrutable  while  scrutinizing  at  their  leisure 
their  fellow-mortals  of  less  experience.  There  is  nothing  inscrutable 
or  unfathomable  in  a  college  lecture-room.  They  who  suppose  there 
is,  and  especially  they  who  suppose  they  can  keep  back  something  in 
themselves  from  eager  gaze  and  just  estimate,  only  thereby  expose 
themselves  sooner  or  later  to  sterner  judgments  and  a  more  difficult 
recovery  of  a  mutually  good  understanding. 

If  a  college  teacher,  whether  young  or  old,  of  whatever  grade  or 
title,  it  makes  no  difference,  both  be  and  seem  to  be  in  his  own  class- 
room unselfish,  communicative,  progressive,  competent,  zealous, 
attractive,  and  kindly,  an  open  type  of  a  good  teacher,  he  will  be 
certain  to  receive  from  the  most  of  his  pupils,  and  have  not  very 
long  to  wait,  recognition  and  approbation  and  cooperation  and 
gratitude,  and  a  lasting  affection.  He  will  thus  put  himself  into  a 
steady  position  to  render  easily  and  effectively  all  the  other  subordi- 
nate duties  that  come  to  him  as  a  colleague  with  others,  and  as  a 
general  carer  for  the  welfare  of  the  college.  But  he  cannot  reverse 
this  order.  If  he  try  to  do  so,  he  is  doomed.  If  he  be,  and  if  he  is 
he  will  certainly  seem  to  be,  rather  a  colleague  and  supporter  of 
others  than  an  .independent  worker  in  his  own  sphere ;  if  he  enter 
and  occupy  his  class-room  as  if  it  were  not  his  own  throne-room, 
morally  bowing  to  some  supposed  majesty  on  the  outside  whether 
single  or  plural;  if  he  manifest  in  any  way  before  his  class  as  a 
teacher,  that  he  represents  in  any  special  sense  the  faculty  or  its 
head,  that  he  enjoys  or  desires  any  special  support  from  that  source, 
he  is  almost  certain  to  forfeit  thereby,  not  only  the  ability  otherwise 
easily  acquired  to  strengthen  his  colleagues  and  upbuild  the  college 
generally,  but  also  the  ability  to  maintain  himself  on  a  firm  footing 
as  an  integral  part  of  the  college  authority.  To  express  the  same 
thought  in  other  words,  a  college  is  a  democracy  through  and  through, 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       425 

as  its  name  implies.  The  undergraduates,  the  body  of  graduates, 
the  teaching  body,  and  the  body  of  the  trustees,  each  with  functions 
considerably  distinct  and  yet  considerably  intermingled,  is  a  democ- 
racy in  spirit  and  in  action.  Each  is  voiced  by  a  majority  of  its 
own,  not  necessarily  by  a  majority  of  mere  members,  but  of  these 
and  moral  weight  combined.  The  moment  a  spirit  and  claim  of 
autocracy  comes  into  any  one  of  these  four  democracies,  and  with  that 
a  spirit  and  exhibition  of  subserviency  and  sycophancy  of  some 
toward  others  (whether  toward  one  or  a  clique),  there  come  in  sus- 
picions and  divisions  and  disturbance  and  a  sure  loss  of  moral  hold 
on  the  part  of  those  who  seek  undue  power. 

Ebenezer  Kellogg  was  not  independent  enough  in  his  moral  posi- 
tion and  opinions  to  strengthen  as  he  might  have  done  the  suc- 
cessive faculties  of  which  he  formed  a  part ;  he  was  not  fresh  and 
vigorous  enough  in  his  own  class-room  to  secure  and  retain  the 
steady  respect  and  adherence  of  his  pupils ;  and  he  consequently 
missed  the  first  and  fairest  opportunity  ever  offered  on  this  ground 
to  push  the  classical  studies  as  such  into  a  front  and  equal  rank 
with  other  advanced  classes  of  studies.  His  colleague  professor, 
Chester  Dewey,  perhaps  as  near  the  ideal  type  of  the  all-round  pro- 
fessor as  the  College  has  ever  shown,  had  already  started  the  nat- 
ural sciences  into  that  foremost  place,  which  they  kept  without  a 
rival  throughout  the  first  third  of  the  century.  But  Professor 
Kellogg  was  on  the  whole  a  useful  college  officer.  He  tried  the 
patience  of  his  colleagues  by  minute  objections  to  all  plans  proposed 
by  them,  and  even  to  plans  proposed  by  himself.  He  often  tried  to 
magnify  small  faults  of  the  students  into  disciplinary  offences,  and 
followed  up  as  important  little  matters  which  wise  men  let  drop. 
In  one  word,  he  had  not  a  good  sense  of  proportion  as  to  the  ordi- 
nary on-goings  of  college  life.  Yet  in  many  things  he  had  a  clear 
eye  to  the  benefit  of  the  College  and  of  the  community.  He  orig- 
inated the  idea  of  the  College  garden,  and  of  the  Horticultural 
Society,  which  at  one  time  embraced  nearly  every  student  in  College. 
He  himself  purchased  the  ground  for  the  College  garden,  and  pre- 
sented it  to  the  corporation ;  and  he  devised  the  plan  by  which  the 
members  of  the  Horticultural  Society  divided  their  summer's  task 
among  themselves.  "A  share  in  the  cultivation  of  a  beautiful 
flower-bed  has  fallen  to  my  lot,"  wrote  David  A.  Wells  in  the  spring 
of  his  Senior  year.  "  Many  improvements  in  the  College  grounds 
are  to  be  made  this  summer.  What  a  blessing  is  a  large  and  lux- 
uriant flower-garden. "  Wells  was  graduated  in  1847,  three  years 
after  Kellogg  resigned  his  professorship  on  the  ground  of  feeble 


426  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

health,  and  one  year  after  his  death  in  Connecticut.  In  the  first- 
mentioned  year  the  corporation  had  occasion  to  build  a  new  dor- 
mitory on  the  West  College  grounds,  which  they  appropriately 
named  "  Kellogg  Hall,"  for  they  placed  it  on  the  patch  of  land  which 
Kellogg  had  bought  for  the  College  garden.  The  garden  as  such 
shortly  after  disappeared  for  obvious  reasons,  but  the  modest  build- 
ing still  remains  a  memorial,  rather  of  the  gentle  care-taker  and 
gardener  than  of  the  first  professor  of  ancient  languages,  who 
was  also,  in  keeping  with  all  this,  for  several  years  the  super- 
intendent of  the  Sunday-school  at  the  Congregational  church. 
The  only  lasting  writing  that  Kellogg  left  behind  him  was  the 
brief  but  excellent  historical  account  of  Williamstown  in  Rev. 
Dr.  Field's  "  History  of  Berkshire  County,"  published  by  "  Gen- 
tlemen of  the  county,  clergymen  and  laymen,"  in  1829.  Tak- 
ing all  things  into  consideration  and  speaking  generally,  that 
book  did  great  credit  to  those  gentlemen  who  projected  and  exe- 
cuted it. 

President  Griffin  found  in  active  service  at  his  accession  the  two 
professors,  Dewey  and  Kellogg,  and  two  tutors,  Benedict  and 
Wheeler.  Benedict  had  caught,  while  in  college,  from  Chester 
Dewey,  whose  sister  he  afterward  married,  the  impulses  of  a  good 
teacher  and  the  fondness  for  the  natural  sciences  which  he  exempli- 
fied for  almost  a  life-time  in  the  University  of  Vermont  at  Burling- 
ton. In  that  initiatory  term  of  1821,  there  were  but  forty-eight 
students  in  the  whole  College.  Griffin  himself  took  the  entire 
charge  of  the  studies  and  exercises  of  the  Senior  class,  besides  the 
labor  of  preaching  one-third  of  the  time  (in  term  time)  before  the 
College  and  the  town  congregation  worshipping  together.  He  also 
proposed  from  the  beginning  to  instruct  a  class  in  theology  consist- 
ing of  members  of  the  Senior  class  and  any  post-graduates  desiring 
the  course.  This,  however,  he  carried  out  but  one  year,  their 
numbers  proving  too  few,  and  their  preparation  too  inadequate,  for 
the  punctilio  and  profundity  of  a  professor  of  theology.  Only  four 
persons  are  known  to  have  taken  this  proffered  course  in  the  one 
year ;  and  of  these  the  chief  was  Parsons  Cooke  of  the  class  of  1822, 
whose  "  Eecollections  of  Dr.  Griffin,"  published  by  the  Massachu- 
setts Sabbath-school  Society  thirty  years  later,  have  furnished  the 
current  pages  with  several  interesting  incidents.  Cooke's  college 
classmate,  Woodbridge,  a  grandson  of  Jonathan  Edwards  through 
the  latter's  daughter  Lucy,  was  afterward  associated  with  him  in 
the  editorship  of  the  "Puritan  Eecorder"  of  Boston.  Both  were 
also  associated  with  Williamstown  through  their  marriage  with  the 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       427 

two  Starkweather  sisters,  Hannah  and  Catherine,  daughters  of  the 
old  postmaster  here. 

Griffin  was  doubtless  disappointed  in  the  failure  of  his  offered 
course  in  theology,  as  in  several  other  matters  connected  with  his 
presidency,  but  no  blame  is  to  be  laid  at  his  door  for  these.  Con- 
trary to  an  impression  that  has  long  prevailed,  and  that  has  been 
innocently  deepened  by  several  generations  of  well-wishers  to  the 
College,  candidates  for  the  ministry  and  even  professors  of  religion 
were  relatively  few  among  the  students  during  the  first  half-century 
of  the  College.  The  famous  "haystack  prayer-meeting"  and  its 
successors  would  never  have  been  heard  of,  had  not  the  few  pious 
students  in  those  days  found  it  needful  to  seek  out  secluded  and 
distant  places  for  their  devotions  on  account  of  the  prevalence  of 
levity  and  infidelity  in  the  mass  of  the  College.  Dr.  Griffin  himself 
put  on  record  some  surprising  statements  respecting  the  paucity  of 
Christian  students  in  the  earlier  time.  "During  the  first  seven 
years  of  the  existence  of  the  College  (in  which  ninety-three  gradu- 
ated in  six  classes),  there  were  but  five  professors  of  religion  in  the 
institution,  exclusive  of  two,  who,  seven  months  before  the  close  of 
that  period  were  brought  into  the  church  by  revivals  in  Litchfield 
County.  In  three  of  the  six  classes  just  named  there  was  not  a 
single  professor  of  religion.  From  the  Commencement  in  1798  till 
February,  1800,  there  was  but  one  professor  of  religion  in  college. 
From  the  fall  of  that  year  [1800],  in  the  four  classes,  which  after- 
wards sent  out  eighty  graduates,  there  were  but  two  professors. 
The  earliest  revival  known  to  this  town  commenced  in  the  spring 
of  1805,  and  continued  between  two  and  three  years.  It  soon  ex- 
tended to  the  College,  where  five  began  to  hope.  In  the-  [next] 
spring  a  new  impulse  was  given  to  the  work.  Mills  and  Hall 
entered  college  that  spring.  The  work  seems  to  have  continued 
beyond  the  summer,  for  one  account  says,  '  Thirteen  were  added  to 
the  church,  of  whom  nine  became  ministers  of  the  Gospel.  Ten 
others  were  supposed  to  be  subjects  of  the  revival.' 

"  In  January,  1812,  another  revival  commenced  in  town,  under  the 
preaching  of  the  Rev.  Samuel  Nott,  one  of  the  first  five  missionaries 
who  went  out  that  year  to  India.  In  April  and  May  it  extended  to 
the  College,  chiefly  to  the  lower  classes.  Twenty-four  were  hope- 
fully converted  then,  and  a  number  afterwards.  In  June,  1815, 
the  first  president,  Dr.  Fitch,  left  the  College.  His  parting  sermon 
had  a  great  effect  upon  the  students.  A  third  revival  followed. 
Fifteen  were  hopefully  renewed  in  the  course  of  the  summer.  In 
March,  1824,  a  fourth  revival  appeared  to  commence  in  the  person 


428  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

of  William  Hervey.  Twelve  or  fourteen  used  to  attend  the  inquiry 
meetings.  Several  obtained  hopes,  who  endured  but  for  a  time. 
Hervey  alone  persevered.  Of  the  others  that  were  impressed,  one 
obtained  a  hope  in  the  summer  of  1825,  and  another  (Mark  Hopkins) 
joined  the  church  [in  Stockbridge]  after  he  was  graduated.  When 
College  came  together  in  October,  1825,  the  arrows  of  the  Almighty 
stuck  fast  in  several  hearts.  Some  old  hopes  were  scattered  to  the 
winds.  A  fifth  revival  ensued.  During  the  latter  part  of  the  term 
the  power  was  astonishingly  great,  affecting  almost  the  whole  College. 
Of  eighty-five  students,  full  seventy  thought  themselves  Christians. 
The  impression  was  kept  up  during  the  spring  term,  and  then  it 
ended.  In  this  revival  thirty-five  experienced  hopes,  some  of  which 
were  soon  renounced.  The  sixth  revival  began  about  the  1st  of 
March,  1827,  and  continued  till  vacation.  It  spent  its  chief  force 
on  the  two  lower  classes,  from  which  six  professed  religion.  In 
October,  1828,  some  seriousness  appeared,  which  continued  through 
that  and  the  next  term.  Nine  visited  me  under  some  impressions. 
Inquiry  meetings  were  set  up.  One  obtained  a  hope,  which  was 
soon  renounced.  Not  an  individual  held  out.  Three  of  them,  how- 
ever, have  since  given  evidence  of  a  saving  change. 

"A  seventh  revival  appeared  to  commence  in  November,  1829. 
That  month  two  gave  evidence  of  piety,  who  still  continue.  High 
hopes  were  entertained  and  a  determination  was  taken  to  pray  till 
the  blessing  came.  Meetings  for  prayer  accompanied  with  consider- 
able excitement  were  kept  up  through  the  term,  and  through  the 
long  winter  vacation,  and  through  the  spring  term.  I  attended  until 
broken  off  by  sickness  in  April,  1830.  In  the  course  of  the  winter, 
two  more  expressed  hopes,  one  of  which  proved  doubtful.  On  the 
evening  of  January  6,  1831,  I  was  sent  for  to  visit  Troy,  where  the 
first  in  the  series  of  protracted  meetings  in  this  region  had  lately 
been  held,  and  where  a  great  revival  had  begun.  I  went  on  the  8th, 
and  returned  on  the  19th.  Something  had  begun  to  appear  in  town 
before  I  left  home,  and  on  Friday  evening,  the  21st,  I  went  to  a 
meeting  to  tell  the  people  what  I  had  seen.  One  of  the  students, 
hearing  that  a  statement  was  to  be  made,  went,  and  was  awakened. 
The  next  week  we  had  a  four  days'  meeting,  beginning  with  a  fast 
and  ending  with  the  communion  Sabbath.  This  was  the  second 
protracted  meeting  in  the  series,  and  was  attended  with  an  evident 
blessing.  A  revival  began  in  town.  During  the  vacation  two  of  the 
students  obtained  hopes  here,  and  two  more  in  Troy.  When  College 
came  together,  the  10th  of  February,  it  was  a  time  of  great  solem- 
nity. The  month  of  March  was  full  of  power.  By  the  2d  of  April, 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       429 

twenty,  including  those  already  mentioned,  were  apparently  rejoicing 
in  the  truth.  Of  those,  four  soon  renounced  their  hope ;  the  other 
sixteen,  for  ought  I  know,  still  endure,  and  the  greater  part  appear 
like  devoted  Christians.  These  eight  revivals  the  pity  of  Heaven 
has  granted  to  this  College  in  twenty-six  years,  five  of  which,  includ- 
ing two  of  less  extent,  have  appeared  in  seven  years. 

"April  18,  1832.  There  is  at  the  present  moment  the  ninth  re- 
vival going  on  in  College.  On  the  18th  of  January  we  had  a  fast  in 
town  to  pray  for  such  a  blessing  in  the  College  and  congregation. 
After  that,  I  recommended  it  to  the  students  who  stayed  in  vaca- 
tion, to  hold  meetings  for  prayer.  The  third  which  we  had .  was  on 
the  1st  of  February,  and  I  was  invited  to  attend.  I  found  the  meet- 
ing uncommonly  interesting  and  encouraging.  I  was  then  laboring 
under  the  commencement  of  a  disease  which  confined  me  till  the 
middle  of  March.  In  the  interval,  a  protracted  meeting  was  held  in 
town,  and  a  revival  commenced  there ;  and  the  spirit  of  prayer  was 
greatly  increased  in  College,  and  a  spirit  of  inquiry  began  among  the 
impenitent.  The  first  hopeful  conversion  in  College  took  place  on 
the  16th  of  March,  two  days  before  I  resumed  my  public  labors  in 
the  house  of  God.  There  are  seven  students  who  now  venture  to 
hope  that  they  have  "  passed  from  death  unto  life."  Everything  is 
conducted  with  perfect  stillness  and  decorum.  The  means  employed 
in  these  revivals  have  been  but  two,  —  the  clear  presentation  of  Di- 
vine truth  and  prayer.  The  meetings  have  been  still  and  orderly, 
with  no  other  sign  of  emotion  among  the  hearers  than  the  solemn 
look  and  the  silent  tear.  We  have  been  anxiously  studious  to  guard 
against  delusive  hopes,  and  to  expose  the  windings  of  a  deceitful 
heart,  forbearing  all  encouragement,  except  what  the  converts  them- 
selves could  derive  from  Christ  and  the  promises,  knowing  that  any 
reliance  on  our  opinion  was  drawing  comfort  from  us,  and  not  from 
the  Saviour.  We  have  not  accustomed  them  to  the  bold  and  unquali- 
fied language  that  such  a  one  is  converted,  but  have  used  a  dialect 
calculated  to  keep  alive  a  sense  of  the  danger  of  deception.  For 
similar  reasons  we  have  kept  them  back  from  a  public  profession 
about  three  months." 

These  copious  extracts,  relating  to  the  early  religious  history  of 
the  town  and  College,  have  all  been  copied  from  an  elaborate  letter 
of  Dr.  Griffin's  to  the  Rev.  Dr.  Sprague  of  Albany,  who  later  became 
his  biographer  and  the  editor  of  his  published  sermons.  This  matter 
is  valuable,  because  it  is  the  only  corrected  account  extant  of  the 
early  revivals  of  religion,  so-called,  in  the  town  and  the  College,  re- 
garded as  a  part  of  one  whole.  This  unity  of  interest  and  spirit  as 


430  WILLIAMSTOWN  AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

between  the  two  was  strikingly  exhibited  upon  almost  all  occasions 
during  much  the  larger  part  of  the  first  century  of  the  College.  The 
first  severe  strain  and  snap  came  in  an  unexpected  quarter,  and  as 
between  individual  parties  representing  the  two  large  and  perma- 
nent bodies,  of  whom  it  could  not  have  been  reasonably  anticipated. 
The  present  writer  has  preferred  to  introduce  to  his  readers  Presi- 
dent Griffin  rather  upon  his  religious  than  upon  his  scholastic  side, 
for  the  reason  that  that  side  is  more  characteristic  of  him  and  more 
favorable  to  him  personally  than  the  other.  Griffin  was  called  to 
Williams  in  dark  times,  solely  on  the  ground  that  he  had  a  large 
reputation  as  a  preacher.  The  ground  was  too  narrow  to  predicate 
success  upon.  It  was  too  narrow  to  achieve  success  upon.  But  it 
was  sound  so  far  as  it  went.  That  quality  in  predominance  could 
not  make  a  good  president  for  a  struggling  college  as  Williams  was 
then.  But  it  could  call  attention  to  the  College,  could  diffuse  a  sort 
of  glow  over  it,  and  could  win  some  students  of  a  certain  grade  and 
tendencies  to  it  as  pupils.  This  it  did  for  a  number  of  years. 
Strong  religious  motives  were  powerfully  brought  to  bear  upon  these 
classes,  in  conjunction  with  relatively  weak  scholastic  motives  of  the 
several  kinds  that  a  small  college  under  those  circumstances  offers. 
Great  good  was  accomplished  on  the  whole.  Two  or  three  subordi- 
nate teachers  did  good  work  in  their  several  departments.  Griffin 
himself  was  a  good  teacher  in  the  Senior  classes  of  public  reading 
and  of  rhetoric  generally.  He  was  a  good  critic  of  the  efforts  of  the 
students  in  all  their  writing,  and  especially  in  all  their  elocution. 
He  exemplified  constantly  before  them  in  the  class-room  and  in  the 
pulpit  sound  principles  of  expression,  both  verbal  and  vocal. 

But  it  is  a  curious  point  to  notice,  that  Griffin's  first  decided  break 
with  his  environment,  the  first  emphatic  clash  between  town  and  Col- 
lege, took  place  in  relations  at  which  there  had  always  been  the 
steadiest  harmony  between  the  two,  namely,  their  religious  relations 
and  interactions.  Eev.  Whitman  Welch,  the  first  pastor  in  the  town, 
a  young  man  about  whose  career  in  life  and  death  an  extraordinary 
interest  gathers,  and  apparently  more  and  more  as  time  glides  on,1 
was  followed  in  the  pastorate  by  two  men  of  greater  age  but  lesser 
picturesqueness,  and  as  well  by  an  interregnum  of  more  than  six 
years,  when,  in  October,  1816,  another  young  man  of  unusual  capaci- 
ties, Kev.  Ealph  W.  Gridley,  was  ordained  and  installed  here.  His 
father  was  a  Massachusetts  minister,  and  he  was  a  graduate  of  Yale 
College  in  1814.  Like  Welch,  he  commenced  his  ministry  here  in 
the  freshness  of  his  youth,  made  a  straight  path  into  the  confidence 
1  See  Origins  in  Williamstown,  pp.  142,  463,  471,  473,  474,  528. 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE  TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       431 

and  affection  of  his  people,  and  was  a  faithful  and  laborious  pastor 
for  almost  eighteen  years,  when  he  was  dismissed  at  his  own  request 
in  1834,  in  consequence  of  Griffin's  sublimated  disagreements  with 
him  as  to  methods  and  measures  in  conducting  revivals  on  this  con- 
joint ground,  and  removed  with  his  family  as  a  home  missionary  to 
Illinois,  where  his  labors,  though  of  comparatively  short  continuance, 
were  greatly  blessed.  He  died  at  Ottawa  in  1840,  greatly  lamented 
by  the  churches  and  people  to  whom  he  ministered. 

Gridley  had  been  only  five  years  a  pastor,  and  was  still  compara- 
tively a  boy,  when  Griffin  swooped  down  into  the  valley,  as  monarch 
of  all  he  surveyed,  in  1821.  As  it  was  his  function  to  preach  in  the 
meeting-house  one-third  of  the  time  throughout  the  college  year,  the 
students  and  the  congregation  felt  and  professed  great  admiration 
for  the  years-thumbed  sermons  of  the  celebrated  president ;  and  the 
conscientious  young  minister  was  put  at  a  moral  disadvantage,  espe- 
cially as  before  the  students,  the  other  two-thirds  of  the  time ;  little 
by  little,  however,  his  modesty  and  fidelity  and  spiritual  earnestness 
won  on  the  congregation,  who  regarded  him  as  their  own,  and  more 
or  less  on  the  students  also.  During  those  revivals  of  religion  already 
characterized  for  us  by  Dr.  Griffin,  which  became  common  to  the  Col- 
lege and  to  the  town,  it  was  natural  and  inevitable  that  the  manage- 
ment of  these,  so  far  as  they  prevailed  in  the  town,  should  fall  to 
the  pastor,  and  so  far  as  they  prevailed  in  the  College,  to  the  presi- 
dent. Particularly  this  became  the  case  in  the  winter  of  1830,  when 
the  attendance  of  the  president  upon  the  meetings  in  town  was 
broken  off  by  sickness,  and  when  we  hear  through  him  that  the 
"  meetings  were  attended  with  considerable  excitement " ;  and  also 
in  the  winter  of  1831,  when  the  president  was  invited  to  labor  in 
Troy  for  two  weeks,  and  "  a  protracted  meeting  "  or  two  was  holden 
in  town.  The  pastor,  as  the  younger  and  more  open-hearted  man  of 
the  two,  less  self-centred  and  opinionated,  was  much  more  favor- 
able than  the  president  to  what  was  then  called,  in  the  parlance  of 
the  time,  " new  measures"  in  contrast  controversially  with  " old  meas- 
ures" Mr.  Mnney,  in  his  wonderfully  useful  evangelistic  labors  at 
about  the  same  time,  struck  into  this  difference  of  opinion  as  to 
method,  and  clung  the  rather  to  "  old  measures "  for  many  years. 
Perhaps  the  radical  difference  between  the  two  may  be  expressed  in 
this  way :  old  measures  kept  the  emphasis  all  the  while  upon  the 
evangelist,  —  his  hand  was  firmly  on  the  throttle,  and  only  such 
steam  in  such  volume  as  he  judged  best  was  allowed  to  escape;  while 
the  "new  measures"  gave  scope  and  expression  to  the  feelings  and 
choices  of  the  special  subjects  of  the  revival.  "  Going  forward  for 


432  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

prayer,"  or,  as  the  same  was  sometimes  called,  "  taking  the  anxious  • 
seat,"  and  also  time  and  encouragement  given  to  the  new  converts 
to  express  publicly  their  feelings  and  determinations,  were  the  two 
prominent  criteria  of  the  "  measures  "  as  contrasted. 

As  was  entirely  characteristic  of  the  two  men,  Griffin  was  strenu- 
ous for  orderly  preaching  and  dominant  leadership  in  all  religious 
awakenings  in  which  he  profoundly  believed  and  powerfully  minis- 
tered ;  insensibly,  as  it  were,  in  accordance  with  his  entire  make-up 
as  a  man  and  a  minister,  Gridley  fell  in  with  the  more  popular 
measures,  and  into  a  social  and  neighborhood  leadership  to  which  he 
was  admirably  adapted.  This  brought  the  two  men  and  the  two 
sets  of  measures  into  blunt  antagonism.  Griffin  was  falling  into  his 
dotage,  which  only  intensified  the  natural  and  acquired  imperious- 
ness  of  his  temper,  and  his  overestimate  of  himself  in  relations  with 
his  colleagues  and  contemporaries.  In  the  spring  of  1833  he  re- 
ceived a  slight  paralytic  shock  in  his  left  side,  which  was  plainly 
the  beginning  of  the  end ;  the  subsequent  year  he  became  subject  to 
a  dropsical  affection  in  his  chest  and  lower  extremities ;  and  from 
that  time  it  was  evident  to  everybody  but  himself  that  the  infirmities 
of  age  and  disease  had  gathered  upon  him  to  abide.  The  pastor  had 
no  desire  for  contention,  or  even  for  its  semblance.  He  only  wished 
to  loosen  as  readily  as  might  be  the  strong  ties  that  bound  him  to 
his  own  people,  in  order  that  he  might  realize  his  hope  of  greater 
usefulness  in  the  West,  in  more  untrammelled  action  as  a  home 
missionary.  He  was  dismissed  at  his  own  request  from  the  church 
and  society  here  in  April,  1834.  Already  more  than  sixty  years  has 
the  fragrance  of  that  good  man's  memory  lingered  in  certain  homes 
of  his  first  and  blessed  settlement. 

A  month  or  two  after  Mr.  Gridley's  dismissal,  at  the  instance  of 
President  Griffin,  an  independent  church  was  formed  in  the  College, 
with  the  president  pro  tempore  as  the  college  pastor,  and  this  form 
of  organization  has  continued  till  the  present  time.  The  initial 
ceremony  of  its  formation  was  almost  pathetic  in  its  simplicity. 
Dr.  Griffin  had  drawn  up  a  series  of  articles  of  faith  and  the  form  of 
a  mutual  covenant,  substantially  the  same  that  are  still  in  use  and 
acceptance,  and  had  invited  the  faculty  and  the  professors  of  re- 
ligion among  the  students  to  a  Sabbath  service  by  themselves  in  the 
college  chapel.  These  had  previously  obtained  letters  of  dismissal 
from  their  respective  churches  and  of  recommendation  to  a  new 
church  to  be  constituted  in  this  way.  In  a  service  of  this  character, 
President  Griffin  was  more  in  his  "element"  than  in  any  other 
possible  earthly  function.  The  professors  and  students  present 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       433 

presented  to  him  their  certificates,  and,  on  being  called  by  name, 
arose  in  their  places  in  the  chapel,  and  publicly  assented  to  the 
articles  of  faith,  and  renewed  their  covenant  with  God  and  with 
each  other.  The  three  first  names  on  the  church  records  of  these 
proceedings  are  those  of  Mark  Hopkins,  Albert  Hopkins,  and  Simeon 
H.  Calhoun.  The  first  of  these  continued  in  uninterrupted  com- 
munion and  membership  in  the  little  church  thus  organized  for 
fifty-three  years,  until  his  death  in  1887.  His  brother  Albert  con- 
tinued with  him  in  such  fellowship  without  change  until  his  death 
in  1872.  Simeon  Howard  Calhoun,  then  a  tutor  in  the  College,  and 
later  for  a  long  lifetime  an  eminent  missionary  of  the  American 
Board  on  Mount  Lebanon,  held  high  the  torch  of  life  and  light  in 
intimate  conjunction  with  the  two  others  until  his  own  death  in  1876. 
The  following  is  the  initial  record  of  the  college  church,  and  also 
the  names  of  the  original  members. 

The  faculty  having  decided  to  form  a  church  in  Williams  College,  for  the  sake 
of  giving  the  students  the  advantages  of  its  watch  and  care,  invited  those 
who  were  members  of  other  churches  to  bring  certificates  of  dismission  and 
recommendation  to  the  church  about  to  be  formed  here.  Whereupon  the  fol- 
lowing persons,  members  of  the  Faculty  and  members  of  the  classes,  presented 
their  certificates  ;  and  being  called  upon  by  the  president  as  professor  of  divinity 
and  pastor,  they  arose  in  the  chapel  on  the  15th  day  of  June,  1834,  (being  the 
Sabbath,)  and  publicly  assented  to  the  articles  of  faith,  drawn  up  for  the  new 
church,  and  renewed  their  covenant  with  God  and  entered  into  covenant  with 
each  other,  and  thus  formed  themselves  into  a  distinct  church. 

MARK  HOPKINS  WORCESTER  WILLEY 

ALBERT  HOPKINS  HIRAM  BELL 

SIMEON  H.  CALHOUN  SAMUEL  D.  DARLING 

GEORGE  H.  BASSETT  ANSON  L.  HOBART 

NATHANIEL  H.  GRIFFIN  EPHRAIM  W.  KELLOGG 

ROYAL  REED  JEREMIAH  A.  SPENCER 

SAMUEL  C.  WILCOX  EDWARD  CLARK 
ROLAND  S.  HOWES  * 

This  quiet  founding  of  the  college  church  on  a  June  Sabbath  in 
1834  was  the  last  official  act  of  any  special  significance  of  President 
Griffin.  He  had  already  practically  ceased  to  teach  on  account  of 
bodily  infirmities,  although  for  a  year  longer  he  occasionally  met  the 
Senior  class  for  some  special  exercise.  Even  this  ceased  a  full  year 
before  his  resignation  in  1836.  The  late  Joseph  White  of  that  class 
told  the  writer,  that  they  never  once  met  the  president  in  their 
class-room  for  any  purpose.  He  suffered  from  a  species  of  gout, 
that  made  walking  or  standing  extremely  painful  to  him.  It  shows 
1  Copy  furnished  by  Professor  Fernald,  clerk  of  the  church. 
2p 


434  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

the  amazing  self-conceit  of  the  man  in  his  old  age,  that,  although  he 
had  been  unfitted  properly  to  perform  the  duties  of  a  president  ever 
after  his  first  paralytic  stroke  in  1833,  and  although  others  came  to 
perform  in  his  stead  all  the  functions  of  his  place,  he  made  not  the 
slightest  advance  to  the  trustees  in  the  way  of  the  resignation  of 
his  place.  At  the  Senior  examination,  in  Juty,  1836,  although  the 
president  had  never  heard  a  single  recitation  in  that  class,  and 
although  it  was  perfectly  evident  to  the  committee  of  trustees 
present  that  he  could  do  nothing  more  for  the  College,  and  stood 
in  the  way  of  others  doing  what  needed  to  be  done,  they  were 
compelled  to  send  one  of  their  own  number  to  him  to  tell  him  in 
so  many  words  what  a  man  of  common  sense  and  of  a  reasonable 
estimate  of  himself  would  have  been  conscious  of  certainly  for  an 
entire  year,  if  not  two  years.  The  late  Emerson  Davis,  of  West- 
field,  was  present  at  that  Senior  examination  as  one  of  the  standing 
committee  of  trustees,  and  gave  twenty  years  later  the  following 
written  account  of  what  then  took  place :  — 

It  was  not  entirely  a  spontaneous  movement  on  his  [Griffin's]  part.  It  is  not 
common  for  men,  whose  strength  is  declining,  to  be  first  to  discover  that  their 
days  of  usefulness  are  at  an  end.  At  the  Senior  examination,  in  July,  1836,  it 
was  very  manifest  to  the  standing  committee  of  the  trustees,  that  Dr.  Griffin 
would  not  be  able  to  continue  to  perform  the  duties  of  his  office  another  year. 
They  foresaw  that  it  would  be  necessary  for  the  trustees  to  take  some  action  on 
the  subject  at  their  annual  meeting  in  August,  and  that  it  would  be  desirable 
that  Dr.  Griffin  himself  should  bring  the  matter  before  the  board,  in  such  a  form 
as  should  be  agreeable  to  his  feelings.  The  late  Dr.  Shepard  of  Lenox,  as  chair- 
man of  the  committee,  had  a  friendly  interview  with  him,  and  told  him  frankly 
the  fears  they  entertained  in  regard  to  his  future  labors.  Dr.  Griffin  seemed 
at  first  astounded  at  the  suggestion  that  he  was  an  old  man.  "Is  it  possible," 
said  he,  "  that  I  must  retire  from  active  service,  at  this  period  of  my  life,  when 
most  of  my  ancestors  lived  to  a  great  age  ?  "  In  the  morning  he  met  the  com- 
mittee and  told  them  the  path  of  duty  was  clear  in  reference  to  himself,  and 
that  he  should  resign  at  the  Commencement. 

In  his  own  diary  is  the  following  entry,  written  on  the  Sunday 
succeeding  the  Senior  examination:  "On  the  occasion  of  the  late 
visit  of  the  standing  committee  of  the  trustees,  I  became  fully  con- 
vinced as  I  could  be  by  a  voice  from  heaven,  that  it  will  be  my  duty 
to  resign  at  Commencement."  It  would  have  been  far  more  to  his 
credit  if  he  had  become  equally  convinced  eighteen  months  before, 
and  had  communicated  his  conviction  to  the  trustees,  and  had  thus 
given  them  an  opportunity  for  preliminary  inquiries  and  careful 
judgment  in  relation  to  a  suitable  successor.  A  change  in  the 
nominal  head  of  a  college  ought  never  to  be,  and  in  connection  with 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       435 

proper  public  counsels  and  a  proper  organization  of  the  two  special 
boards  of  control,  never  would  become,  the  sudden  and  portentous 
and  ill-issuing  matter,  that  has  been  many  times  witnessed  in  the 
colleges  of  New  England  during  the  century  now  closing.  The 
question  is  one  that  primarily  concerns  the  public,  to  which  the 
eleemosynary  funds  really  belong,  by  which  these  are  exempted  from 
taxation,  and  by  whose  constant  supervision  and  recurring  benevo- 
lence the  institutions  are  maintained  in  life  and  vigor.  The  record 
at  Williams  of  the  primal  appointments  and.  final  resignations  of 
the  several  presidents  for  the  century  has  not  been  altogether  repu- 
table ;  and  we  are  dealing  now  with  one  of  the  resignations  that  was 
not  even  respectable ;  here  was  a  man  wholly  unable  to  render  the 
services  for  which  alone  his  salary  had  been  promised  and  paid, 
regarding  himself  as  having  a  right  year  after  year  to  both  position 
and  emoluments,  and  regarding  himself  as  displaying  great  virtue 
in  surrendering  these  to  others  who  should  render  the  essential 
equivalents. 

We  happen  to  have  the  testimony  of  another  eye-  and  ear-witness 
of  something  that  took  place  in  connection  with  Griffin's  resignation, 
that,  namely,  of  Dwight  Whitney  Marsh  of  the  class  of  1842.  "  As 
I  was  walking  in  the  hall,  I  met  him  as  he  was  returning  from  the 
meeting  of  the  trustees,  his  daughter,  Mrs.  Smith,  having  his  arm. 
He  stood  and  said  to  me,  'Well,  sir,  I  have  just  been  to  tender  my 
resignation  to  the  trustees.'  Mrs.  Smith,  drawing  her  arm  from  his, 
was  about  retiring.  '  Stop,  my  dear,  hear  what  I  am  going  to  say. 
When  I  came  here,  God  made  my  duty  as  clear  as  the  noonday,  and 
now  He  has  made  it  just  as  clearly  my  duty  to  resign.' "  Edward 
Dorr  Griffin,  in  his  superannuated  imbecility  and  disgusting  piousity, 
may  have  needed  Divine  assistance  to  help  him  see  his  duty  in  these 
premises ;  an  ordinary  and  uninflated  Christian  needed  nothing  more 
than  a  decent  sense  of  what  is  fair  and  fit  as  between  man  and  man. 
A  graduate  of  that  year,  1836,  at  an  alumni  dinner  forty  years  after- 
ward, related  his  own  personal  experience  in  taking  leave  of  the 
president  at  Commencement:  "He  begged  and  beseeched  of  me, 
throwing  his  arms  about  my  neck,  to  do  what  I  could  for  him,  after 
all,  to  put  him  back  in  his  old  place ! "  Near  the  opening  of  the 
fall  term,  arrangements  having  been  made  for  his  return  to  Newark, 
into  the  family  of  his  son-in-law,  Lyndon  A.  Smith,  the  only  condi- 
tion prescribed  by  him  for  his  admission  being,  that  he  might 
continue  his  custom  of  a  double  invocation  both  before  and  after 
the  daily  meals,  the  faculty  invited  him  to  a  farewell  dinner  at 
the  Mansion  House ;  and,  on  the  morning  of  his  departure,  which 


436  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

was  September  28,  the  students  -waited  on  him  in  a  body,  and 
presented  him  with  a  respectful  address  of  farewell ;  to  which  he 
replied,  with  overflowing  feelings,  from  his  carriage,  and  so  took 
final  leave  of  scenes  and  persons  with  which  he  had  conspicuously 
mingled  for  fifteen  years.  In  the  minds  of  some  of  those  persons 
both  in  town  and  College  he  had  excited  feelings  of  sympathy  and 
admiration;  while  in  the  minds  of  many  others,  both  citizens  and 
students,  he  excited  a  very  different  set  of  feelings,  and  increasingly 
so  as  old  age  and  other  disabilities  came  upon  him. 

The  following  is  the  address  of  the  students  referred  to,  with  the 
names  of  their  committee.  It  must  always  be  remembered,  that 
language,  under  such  circumstances  as  these,  tends  toward  some 
extravagance  of  expression.  This  remark  is  applicable  even  to  the 
eulogy  on  Dr.  Griffin  delivered  after  his  death,  in  the  college  chapel 
by  his  successor,  Mark  Hopkins. 

REVEREND  SIR 

Prompted  by  the  feelings  which  the  near  departure  of  one  so  respected  and 
esteemed,  naturally  elicits,  the  college  assembled  this  morning  and  appointed  us 
their  committee  to  express  to  you  their  sentiments  on  this  occasion. 

Those  of  them  who  have  been  witnesses  and  partakers  of  the  benefits  you 
have  conferred  on  the  college,  acted  from  the  deep  feeling  of  gratitude :  those 
who  have  lately  become  of  the  number  of  students,  were  influenced  by  your 
celebrity  as  a  preacher,  your  character  as  a  man. 

Knowing  this,  it  is  with  peculiar  feelings  that  we  have  undertaken  to  become 
their  organ,  and  we  should  despair  of  expressing  to  you  their  opinions,  were  we 
not  conscious  of  their  active  existence  in  our  own  bosoms.  When  a  distinguished 
man  departs  from  the  scene  of  his  former  actions,  he  is  followed  by  the  aspira- 
tions of  those  who  have  been  benefited  by  his  influence.  If  to  have  given  celeb- 
rity to  our  Alma  Mater  and  a  name  of  which  we  can  proudly  boast,  if  to  have 
given  us  sound  moral  and  religious  principles  on  which  we  can  firmly  base  our 
actions  and  to  have  exemplified  the  beauty  and  simplicity  of  a  good  man's 
career,  have  conferred  on  us  obligations,  you  will  appreciate  the  feelings  which 
agitate  our  minds  at  the  thought  of  your  departure.  Praise  we  do  not  offer,  for 
it  would  be  futile,  useless  to  one  who  stands  so  high  in  the  opinion  of  all ;  but 
we  present  you  with  a  better  gift,  our  kindest  feelings  and  hopes  for  your  future 
welfare. 

In  the  name  of  the  college,  we  bid  you  an  affectionate  farewell. 

LEWIS  BENEDICT  JR. 
SAML  G.  JONES 
THOS.  A.  HALL 

LABAN  S.  SHERMAN 

„,,    .  ^  Committee 

ISRAEL  W.  ANDREWS 

KUFUS  G.  WELLS 
BARNABA.S  COLLINS 
To  OLIVER  DIMON 

REV.  E.  D.  GRIFFIN  D.D.  Sept.  27,  1836. 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       437 

The  students  also  took  action,  as  follows,  on  learning  of  Dr. 
Griffin's  death  about  a  year  after  he  left  Williamstown,  in  a  letter 
to  his  son-in-law,  Dr.  L.  A.  Smith. 

WMS  COLLEGE  Nov.  14  1837. 
DEAR  SIR — 

The  students  of  Williams  College,  learning  with  the  deepest  regret  the 
decease  of  the  venerable  Dr.  Griffin,  so  lately  at  the  head  of  this  Institution, 
have  appointed  the  undersigned,  to  express  to  the  relatives  of  the  deceased  their 
admiration  of  his  virtues,  and  their  affectionate  regard  for  his  memory. 

In  discharging  this  duty,  allow  us  in  behalf  of  the  College,  to  offer  the  con- 
dolence of  sincere  hearts. 

By  this  death,  the  College  has  been  deprived  of  its  foster-father,  the  church 
of  an  ornament,  and  his  family  of  an  affectionate  parent. 

His  life  was  one  of  activity  and  usefulness.  But  it  needs  not  the  feeble  tribute 
of  our  praise.  His  name  is  connected  with  the  benevolent  Institutions  of  the 
day,  it  is  incorporated  with  the  history  of  religion,  and  more  than  all,  it  is  written 
in  the  Lamb's  book  of  life. 

The  light  of  Eternity  only,  can  disclose  the  amount  of  his  usefulness. 

It  was  chiefly  in  his  official  capacity  as  President  of  this  Institution,  that  we 
knew  him.  He  was  ever  found  the  watchful  Guardian  of  its  interests,  the 
prayerful  and  zealous  promoter  of  piety  in  its  members.  He  always  proved 
himself  the  vigorous  instructor,  and  the  affectionate  and  parental  adviser. 

His  memory  is  dear  to  those  who  received  his  instructions.  That  benefit  we 
did  not  ourselves  enjoy.  But  we  are  taught  to  reverence  him,  who  so  long  and 
so  faithfully  presided  over  the  Institution  of  which  we  are  members. 

With  the  warmest  affection  for  the  memory  of  our  late  President,  and  with 
the  liveliest  sympathy  with  the  relatives  who  mourn  his  loss, 
We  are  very  respectively 

Yours 


DANL  R.  CADY 
WM  BROSS 

DR.  L.  A.  SMITH  E.  P.  HAWKES 

Newark,  N.  J.  L  .  ROSE 

R.  G.  WELLS 
S.  J.  ANDREWS 


Committee 


On  the  other  hand,  some  students  regarded  him  as  self-conscious 
and  pompous  to  a  ridiculous  extent ;  and  others  of  them  made  it  a 
sort  of  study  to  lead  him  into  positions,  in  which  he  could  hardly 
fail  to  exhibit  himself  as  an  object  of  ridicule.  He  was  easily 
duped  by  forms  of  respect  shown  to  him  by  members  of  the  Senior 
class ;  and  he  would  sometimes  ask  services  of  them  in  a  confiden- 
tial way,  such  as  the  protection  of  his  fruit  from  depredation  in  the 
night-time,  which  were  practically  rendered  so  as  to  facilitate  the 
loss  of  the  fruit.  It  was  not  in  Williamstown  alone,  still  less  in 
the  College  alone,  that  his  ostentatious  manners  were  unfavorably, 


438  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE.  * 

if  not  ridiculously,  commented  upon.  The  late  Governor  Hiland 
Hall  of  Bennington,  who  saw  more  or  less  of  Griffin  in  his  frequent 
passages  through  Williamstowii  as  a  member  of  Congress  and 
otherwise  for  many  years,  as  well  as  in  the  pulpit  at  Bennington, 
was  once  heard  to  speak  sharply  on  this  point,  instancing  the  way 
in  which  he  would  rise  to  his  full  height  in  the  pulpit,  and  with 
a  magnificent  motion  of  his  hand  accompanying  the  oratorical  tones 
of  his  voice,  request  that  a  certain  window  might  be  lifted  or 
lowered  to  meet  his  personal  exigencies  of  air. 

It  was  in  the  assertion  of  recondite  theological  dogmas,  and  in 
detailed  descriptions  of  familiar  scenes  in  heaven  and  hell,  that 
this  pretentious  and  preternatural  mode  of  speaking  seems  at  the 
present  day,  at  any  rate,  to  be  most  hollow  and  offensive.  In  the 
final  arrangement  of  his  sermons  for  publication  during  the  last  year 
of  his  life  he  allowed  to  stand  in  two  distinct  discourses,  extending 
through  an  octavo  printed  page  or  more,  the  same  precise  passage 
and  picture  of  the  "Lamb  in  the  midst  of  the  Throne."  Parsons 
Cooke,  in  his  "Kecollections,"  is  bold  enough  to  think  the  passage 
will  bear  to  be  printed  for  the  third  time,  and  so  the  reader  will  find 
it  (if  he  care  to  look)  on  the  ninety-ninth  page  of  that  little  treatise, 
or  tract.  Three  sentences  near  the  beginning  of  the  passage,  how- 
ever, may  do  a  double  duty  in  this  place,  namely,  fully  satisfy  the 
reader's  curiosity  and  also  furnish  a  fair  specimen  of  the  preacher's 
eloquence  from  a  general  passage  highly  estimated  by  himself. 
"  How  delightful  to  contemplate  the  honors  which  encircle  the  Lamb 
in  the  midst  of  the  Father's  throne.  After  wandering  an  exile  from 
heaven  for  more  than  thirty  years,  for  our  revolt,  how  joyous  to 
know  that  he  has  found  a  home.  After  depending  for  bread  on  the 
charity  of  his  female  followers,  we  are  glad  to  see  him  the  heir  of 
all  things,  and  able  in  turn  to  impart  to  others." 

Reverting  now  at  length  to  the  conditions  of  society  in  town  in 
relation  to  those  in  College  at  about  the  time  of  the  accession  of 
Griffin  to  the  presidency,  in  1821,  it  is  a  pleasure  to  the  writer  to 
be  able  to  exhibit  the  generosity  and  self-denial  of  the  citizens  in 
behalf  of  the  College,  then  at  its  lowest  estate.  In  the  remonstrance 
of  the  town  of  Williamstown  against  the  removal  of  the  College, 
drafted  by  Charles  A.  Dewey,  and  unanimously  adopted  by  the  citi- 
zens in  town  meeting  assembled,  the  following  language  is  used : 
"  We  are  gratified  to  have  the  pleasure  of  stating  that  the  public 
expressions  which  have  been  made  in  favor  of  the  continuance  of  the 
College  at  Williamstown  have  been  accompanied  with  the  most  satis- 
factory evidence  of  their  sincerity.  Subscription  papers  bearing  the 


TOWN  AND   COLLEGE  TILL  THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.      439 

names  of  respectable  gentlemen  for  the  amount  of  eighteen  thousand 
dollars,  for  the  use  of  the  College  in  this  town,  have  already  been 
placed  in  the  hands  of  the  Treasurer  of  the  College."  Fortunately 
these  subscriptions  have  been  preserved  in  detail.  They  were  tran- 
scribed into  a  new  ledger  by  Daniel  Noble,  then  treasurer  of  the 
College,  which  ledger  is  still  extant,  carrying  a  title-page  as 
follows :  — 

COLLEGE  LEDGER  IN  WHICH  SUBSCRIPTIONS 
TO  WILLIAMS  COLLEGE  ARE  ENTERED. 

May  1820. 

N.B.  The  interest  on  the  subscriptions 
entered  on  this  Ledger  become 
due  first  year  May  5,  1821,  and  so 
annually,  and  the  principal  is 
payable  May  5,  1830. 

Mem° 

#    *    * 

D.  NOBLE. 

The  following  list  of  names  and  subscriptions,  in  which  the  coming 
generations  are  sure  to  take  some  interest,  is  copied  verbatim  et  litera- 
tim, from  the  above-mentioned  ledger.  In  most  instances  one  year's 
interest  seems  to  be  added  to  the  sum  of  the  principal  as  put  down. 
The  date  of  final  settlement  is  given  in  some  cases.  In  some  cases 
legal  process  had  to  be  resorted  to  in  order  to  collect  either  interest 
or  principal,  or  both.  In  a  few  instances  the  costs  of  collection  are 
nominally  added.  Alleged  misunderstandings  of  the  terms  of  sub- 
scription and  consequent  refusals  to  pay  were  in  each  instance  dis- 
missed by  the  courts  as  invalid.  It  was  plausibly  alleged  by  these 
parties,  that  Daniel  Noble,  who  secured  these  subscriptions  and  who 
was  the  treasurer  of  the  College  at  the  time,  said  in  substance,  to  the 
subscribers  verbally,  —  We  want  these  subscriptions  from  the  citi- 
zens of  Williamstown,  in  order  to  show  to  the  Legislature  that  we  are 
able  and  willing  to  do  our  part  to  sustain  the  College  where  it  is :  of 
course,  if  the  Legislature  gives  permission  to  remove  it,  you  will 
never  be  called  on  for  these  moneys :  if  we  can  keep  the  College  here, 
you  and  I  will  probably  be  glad  enough  to  pay  these  sums,  if  neces- 
sary. Nothing  of  all  this  was  put  in  writing.  The  subscriptions 
seemed  to  impart  a  legal  contract;  and  they  were,  accordingly, 
legally  enforced.  Ill  feelings  were  naturally  engendered  in  some 
families  as  toward  the  two  treasurers  in  succession,  Daniel  Noble 
and  Daniel  Noble  Dewey,  who  had  to  do  with  these  cloudy  claims 


440  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

of  the  college  as  against  certain  citizens.  In  general,  the  feelings 
were  good,  and  continued  so  from  generation  to  generation.  From 
time  to  time,  and  from  the  very  beginning  onward,  there  have 
sprung  up  certain  grounds  of  grievance  of  the  one  party  (towns- 
people) as  toward  the  other  (college  people),  but  these  have  been 
usually  transient  because  they  have  been  on  the  surface  of  things. 
The  suits  at  law,  instituted  to  collect  some  of  these  dubious  looking 
subscriptions,  left  feelings  more  or  less  bitter,  and  continued  in  the 
Hoxsey  and  Hickcock  and  Danforth  families.  While  the  old  East 
College  was  burning  down,  of  a  Sunday  afternoon  in  1841,  in  plain 
sight  from  Bee  Hill,  certain  young  men  representing  these  and  per- 
haps other  families  are  said  to  have  enjoyed  the  prospect  hilari- 
ously, and  to  have  indulged  in  language  toward  the  College  and 
some  of  its  officials  at  least  not  expressly  canonical. 

The  only  other  matter  of  any  consequence  or  permanence,  disturb- 
ing the  good  relations  between  townfolk  and  gownfolk,  during  the 
first  century  of  the  College,  had  its  root  in  politics.  We  have  already 
learned  that  the  first  treasurer  of  the  College  was  a  Democrat,  and 
that  a  decided  majority  of  the  citizens  of  the  town  were  of  that 
political  faith  in  Jefferson's  time  and  afterward.  The  two  leading 
families  of  the  village,  however,  the  Deweys  and  the  Nobles,  which 
furnished  the  College  treasurers  in  unbroken  succession  from  1798 
to  1859,  were  of  the  Federalist  stripe,  that  is  to  say,  they  covenanted 
with  those  who  had  no  objections  at  any  rate  to  certain  special 
political  privileges  secured  to  themselves  by  law,  and  of  course  not 
only  denied  to  the  masses  of  the  people,  but  also  secured  to  the 
privileged  few  at  the  cost  of  these  masses.  This  simple  principle 
under  its  diverse  applications  has  always  virtually  divided  the  people 
of  the  United  States  into  two  political  parties,  —  two  and  no  more. 
This  issue  has  sometimes  been  transiently  disguised  by  party  names 
and  otherwise,  but  it  has  been  the  bottom  issue,  nevertheless,  from 
1796  to  1896  in  every  presidential  election.  Equality  under  the  Law 
as  against  Privileges  under  the  Law,  —  that  tells  the  whole  story. 
Since  the  utter  downfall  of  the  Whig  Party,  the  then  party  of  Privi- 
lege, in  1852,  there  has  been  no  general  ground  of  political  differ- 
ences as  between  the  town  men  and  the  college  men.  The  mutual 
feeling  has  been  good  most  of  the  time,  and  perhaps  increasingly  so 
decade  by  decade,  minus  a  dispute  of  some  acerbity  on  the  taxation 
by  the  town  of  certain  parts  of  college  property,  an  issue  at  the 
present  time  in  litigation  before  the  Supreme  Court  of  Massa- 
chusetts. 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE  TILL  THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       441 


Daniel  Noble 

Timothy  &  John  P.  Whitman 

Charles  A.  Dewey 

Ralph  W.  Gridley 

Eli  Northam 

Samuel  Kellogg 

Aaron  Foote 

Solomon  Bulkley 

John  Hickcock 

Stephen  Hickcock 

Keyes  Danforth   By  judgment 

Schuyler  Putnam 

Thomas  F.  Hoxsey 

Josephus  Bardwell 

Noah  Cook 

William  Starkweather 

Lyman  Hubbell 

Douglas  W.  Sloane 

Erastus  Noble 

Moses  Batcheller 

Joseph  Birchard  on 

Asa  Northam 

Hosford  &  Brown 

Peter  S.  Putnam 

Daniel  Galusha 

John  Kilborn 

Samuel  Tyler 

Louis  Toussaint 

Eli  Porter 

Deodatus  Noble 

Gershom  T.  Bulkley 

James  H.  Meacham 

Oren  Kellogg 

Elijah  Smedley 

Dennis  Smith 

Emery  Chamberlain 

Amasa  Shattuck 

Thomas  Faxon 

Henry  Green 

Ralph  Chamberlain 

David  D.  Seelye 

Titus  Deming 

Samuel  Burbank 

Ruth  Benjamin 

Joshua  Morey 

William  Bridges 

Benjamin  Thurber 

Noah  Smith 

Thomas  Melody  &  sons 


of  Sup.  Jud,  Court  P.  &  interest  (1832) 
Settlement  June,  1835 


"  Dead  and  Poor  " 
"  Decd  and  Bankrupt " 
a  suit  by  compromise  in  full 


1833  in  full 


1831 


1833 

1831 
1827 
1831 
1833 

"poor  and  gone" 
1831  cost  in  full 

1827 
never  paid 

1834 

1828 

1822 

1835 

1826 
and  bill  of  costs 

1825 

1823 


$  830.66 
$1338.46 
$  362.50 
$  219.70 
$  236.00 
$  323.67 
$  212.00 
$  180.00 
$  159.00 
$  159.00 
$  174.60 
$  65.00 
$  190.50 
$  56.00 
$  53.00 
$  213.00 
$  115.00 
$  124.00 
$  53.00 
$  28.00 
$  35.00 
$  260.00 
$  148.00 
$  124.00 
$  80.00 
$  28.00 
79.37 
53.00 
31.00 
168.00 
148.00 
126.00 
162.52 
68.00 
37.00 
51.50 
38.50 
26.50 
45.00 
47.33 
42.00 
40.87 
37.00 
27.50 
89.50 
62.00 
92.50 
32.50 
29.50 


$ 


$ 


442  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

Solomon  &  John  Prindle  1832  $73.60 

"  John  Prindle  gave  his  note  for  $45.45 

and  Solomon  died  poor  " 

Nathaniel  Townsend  1835  $43.25 

Zadock  Ford  $26.31 

William  Waterman  1835  $92.37 

Nathan  Putnam  1840  $27.87 

Here  are  the  names  of  fifty-nine  persons,  a  majority  of  them 
known  to  be  poor,  not  over  seven  or  eight  of  them  even  then  called 
"rich,  "and  all  the  rest  farmers  and  artisans  in  common,  that  is 
moderate,  circumstances,  coming  to  the  help  of  the  College  at  a  time, 
when,  without  this  help,  it  is  likely,  the  College  would  have  gone 
out  of  existence  on  this  ground.  There  are  some  names  on  this  list 
one  cannot  read  even  at  this  late  day  without  emotion.  There  is, 
for  example,  the  name  of  Louis  Toussaint,  the  French  tailor,  whose 
name  is  also  found  on  the  still  extant  subscription-list  for  the  new 
meeting-house  of  1796.  For  that  he  put  down  £1  4s.  Twenty-five 
years  afterward  he  put  down  fifty  dollars  to  help  out  the  College. 
Whether  he  ever  paid  the  latter  may  perhaps  be  doubtful,  for  the 
treasurer  writes  the  word  "poor"  after  the  name.  Of  course  he 
was  poor,  and  by  this  time  old ;  for  many  of  the  families  of  the  town 
made  their  own  woollen  garments  out  of  materials  spun  and  woven 
also  by  members  of  the  household;  many  other  families  made  up 
their  own  winter  clothing  by  the  help  of  "seamstresses,"  as  they 
were  called,  usually  spinsters,  who  made  a  livelihood  by  going  about 
from  house  to  house  in  the  neighborhood  for  this  purpose ;  and  the 
work  that  would  come  to  a  tailor's  shop,  like  Toussaint's,  unless  it 
were  uniforms  for  the  militia  officers,  or  a  suit  for  the  new  member 
of  the  General  Court  to  go  to  Boston  in,  would  be  small  in  quantity 
and  irregular  in  time.  Toussaint  lived  to  old  age  in  the  house  still 
standing,  substantially  unchanged,  at  the  fork  of  the  north  Hoosac 
road  running  west  with  the  Simonds  road  running  north.  Nearly 
opposite  stood  in  those  days  the  principal  tavern  of  the  town.  It 
was  perhaps  as  good  a  place  for  a  tailor's  shop  as  the  town  afforded. 
The  tailor  had  his  name  and  trade  on  two  wooden  signs,  one  front- 
ing each  of  the  two  roads,  in  the  angle  of  which  the  old  house  stood. 
This  petty  fact  comes  down  to  the  present  generation  through  Rip- 
ley  Cole,  who  remembered  it  as  a  boy,  and  who  remembered  also  the 
rude  pun  turning  on  it,  by  which  we  are  able  to  approximate  the 
current  pronunciation  of  the  strange  French  name,  — "Two-Sign." 

Take  a  single  other  example  from  among  the  poorest  of  these 
Williamstown  subscribers  to  the  funds  of  the  College  in  its  extremity, 


TOWN  AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       443 

—  Thomas  Faxon.  He  was  from  Hartford.  He  was  a  potter  by 
trade.  So  far  as  is  known,  he  was  the  first  and  only  potter  who 
ever  tried  to  get  a  living  by  that  occupation  in  Williamstown.  He 
found  good  clay  on  the  bank  of  the  Green  River  at  the  east  end  of 
the  village  plot,  close  by  the  bridge.  He  set  up  his  wheels,  opened 
his  oven,  and  baked  a  cheap  sort  of  unglazed  ware.  His  neighbors 
across  the  Green  River,  the  Smedleys,  bought  some  of  his  pots,  and 
transmitted  to  the  present  time  some  little  knowledge  of  his  exist- 
ence and  of  the  place  of  his  business,  such  as  it  was.  But  he  did 
not  get  on.  The  College  treasurer  puts  him  down  on  his  ledger  as 
owing  $26.50,  but  later  marks  underneath  the  subscription,  "poor 
and  gone."  Somehow  or  other  the  special  craftsmen  did  not  find 
Williamstown  a  favorable  place  for  their  development.  They  came, 
but,  as  a  rule,  they  did  not  stay  a  great  while.  Lime  was  burnt 
here  very  early,  and  we  happen  to  know  where,  but  by  whom  and 
how  long  no  mortal  can  tell.  Brick  were  manufactured  here  in 
the  last  century,  and  West  College  and  the  old  East  College  were 
made  out  of  them,  but  the  yard  on  North  Street  at  the  foot  of  Man- 
sion House  Hill  was  early  abandoned,  and  its  place  only  accidentally 
rediscovered  of  late  years.  Perhaps  in  order  to  furnish  the  brick 
for  Dr.  Griffin's  new  chapel,  which  was  planned  for  in  1825,  at  any 
rate  not  far  from  that  time,  Stephen  Hosford  opened  a  new  brick- 
yard on  South  Street,  on  land  now  owned  by  Frederic  Leake,  and 
at  a  place  now  occupied  by  Mr.  Leake's  tenant-house.  Stephen 
Hosford  was  the  eldest  of  three  brothers,  all  from  Goshen,  who 
constituted,  singly  and  combined,  for  many  years  an  important 
factor  in  the  ongoings  of  the  church  and  town.  The  brothers 
worked  for  some  time  in  the  new  brickyard,  which  furnished  the 
brick  first  or  last  for  the  Blackinton  farmhouse  near  the  present 
village  of  Blackinton;  the  brick  store  near  the  east  end  of  our  vil- 
lage (north  side),  in  which  "  Hosford  and  Brown  "  were  doing  busi- 
ness when  they  jointly  subscribed  to  the  College  the  above  $  148; 
the  brick  house  and  store  at  the  head  of  South  Street  (east  side),  in 
which  Hosford  lived  the  rest  of  his  life  and  kept  both  a  store  and 
the  post-office  for  a  time;  and  (doubtless  among  some  others)  the 
brick  house  at  the  foot  of  Stone  Hill  on  South  Street,  built  by  Gur- 
don  Bulkley,  and  now  owned  and  occupied  by  Mrs.  L.  B.  Smedley. 
Undoubtedly  the  main  reason  why  special  craftsmen  in  general, 
omitting  perhaps  the  cordwainers  and  carpenters  and  brickmakers, 
did  not  thrive  and  continue  in  Williamstown,  was,  the  people  were 
poor,  the  College  was  small,  and,  especially,  the  place  was  isolated 
by  high  hills  on  every  side  from  other  habitable  and  thriving  places. 


444  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

The  primal  conditions  of  a  good  market  were  absent.  A  market 
for  products  is  products  in  market.  People  cannot  sell  their  own 
goods  except  in  places  to  which  other  goods  are  brought  to  be  sold. 
It  is  goods  against  goods  the  world  over.  Barriers,  whether  local  or 
international,  are  alike  hindrances  to  trade.  Domestic  exports  pay 
for  foreign  imports.  Whatever  obstacles  (tariff  taxes  or  other)  keep 
foreign  goods  from  coming  in,  keep,  to  precisely  the  same  extent, 
domestic  goods  from  going  out.  Just  so  in  the  smallest  local  mar- 
kets anywhere.  Williamstown  had  the  Ashford  watershed  of  one 
thousand  feet  to  the  south  of  it,  the  Taconic  Mountain  range,  still 
higher,  to  the  west  of  it,  the  Hoosac  Mountains,  then  untunnelled, 
to  the  east  of  it,  with  a  "  dug-way  "  along  the  Hoosac  Eiver  toward 
the  Vermont  hills  to  the  north  of  it.  Goods  of  any  kind  could  not 
be  produced  to  profit  within  these  circumjacent  obstacles,  paying 
the  cost  of  taking  them  out  and  paying  also  the  cost  of  bringing  in 
the  return  goods.  The  inference  accordingly  is  as  certain  as  any 
reasoning  can  be,  that  whatever  diminishes  or  removes  obstacles  of 
any  of  these  kinds,  is  wholly  favorable  to  profitable  trade.  The 
opening  of  the  Hoosac  Tunnel  may  be  said  to  have  created  the  city 
of  North  Adams,  whose  municipal  motto,  "  We  hold  the  gateway  of 
the  West,"  derives  the  significance  of  its  words  from  the  removal  of 
an  obstacle  to  trade.  Still  greater  is  the  blessing  of  the  removal 
of  artificial  obstacles,  like  tariff  taxes,  for  a  striking  example.  A 
blessed  handmaid  to  a  constantly  cheaper  production  of  goods  of  all 
kinds  is  always  and  everywhere  an  easier  transportation  of  them  to 
their  own  ultimate  market. 

One  consequence  of  this  isolation  and  general  poverty  of  the 
people  of  Williamstown,  and  of  the  isolation  and  rudeness  in  general 
of  the  places  from  which  the  students  came  to  the  College,  was,  that 
Griffin  was  shocked  at  once  and  constantly  by  the  uncouth  manner 
of  those  with  whom  he  came  in  contact  as  president.  He  had  spent 
nearly  all  of  his  active  life  in  Newark  and  Boston,  in  positions  that 
required  and  rewarded  courtly  manners,  which  he  took  on  himself 
with  ease  and  pleasure,  and  which  he  came  to  regard  as  due  to  him- 
self in  return.  It  was  at  this  point  of  their  manners  in  general,  and 
particularly  of  their  personal  behavior  in  chapel,  in  church,  in  the 
recitation-room,  on  the  street,  and  in  his  own  study,  that  Griffin 
first  came  into  serious  contact  and  conflict  with  the  students.  It 
was  undoubtedly  an  important  point  in  their  training,  which  had 
been  previously  much  neglected  here  as  it  was  also  afterward,  and 
which  if  properly  attended  to  in  college  always  makes  a  student's 
entrance  upon  active  life  more  propitious ;  but  in  this  case  it  was 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL    THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       445 

unfortunate,  because  it  was  put  forward  as  a  foremost  thing,  as  if 
matters  of  form  could  properly  take  precedence  of  matters  of  sub- 
stance, and  as  indicating  to  the  minds  of  students  the  gradation  of 
educational  subjects  in  the  mind  of  the  president. 

It  was  in  the  old  chapel  in  the  southern  end  of  West  College,  that 
the  students  began  fully  to  realize  the  change  in  administration. 
The  seats  there  had  very  low  backs.  It  had  been  the  custom,  espe- 
cially as  there  was  a  superabundance  of  room  for  the  relatively  few 
students,  for  these  to  sit,  many  of  them,  back  to  back  in  pairs,  with 
one  limb  laid  up  on  the  seat  and  one  body  partially  supported  upon 
the  other.  The  attitude  was  unbecoming  and  irreverent  in  college 
prayers.  The  president  vehemently  attacked  it  at  once  on  that 
ground,  and  also  on  the  ground  that  it  tended  to  form  and  perpetu- 
ate ungentlemanly  manners  in  general.  The  students  were  slow  to 
yield,  alleging  truthfully  that  to  sit  bolt  upright  on  such  benches  as 
those  was  a  position  very  intolerable.  The  president  evinced  a 
becoming  zeal  and  determination,  and  of  course  carried  his  point, 
not  however  without  being  obliged  in  some  instances  to  give  line 
upon  line  and  precept  upon  precept.  The  struggle  was  evidently 
not  lost  upon  him,  either;  for,  when  he  built  the  new  chapel,  a  few 
years  later,  the  backs  of  the  new  seats  came  up  to  the  back  of  the 
average  student's  head!  Less  defensible  than  this  by  much  was  the 
president's  requirement  of  the  students  when  he  was  preaching  in 
the  village  church,  namely,  that  they  all  should  look  him  in  the 
face  throughout  the  sermon.  The  preacher  who  cannot  compel  the 
attention  of  his  auditors  to  his  discourse  by  its  force  and  eloquence, 
cannot  habitually  secure  it  by  any  other  mode.  Griffin  discounted 
beforehand  his  own  power  to  gain  a  good  hearing  by  prescribing  a 
mechanical  rule,  which,  even  if  literally  complied  with,  did  not  guar- 
antee the  serious  attention  of  the  student  to  what  was  said.  A  sorry 
confession  of  his  own  lack  distends  the  words  of  his  own  rule. 

Much  more  may  be  said  in  favor  of  his  habit,  when  he  saw  a 
student  in  church  with  his  head  down  upon  his  arm  resting  upon  the 
front  of  the  seat,  to  stop  in  the  midst  of  his  sermon,  call  the  student 
by  name,  and  thus  correct  his  posture  not  for  that  time  only,  but 
probably  for  all  future  times,  —  a  posture  in  which  many  a  student 
in  former,  as  well  as  in  subsequent  days,  took  his  quiet  naps  in 
church.  Not  less  particular  was  he  in  regard  to  the  posture  of  the 
students  in  his  recitation-room,  or  when  he  received  them  in  his 
own  study.  Also  he  required  all  the  students  under  all  circum- 
stances to  doff  their  hats  to  him  in  the  street,  although  the  Main 
Street  of  the  village,  on  which  alone  he  was  likely  to  encounter 


446  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

them,  was  fifteen  rods  wide,  and  there  were  two  walks,  one  on  either 
edge  of  the  street.  He  always  accosted  any  body  of  students  as 
"Young  Gentlemen"  evidently  thinking  that  his  calling  them  so 
tended  to  make  them  so,  and  perhaps  it  did;  but  at  the  same  time 
he  ridiculed  the  idea  and  practice  of  "mistering  an  undergraduate." 
He  was  so  constituted  by  nature,  and  had  so  punctiliously  trained 
himself  in  all  the  forms  of  propriety  as  he  understood  them,  that  he 
could  not  be  otherwise  than  sensitive  to  all  variance  from  decorum 
on  the  part  of  the  students  in  the  smallest  matters  as  well  as  in  the 
greatest.  This  sensitiveness  was  doubtless  aggravated  by  disease; 
for  he  was  almost  always  a  sufferer  from  the  gout  from  the  time  he 
commenced  his  labors  in  the  College,  and  so  increasingly  as  the 
years  went  by.  This  of  itself  often  gave  to  his  own  painstaking 
efforts  to  be  civil  to  everybody  the  appearance  of  excess.  His  frame 
was  so  large  and  latterly  so  inflexible,  and  so  much  space  was  re- 
quired (and  time)  for  his  studiedly  polite  movements,  that  these 
could  not  but  seem  to  be  overdone.  In  short,  Dr.  Griffin  was  a 
striking  example  of  relative  failure  in  a  college  official  from  putting 
too  much  stress  upon  form  and  expression  and  too  little  upon  matter 
and  reality.  Mark  Hopkins,  who  was  his  pupil  and  sharp  observer, 
in  1821-24,  once  said  to  the  writer,  "Dr.  Griffin  was  a  good  critic  "; 
further  conversation  developed  the  point,  that  his  criticism  expended 
itself  rather  upon  the  clothing  than  upon  the  body  of  that  submitted 
to  criticism. 

If  it  may  be  permitted  now  to  go  back  for  a  few  minutes  only  to 
the  list  of  town  subscribers  to  the  College  exigences  of  1820,  we 
shall  notice  that  by  much  the  largest  subscription  of  all  was  that  of 
"Timothy  and  John  P.  Whitman."  These  were  brothers  who  had 
married  sisters  and  had  become  early  established  as  merchants  on 
Main  Street,  occupying  the  very  early  purchased  house-lot  of  Josiah 
Horsford,  of  whose  small  house  they  made  at  first  both  a  home  and 
a  store.  The  rooms  of  this  house  are  still  the  nucleus  of  their  after- 
ward muph  enlarged  house,  still  standing  at  the  opening  of  Park 
Street,  and  occupied  at  present  by  Dr.  L.  D.  Woodbridge  as  both  a 
home  and  an  office.  The  gambrel-roofed  store  built  by  the  Whit- 
mans a  few  years  later  and  attached  to  the  house  on  the  east  end,  is 
also  still  standing,  much  transformed,  having  been  removed  to  the 
west  end  of  the  Main  Street  at  the  time  when  they  rebuilt,  enlarg- 
ing their  own  house,  and  is  now  the  home  of  Mrs.  Henrietta  Cole. 
The  subscription  of  the  Whitman  brothers  (one  year's  interest)  is 
$1338.46.  It  is  not  because  this  subscription  is  the  largest  that 
attention  is  called  to  it  here,  but  because  the  family  who  made  it 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       447 

were  from  first  to  last  very  prominent  and  influential  and  benevolent 
people.  The  maiden  name  of  the  married  sisters  was  Seymour,  and 
they  were  from  Hartford  or  its  immediate  vicinity.  Each  of  them 
brought  to  her  husband  a  very  considerable  property  for  those  times. 
Lucy  Seymour  Whitman  is  known  to  have  attended  the  exercises  of 
the  first  Commencement  of  the  College  in  1796,  and  she  united  with 
the  church  in  Williamstown  in  1797  by  letter,  while  her  husband, 
John  P.  Whitman,  joined  by  profession  in  1801.  Mary  Curtis 
Hopkins  of  Stockbridge,  afterward  the  mother  of  Mark  and  Albert 
Hopkins,  is  the  only  other  woman  positively  known  to  have  been 
present  at  the  initial  Commencement  of  the  College.  By  a  coinci- 
dence that  may  be  called  curious,  both  of  these  women  died  in 
Williamstown  not  far  from  the  same  time  in  an  old  age  unusually 
protracted.  Laura  Seymour  Whitman,  the  wife  of  Timothy,  who 
was  by  three  years  the  older  brother,  brought  her  letter  to  this 
church  in  1812;  and  her  husband,  as  we  shall  see  in  a  moment, 
never  made  a  profession  of  religion  at  all.  He  had  studied  medi- 
cine, and  was  always  known  here  as  "Dr.  Timothy,"  coming  to 
town  probably  some  fifteen  years  later  than  his  brother,  who  put  his 
stress  upon  the  merchandise  side  of  the  firm,  while  the  doctor  prac- 
tised medicine  with  more  zest  or  less  till  shortly  before  he  died. 
Both  families  lived  in  the  same  house,  ate  at  the  same  table,  and 
brought  up  their  children  together,  and  exhibited  in  the  village  as 
conspicuous  examples  of  brotherly  peace  and  good  will,  as  the 
Smedley  brothers,  Levi  and  Elijah,  did  upon  their  joint  farm  just 
across  the  Green  Eiver  to  the  eastward. 

Upon  one  point  only  was  there  a  lack  of  harmony  in  the  conjoined 
Whitman  household ;  and  that  was  of  such  a  .character  as  interested 
sooner  or  later  the  whole  church  and  the  whole  College  and  the 
whole  community.  Dr.  Timothy,  whose  outward  life  was  as  exem- 
plary as  possible,  and  who  was  probably  as  good  a  Christian  as  the 
village  contained,  could  not  see  his  way  clear  to  find  in  the  New 
Testament  the  evidences  of  Divine  inspiration  in  any  verbal  and 
literal  sense,  or  any  proofs  of  the  inexorable  sternness  of  the  Divine 
government,  as  these  had  been  preached  by  Jonathan  Edwards,  and 
were  preached  in  slightly  disguised,  but  in  essentially  unchanged, 
terms  by  President  Griffin.  He  did  not  proclaim  his  dissent  from 
the  current  orthodoxy,  —  he  was  a  remarkably  quiet  and  unobtrusive 
man,  —  and  only  used  that  dissent  in  self-defence  when  he  was  urged 
and  crowded  and  beseeched  to  pronounce  his  shibboleth  just  as  the 
other  did,  and  by  uniting  with  the  church  to  announce  in  a  public 
manner  his  unqualified  assent  to  dogmas  which  he  believed  unscrip- 


448  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

tural  and  also  unworthy  of  his  Heavenly  Father.  Prayer  was  made 
for  him  without  ceasing  in  the  family  and  in  the  church  and  in  the 
community.  He  was  regarded  without  a  question  as  travelling  the 
downward  road.  He  was  to  be  snatched,  if  it  were  possible,  as  a 
brand  from  the  burning. 

As  specimens  of  the  sort  of  questions  with  which  Griffin  was  wont 
to  ply  his  neighbor  Whitman,  who,  the  former  says,  "  resisted  my 
arguments  with  vehemence  if  not  with  passion,"  let  us  now  take 
those  which,  according  to  his  own  account,  he  put  to  his  own  two 
daughters  in  succession,  and  to  which  he  expected,  as  alone  satisfac- 
tory, answers  like  those  at  last  given  by  them.  "  That  evening  I 
visited  Louisa,  and  put  to  her  the  old  question,  — '  Do  you  feel  that 
it  would  be  just  in  God  to  cast  you  off? '  After  a  considerable  pause, 
and  in  a  low  voice,  she  answered,  'Yes,  sir.'  The  next  day  I  said  to 
Ellen,  'My  daughter,  where  do  you  expect  to  spend  your  eternity  ?  ' 
She  answered,  'Why,  I  have  not  thought  of  that.'  'What  have 
you  been  thinking  about?'  'I  have  been  thinking  how  good  God 
has  been  to  me,  and  how  ungrateful  I  have  been.'  The  next  day 
she  looked  more  like  the  image  of  misery  than  ever  before.  The 
next  time  she  came  in,  I  asked  her  where  she  expected  to  spend 
eternity?  She  said,  'I  think  most  likely  I  shall  spend  it  in  hell.' 
'Do  you  think  that  you  deserve  hell?'  'Oh!  I  know  I  do.'  In 
this  condition  she  remained  two  days."  Modern  Christians  have 
these  two  among  many  other  things  to  be  devoutly  thankful  for: 
(1)  That  it  is  no  longer  considered  needful  that  one  should  be  willing 
to  be  damned  in  order  to  be  able  to  be  saved;  and  (2)  that  the  Gos- 
pel itself  is  so  true  and  virile  and  divine,  that  it  can  work  its  work 
and  bless  mankind  and  survive  and  grow  strong  in  spite  of  all  such 
abominable  perversions  of  itself  as  these  are.  Dr.  Timothy  Whitman 
fell  into  a  gradual  decline  and  retired  from  the  active  duties  of  his 
profession,  about  the  time  when  Dr.  Griffin  received  an  invitation 
to  preach  one  of  a  series  of  sermons  against  infidelity,  in  what  was 
called  the  "  Murray  Street  Lectures  "  in  New  York.  "  I  wrote  that 
sermon,"  the  preacher  said  afterward,  "with  my  eye  on  Dr.  Whit- 
man, then  an  infidel,  and  sick  with  what  proved  to  be  his  last  sick- 
ness. I  was  most  deeply  affected  through  the  whole  of  it,  and  wrote 
it  with  a  strong  desire  for  the  conviction  and  salvation  of  Dr.  W. 
He  had  just  before  resisted  my  arguments  with  vehemence,  if  not 
with  passion.  After  I  had  finished  my  sermon,  I  read  it  to  him,  at 
two  different  sittings,  half  at  a  time.  He  never  resisted  afterward; 
and  gave  such  evidence  of  his  conversion  and  faith,  that  his  pious 
wife  and  other  pious  friends  have  no  doubt  that  he  went  to  heaven." 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       449 

It  may  be  added,  after  this  long  interval  of  time,  that  nobody  else, 
who  knew  all  the  circumstances,  ever  doubted  that  issue  of  a  good 
man's  life.  Dr.  Griffin  is  careful  not  to  say,  nor  does  it  otherwise 
anyway  appear,  that  the  patient  ever  said  a  word  retracting  his 
former  contentions.  It  is  to  be  hoped  and  believed  that  he  did  not. 
No  better  opportunity  than  the  present  one  is  likely  to  recur,  to 
sketch  briefly  the  later  experiences  of  this  wealthy  and  liberal  and 
highly  esteemed  family.  Dr.  Timothy  died  in  1830,  at  the  age  of 
sixty -two;  and  his  widow,  Laura  Seymour  Whitman,  in  1857,  at 
the  age  of  seventy-one.  Their  only  child,  Euth  Whitman,  was 
married  to  Professor  Edward  Lasell,  Williams  College  1828.  He 
became  Professor  of  Chemistry  here  in  1835,  and  continued  success- 
ful in  that  capacity  till  his  death,  in  1852.  In  the  meantime  he 
founded  Lasell  Seminary  in  Auburndale,  an  institution  which 
seems  likely  to  perpetuate  his  honored  name  by  a  remarkable  pros- 
perity and  prominence.  John  P.  Whitman  died  in  1834,  aged  sixty- 
three,  after  an  unusually  prosperous  life  in  all  the  varied  uses  of 
that  phrase,  leaving  one  son  and  one  daughter;  the  latter  to  become 
in  a  few  years  the  first  wife  of  Dr.  H.  L.  Sabin,  and  the  former, 
Seymour  Whitman,  to  continue  his  father's  business  in  the  same 
store,  to  live  in  the  same  house,  and  to  exert  with  his  excellent  wife, 
Maria  Bulkley,  the  same  sort  of  influences,  both  social  and  religious, 
as  those  diffused  by  his  father  and  mother.  Indeed,  the  mother  out- 
lived the  son  in  the  same  house  for  two  years,  and  died  at  eighty- 
four,  in  1858.  When  the  first  East  College  burned  down,  in  1841, 
Mrs.  Lucy  Whitman  was  the  first  perspn  appealed  to  for  benevolent 
aid  to  help  rebuild  it.  She  gave  one  thousand  dollars  to  Mark 
Hopkins,  then  the  president,  with  her  blessing  superadded.  Sey- 
mour Whitman  left  at  his  death  a  widow,  two  daughters,  and  a  son. 
The  widow  died  in  1886,  at  the  age  of  seventy-nine  years.  The 
oldest  daughter,  Lucy,  married  Rev.  John  Tatlock,  a  graduate  of 
the  College  in  1856,  and  these  are  the  parents  of  John  Tatlock,  Wil- 
liams College  1882,  now  a  prominent  actuary  in  New  York.  The 
other  daughter,  Fanny,  married  H.  C.  G.  von  Jagemann,  now  a 
distinguished  professor  at  the  University  at  Cambridge,  Massa- 
chusetts. John  Seymour  Whitman,  the  only  son,  Williams  College 
1854,  has  spent  and  is  still  spending  a  useful  life  as  a  Congrega- 
tional minister.  It  is  proper  to  add,  that  it  was  from  the  large 
landed  estate  of  the  Whitman  family,  that  the  College  became  pos- 
sessed, by  purchase  at  different  times,  of  the  grounds  holding  the 
Missionary  Park,  and  the  present  president's  house,  and  those  of 
the  College  Infirmary  (established  in  1895),  and  portions  also  of  the 


450  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

"College  Farm,"  so  called  at  the  present  time.  The  College  ceme- 
tery, situated  near  all  these  lands,  was  cut  off  from  the  northern 
end  of  that  house-lot  very  early  given  to  the  College  by  David 
Noble  for  the  original  "president's  house." 

The  history  of  Amherst  College  is  inwrought  in  a  curious  and 
complicated  way  with  various  ongoings  here  at  the  westward.  We 
have  already  given  at  length  the  story  of  President  Moore  in  going 
from  Williamstown  to  Amherst,  accompanied  by  fifteen  of  the 
Williams  students,  in  1821.  Amherst  had  not  then  obtained  from 
the  General  Court  its  charter  as  a  college.  Moore  did  not  live  to 
witness  that  devoutly  wished-for  consummation.  But  it  came  at 
length  in  the  winter  of  1825,  and  sounded  at  first  on  this  side  the 
Hoosacs  like  the  death-knell  of  the  older  institution.  It  had  been 
argued  a  hundred  times  and  assumed  a  thousand  times,  that  two 
colleges  could  not  subsist  together  in  western  Massachusetts.  Am- 
herst, indeed,  had  commenced  operations  as  a  college  in  1821, 
though  not  assuming  the  name,  because  it  had  not  secured  a  charter 
from  the  Legislature;  and  the  hope  of  life  for  Williams  seemed  to  lie 
in  the  strength  of  the  difficulties  which  stood  in  the  way  of  Amherst 
being  chartered.  Williams,  indeed,  had  but  little  influence  in  the 
Legislature,  but  Cambridge  had  a  great  deal,  and  the  two  were 
thoroughly  combined  in  opposition  to  Amherst.  Their  petition  for 
a  charter  made  but  little  headway  year  after  year,  and  on  the 
strength  of  this  the  prospects  of  Williams  brightened  and  the  num- 
ber of  students  increased  in  three  years  under  Dr.  Griffin  (1822- 
25)  from  48  to  120.  But  tlje  strenuous  opposition  of  Cambridge, 
an  old  college,  arid  lately  become  a  Unitarian  one,  gradually  made 
a  bad  impression  over  the  State,  especially  in  orthodox  circles.  It 
had  the  appearance  of  persecution  as  toward  a  feeble  academy  and 
theological  school  on  the  Connecticut  determined  whether  or  no  to 
organize  itself  into  a  college,  and  to  gain  its  permanence  with  or 
without  its  name.  Here  was  the  perseverance  of  the  saints.  Here 
was  the  push  and  the  pull  and  the  stand  of  Scotch-Irish-American 
Christians  of  the  Calvinistic  type.  Harvard  saw  that  she  was 
becoming  unpopular,  and  foresaw  that  she  would  be  compelled  to 
yield  sooner  or  later;  and  so,  after  securing  the  best  possible  terms 
for  herself  in  the  premises,  she  suddenly  relinquished  opposition 
and  went  in  with  a  will  for  the  charter  to  Amherst. 

It  had  been  so  often  said  that  Williams  must  die  if  Amherst 
gained  a  full  corporate  life,  that  few  were  they  bold  enough  to 
question  such  a  result.  The  news  created  almost  a  panic  among 
the  students.  Their  number  dropped  from  120  to  80  before  that 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       451 

college  year  was  over.  During  the  fall  term  of  the  next  college  year 
eighty-five  students  gathered  all  told  in  the  four  classes.  William 
Hervey  and  Mark  Hopkins  were  the  tutors.  Both  had  recently 
entered  upon  a  decided  religious  life.  The  two  were  classmates  and 
warm  personal  friends.  The  state  of  the  College  was  disorderly, 
demoralized,  openly  irreligious,  and  some  of  the  students  awfully 
profane.  Many  believed  that  the  College  was  on  the  eve  of  dissolu- 
tion, and  some  did  not  care  if  it  were.  But  there  were  those  in  the 
county,  as  well  as  in  the  College  itself,  who  did  care.  First  among 
these  should  be  mentioned  Alvan  Hyde  of  Lee,  himself  a  graduate  of 
Dartmouth  in  1788,  vice-president  of  the  College  from  1812  to  1833, 
the  same  who  called  the  students  together  in  1821,  when  President 
Moore  left  and  told  them  confidently  that  the  College  ivould  be  sus- 
tained on  this  ground,  and  the  same  who  sent  four  of  his  own  sons  to 
take  their  degrees  here  in  succession,  in  1815  and  1822  and  1826  and 
1834,  all  admirable  men,  and  the  third  in  order,  William,  prominent  as 
a  trustee  and  benefactor  of  the  College.  The  second  of  county  friends 
to  be  mentioned  should  be  David  Dudley  Field,  of  Stockbridge,  him- 
self graduated  at  Yale  in  1802,  who  published  a  history  of  Berkshire 
County  in  1829,  and  who  likewise  had  four  sons,  all  distinguished, 
all  bearing  the  parchments  of  honor  received  in  the  regular  course  at 
Williams  College  —  David  Dudley,  1825;  Jonathan  Edwards,  1832; 
Stephen  Johnson,  1837 ;  Henry  Martyn,  1838.  Besides  these  four, 
he  had  another  son,  Cyrus  West,  also  closely  connected  with  the 
College  in  many  ways,  who  became  more  celebrated  all  over  the 
world  than  any  of  his  brothers,  as  the  originator  of  the  Atlantic 
Cable.  What  a  Berkshire  family  was  this,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
sister,  Mrs.  Brewer,  whose  son  became  a  Justice  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States. 

Now,  the  week  after  the  annual  Thanksgiving  in  1825,  these  two 
country  ministers  from  the  south  part  of  Berkshire  were  sent  by  the 
churches,  in  compliance  with  a  custom  of  primitive  Christianity,  to 
look  into  the  state  of  religion  in  Williamstown  and  the  College,  to 
visit  and  to  pray  and  to  exhort.  The  church  in  town,  under  their 
fervid  pastor,  Gridley,  anticipated  their  coming,  and  agreed  to  set 
apart  as  a  fast  the  day  of  their  visitation.  Intelligence  of  this  was 
communicated  to  the  faculty  of  the  College,  and  it  was  determined 
by  them  to  suspend  literary  exercises  for  the  day,  for  the  purpose  of 
giving  any  of  the  students  who  wished  liberty  to  hear  these  messen- 
gers of  the  churches  from  the  south  of  the  county,  and  also  to  fur- 
nish them  an  opportunity  of  prayer  and  conference  among  themselves. 
Nearly  one-half  of  the  students  were  at  that  time  nominally  profes- 


452  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

sors  of  religion ;  but  of  these  and  of  all  the  rest  and  of  the  occur- 
rences following,  an  eye-  and  ear-witness,  Albert  Hopkins,  then  a 
member  of  the  Junior  class,  fortunately  put  into  writing  long  after- 
ward a  copious  record. 

The  two  years  preceding  were  years  of  great  spiritual  drought  and  declension. 
Iniquity  in  various  forms  abounded,  and  the  love  of  many  waxed  cold.  There 
was  a  good  deal  of  dissipation  at  this  period  ;  treating  at  elections  and  at  other 
times  was  common.  Drunkenness  was  an  occurrence  not  unfrequent,  when 
holidays  were  given.  I  should  think  the  gravest  men  in  College,  certainly  with 
one  or  two  exceptions,  did  not  scruple  to  drink  (at  least  drank)  on  set  occa- 
sions. The  order  of  College,  at  this  time,  was  not  good.  I  am  not  aware  that 
any  religious  meetings  were  held  during  the  week.  On  Saturday  evening  and 
Sabbath  morning,  there  were  meetings,  but  very  thinly  attended.  The  majority, 
probably,  did  not  know  that  such  meetings  were  held. 

The  announcement  at  evening  prayers  the  night  before,  of  the  coming  of  the 
ministers  Hyde  and  Field,  and  of  the  cessation  on  that  account  of  the  ordinary 
college  exercises  for  the  day,  occasioned  no  small  stir  among  the  students,  who 
had  begun  to  be  already  somewhat  sensitive  on  the  subject.  As  is  usual  at  such 
times,  Satan  took  advantage  of  the  natural  enmity  of  the  carnal  heart,  and 
excited  the  wicked  to  throw  off  the  convictions  which  had  begun  now  to  hover 
around,  if  not  to  settle  upon  them.  I  have  been  told  that  there  were  mock 
meetings,  that  night,  all  over  College.  There  was  also  another  meeting  of 
another  kind  at  the  Junior  recitation-room,  attended  by  Dr.  Griffin,  at  which 
one  heart  at  least  was  stricken.  Next  morning,  the  aspect  of  things  was  rather 
tumultuous.  A  meeting  had  been  appointed,  however,  at  the  Senior  recitation- 
room  under  the  idea  that  most  of  the  religious  part  of  the  College  would  be 
present,  and  some,  at  least,  of  the  impenitent.  The  hour  arrived,  and  immedi- 
ately there  began  to  be  a  nocking  to  the  place.  Some  left  their  rooms  without 
the  least  intention  of  going  to  the  meeting.  Their  account  of  it  is,  that  they 
found  themselves  there,  they  knew  not  how.  Few  had  manifested  any  particu- 
lar seriousness.  Many  were  very  bold  sinners,  and  came  in  whirling  their  hats 
across  the  room,  as  if  in  derision.  The  room  became  directly  crowded.  Every 
student  from  both  College  buildings  at  length  found  his  way  in.  The  meeting 
began  with  marked  stillness,  such  as  is  wont  to  be  noticed  when  a  crisis  is  at 
hand,  and  the  Spirit  of  God  intimately  near.  Tutor  Hervey,  who  had  been 
from  the  first,  in  his  meek  and  quiet  way,  exceedingly  active,  and  his  associate 
in  office  [Mark  Hopkins]  were  present  to  take  the  direction  of  this  meeting.  In 
a  short  time,  however,  it  became  evident  that  the  great  Master  of  assemblies  was 
himself  present  to  take  the  lead. 

The  exercises  of  the  meeting  had  not  proceeded  far,  when  a  student,  the 
hitherto  notoriously  profane  one  already  alluded  to,  arose  in  the  assembly. 
The  deep  solemnity  of  his  countenance,  the  altered  air  and  strange  attitude  of 
the  speaker,  conspiring  with  that  deep  impression  of  the  Divine  presence  which 
previously  pervaded  the  meeting,  was  sufficient  to  bring  about  a  sudden  and 
most  extraordinary  crisis.  The  minds  of  some  were  made  up  before  he  uttered 
a  word.  In  a  moment,  said  he,  "  Will  you  trifle  with  your  souls?  "  Every  head 
was  bowed,  the  most  hardened  were  melted,  and  the  meeting  became  a  scene  of 
indescribable  interest.  Considering  the  character  of  those  who  composed  it,  and 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       453 

their  position  in  reference  to  society  and  the  church,  perhaps  few  private  meet- 
ings in  our  times  are  more  worthy  of  our  remembrance. 

In  the  afternoon  was  the  public  meeting  in  the  church ;  and  as  little  interest 
as  the  mass  of  College  took,  the  night  before,  in  the  delegation,  probably  Paul 
and  Barnabas  were  not  more  welcome  at  Antioch  than  were  these  messengers  of 
the  churches  now.  During  two  or  three  days  succeeding  it  was  impossible  to 
pursue  study ;  there  was  a  prayer- meeting  going  on  in  each  College  building 
from  morning  to  night,  in  some  room  or  other.  I  do  not  know  that  the  regular 
recitations  were  omitted  after  the  fast.  So  entirely,  however,  was  the  mind 
absorbed  with  the  great  realities  of  religion,  that  anything  like  concentrated 
attention  to  any  book,  except  that  long-neglected  one,  the  Bible,  became  impos- 
sible. The  term  was  now  drawing  to  a  close,  and  ended  with  a  religious  meet- 
ing of  deep  and  affecting  interest.  The  majority  of  those  who  were  in  the 
religious  meeting  above  described  obtained  hopes  nearly  at  the  same  time,  and 
not  many  days  after.  College  assembled  at  the  opening  of  the  spring  term,  to 
experience  a  renewal  of  the  same  scenes  which  had  characterized  the  closing 
weeks  of  that  which  had  preceded.  The  work  went  on,  with  more  or  less  power, 
until  the  warm  season  opened  ;  and  a  sermon  was  preached  at  the  close  of  the 
term,  as  had  been  done  in  1812. 

This  revival  of  religion,  which  has  been  commonly  called  the 
"revival  of  1826,"  and  which  is  so  vividly  described  in  these  terms 
by  Albert  Hopkins,  became  the  means,  in  the  view  of  Dr.  Griffin 
and  others,  of  saving  the  College  from  the  shock  and  moral  menace 
of  the  dreaded  public  incorporation  of  Amherst.  It  called  universal 
attention  toward  the  elder  institution  at  the  very  time  when  it 
seemed  to  be  going  to  pieces.  The  town  also,  and  the  county  too, 
shared  in  this  powerful  religious  awakening  in  the  College,  and 
enjoyed  throughout  the  year  of  1826  a  memorable  and  probably 
unprecedented  season  of  religious  interest.  Under  this  common 
impulse,  the  local  constituency  of  the  College  rallied  round  it  with 
strong  devotion  and  determination.  Dr.  Hyde  of  Lee,  Dr.  Field  of 
Stockbridge,  Dr.  Shepard  of  Lenox,  and  other  influential  friends  at 
the  south,  conspired  with  a  will  with  Judge  Noble,  Judge  Dewey, 
Dr.  Griffin  himself,  and  other  good  men  at  the  north,  to  hold  up  the 
falling  College.  This  was  the  period  of  Griffin's  greatest  usefulness 
in  Williamstown.  The  divisions  which  shortly  after  began  so 
unhappily  to  distract  the  local  church  in  relation  to  "  measures  " 
and  their  underlying  "doctrines,"  had  not  then  shown  any  front  at 
all.  Mr.  Gridley  cooperated  with  all  his  might  in  every  good 
word  and  work,  as  a  son  with  a  father.  Griffin  did  not  then,  as 
afterward,  deem  it  needful  to  spend  time  either  in  hunting  after 
heresy  or  in  guarding  against  it.  "  He  threw  himself  into  the  work 
with  no  trammels  or  scruples  to  check  the  order  of  his  feelings. 
Evening  after  evening,  for  several  months,  through  darkness,  snow, 


454  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

and  mud,  he  went  to  a  schoolhouse  in  the  east  part  of  the  village,  and 
poured  out  torrents  of  truth,  with  an  enthusiasm  not  inferior  to  that 
which  characterized  his  best  days.  He  seemed  to  be  nerved  up  to 
a  great  effort,  and  probably  never  afterward  appeared  to  the  same 
advantage,  or  preached  with  equal  power"  (Albert  Hopkins).1 

The  results  of  all  this,  though  very  important  to  the  College,  and 
to  the  town,  and  sufficient  to  carry  the  former  well  over  the  crisis, 
were  not  outwardly  great  nor  inwardly  lasting.  The  numbers 
graduated  in  regular  course  from  1827-32,  both  inclusive,  aver- 
aged but  twenty-one.  Two  years  are  commonly  sufficient  to  change 
the  complexion  of  a  college,  so  far  as  the  body  of  the  students  are 
concerned,  almost  completely;  since  the  two  upper  classes  usually 
give  tone  and  color  to  the  whole  body,  and  pass  on  out  of  sight.  It 
was  remarkably  so  in  this  instance,  as  will  be  noticed  a  little  further 
on.  But  considered  in  reference  to  the  president  and  the  guardians 
of  the  College,  the  results  were  considerable,  and  considerably  per- 
manent. He  and  they  were  sure  that  the  College  was  now  to  stand, 
and  that  it  became  them  to  secure  for  students  better  facilities  for 
the  time  to  coins.  Griffin  was  naturally  most  impressed  with  the 
need  of  a  new  college  chapel,  in  a  separate  building,  away  from 
either  of  the  two  college  dormitories.  The  old  one  occupied  the  two 
middle  stories  of  the  south  end  of  West  College,  and  had  become, 
in  the  course  of  thirty-five  years,  both  in  many  ways  unsuitable  and 
also  quite  too  accessible  to  mischievous  students  to  ply  their  tricks 
upon.  Just  before  this  revival  commenced,  the  trustees  at  their 
summer  meeting,  in  1825,  had  taken  the  desperate  resolution  to 
raise,  if  it  were  possible,  twenty-five  thousand  dollars,  in  order  to 
build  a  new  chapel  and  to  found  a  new  professorship.  The  con- 
ditions as  to  time  extended  from  the  first  of  September  to  the  last 
day  of  November.  No  subscription  was  to  be  binding  unless  the 
whole  were  completed  by  the  last-mentioned  date.  Dr.  Griffin  was 
appointed  the  sole  agent  to  solicit  funds,  and  it  was  thought  best 
that  his  name  should  head  the  list  of  givers;  to  which  he  consented, 
putting  it  down  for  one  hundred  dollars.  One  of  the  trustees  pres- 
ent, believed  to  be  Dr.  Shepard  of  Lenox,  expostulated  at  once: 
That  will  never  do;  the  money  cannot  be  raised  on  a  paper  headed 
that  way;  probably  it  cannot  be  raised  in  any  case;  but  it  must 
start  out  from  Williamstown  heavier  than  that.  After  deliberation 

1  This  schoolhouse  was  close  by  the  old  farmhouse  of  Deacon  Levi  Smedley ;  and  his 
sons,  Levi  and  James,  and  daughters  also,  attended  these  meetings.  Deacon  James 
Smedley  was  my  father-in-law,  and  I  have  often  heard  him  discourse  fervidly  on 
Griffin's  eloquence  and  power  at  those  times. 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       455 

and  consultation,  Griffin  put  down  his  name  again,  for  one  thousand 
dollars  in  place  of  the  other.  Doubtless  those  members  of  the  trus- 
tees who  could  give  at  all  went  also  to  the  utmost  verge  of  their 
pecuniary  ability. 

Griffin  went  out  in  September  upon  this  agency  of  soliciting  sub- 
scriptions. He  had  but  three  months  in  which  to  complete  the  work. 
After  the  revival  commenced  in  college,  he  felt  compelled  to  remain 
at  home  for  the  most  part  of  the  time;  but  the  powerful  revival 
itself  proved  later  to  have  more  efficiency  as  toward  the  end  in 
view  than  his  own  strong  solicitations.  "  If  the  Lord  ivere  phased 
to  Ml  us,  he  ivould  not  have  shown  us  all  these  things."  Heaven  has 
decreed  that  this  College  shall  live.  This  was  the  burden  of  his  later 
appeals.  Even  these  succeeded  but  slowly,  because  it  was  at  a  time 
of  commercial  crisis,  and  among  a  people  who  had  come  to  regard 
the  cause  of  the  College  as  a  hopeless  one.  While  in  Northampton 
on  this  errand,  he  met  with  a  very  efficient  agent  of  Amherst,  trav- 
ersing the  same  ground  in  the  interest  of  that  institution,  and  far 
surpassing  him  in  his  success.  This  agent  informed  him  of  the 
amounts  he  had  raised  in  such  and  such  instances.  "  Then  are  you 
the  prince  of  beggars."  The  guess  of  a  Yankee  may  perhaps  here  be 
tolerated,  conceding  all  reasonable  facility  to  this  Amherst  agent, 
that  his  success  was  not  due  to  his  own  ability  so  much  as  to  the 
youthful  vigor  and  the  long-delayed  rights  and  the  natural  constitu- 
ents of  Amherst.  At  that  time  Griffin  had  but  four  weeks  left  in 
which  to  raise  twelve  thousand  dollars.  He  had  just  gotten  over 
the  watershed.  Almost  one-half  had  yet  to  be  gained.  But  on 
account  of  the  state  of  things  at  home  his  courage  had  grown  faster 
than  his  subscription  list.  Both  his  own  daughters  and  his  son-in- 
law  had  been  hopefully  converted  in  the  revival.  According  to  a 
careful  memorandum  still  preserved  among  his  private  papers,  only 
four  of  the  students  actually  on  the  ground  at  the  close  of  the  fall 
term  in  1825  remained  unconverted;  while  there  were  eleven  others 
out  of  a  total  of  eighty-five  on  the  catalogue  then  absent  from  col- 
lege, leaving  seventy  hopefully  pious.  His  theory  of  missions,  and 
of  Christian  colleges  indispensable  in  order  to  carry  these  forward, 
made  him  so  sanguine  of  the  future  of  Williams,  and  he  was  enabled 
to  impart  so  much  of  his  own  enthusiasm  to  those  whom  he  ap- 
proached during  the  four  weeks,  that  the  whole  amount  of  twenty- 
five  thousand  dollars  was  assured  before  the  close  of  the  college 
term. 

In  a  double  and  emphatic  sense,  accordingly,  does  the  institution 
owe  to  its  third  president  the  beautiful  building  on  the  campus  used 


456  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

for  a  little  more  than  thirty  years  as  a  chapel,  and  still  useful  for 
various  other  purposes,  bearing  the  appropriate  name  of  "  Griffin 
Hall " ;  for  he  personally  raised  the  money  for  its  erection,  and  then 
his  tact  and  good  judgment  controlled  in  every  part  of  the  building, 
from  the  levelling  of  the  site  to  the  final  position  of  the  weather- 
vane.  Most  curious  is  it,  that  his  experience  at  Andover  many 
years  before,  which  brought  upon  his  name  much  odium  and  more 
ridicule,  namely,  his  expensive  handling  of  the  rocky  site  there  and 
the  erection  at  another's  cost  of  the  house  for  his  own  use,  proved 
of  great  service  to  him  and  the  public  in  his  corresponding  work 
here  in  1828.  When  he  took  hold  of  the  chapel  project  practically 
the  limestone  rocks  rose  twice  as  high  as  the  tallest  man's  head 
right  in  the  broad  street  north  of  the  road,  all  along  the  opposite  of 
the  old  East  College.  Beyond  these  ledges  the  ground  shelved 


GRIFFIN    HALL  (building  to  the  right). 

down  sharply  to  the  north,  where  the  building  now  stands.  The 
first  thing  to  do  was  to  blast  down  these  rocks  in  front,  and  then 
transport  them  some  rods  to  the  northwest,  in  order  thereby  to  level 
up  the  ground  on  the  back  side,  and  to  lay  a  firm  foundation  all 
around,  most  of  it  on  the  living  limestone.  The  next  thing  to  do 
was  to  procure  an  ornamental  and  the  locally  novel  underpinning, 
which  was  gotten  of  sawn  gray  marble,  —  nearly  white,  —  undoubt- 
edly brought  from  Lanesboro,  where  the  limestone  is  finer  and 
whiter  than  in  Williamstown,  and  where  at  that  time  machinery 
was  in  operation  cutting  out  just  such  blocks  as  were  required.  The 
window  sills  and  caps, — the  latter  somewhat  longer  and  much 
thicker  than  the  former,  —  and  the  two  front  door-sills  and  the  steps 
to  these  doors,  were  sawn  out  of  the  same  material  and  by  the  same 
process,  the  steps  into  very  large  blocks,  —  all  of  which  pieces  are 
in  perfect  place  to-day  after  being  seventy  years  in  position.  The 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       457 

building  is  ninety-two  feet  long  by  thirty-eight  feet  wide,  fronts  the 
south  with  two  handsome  doors  equidistant  from  the  corners,  of 
which  the  east  one  has  always  been  the  main  entrance,  and  is  three 
stories  high  with  an  ample  basement. 

The  costly  underpinning  was  only  used  in  front  parallel  with  the 
Main  Street,  and  on  the  west  end,  then  fully  observable  by  all  per- 
sons passing  from  west  to  east.  It  consisted  of  two  lines  of  blocks 
one  above  the  other,  each  just  one  foot  high  and  the  lower  one  well 
above  the  ground,  of  different  lengths  of  course  so  as  to  break  joints, 
and  the  smooth  surface  and  light  color  contrasting  finely  with  the 
red  brick  above,  of  which  the  main  building  was  constructed  and 
which  in  those  days  were  never  painted.  The  same  relief  was  fur- 
nished by  the  window  sills  and  caps  all  over  the  building,  except 
that  the  heavy  caps  were  not  used  on  the  back  side  at  all,  but  in 
place  of  them,  and  because  they  were  much  cheaper,  bricks  set  on  end 
formed  the  caps,  precisely  as  in  the  old  West  College.  Certainly 
in  fact  and,  perhaps  warned  by  his  Andover  experience,  in  cause, 
Dr.  Griffin  studied  cheapness  in  this  building,  wherever  it  would 
not  interfere  with  true  beauty  and  usefulness.  The  back  side,  that 
is,  the  north  side,  was  wholly  out  of  sight  in  those  days,  and  almost 
wholly  so  in  these  days  also.  There  was  no  marble  underpinning, 
and  no  marble  window-caps  on  the  back  side.  The  back  wall  of  the 
basement  up  to  the  uniform  brick  line  was  laid  in  the  rough  lime- 
stone that  came  from  the  ledges  in  front.  The  wall,  however,  on 
that  side  has  not  perceptibly  settled  any  more  than  on  any  of  the 
others.  It  was  good  work  all  round.  The  marble  sills  were  put 
under  every  window  in  the  building  without  exception;  and  there 
were  a  considerable  number  of  them  left  over  when  the  chapel  was 
completed;  and  these  Griffin  sold  to  Mr.  Morey,  father  of  the  pres- 
ent William  A.  Morey,  who  was  then  about  to  build  his  brick  house 
near  the  southern  end  of  Stone  Hill,  in  which  house  the  sills  appear 
firm  and  bright  at  the  present  time. 

The  steps  leading  up  to  the  two  doors  in  front  were  handsomely 
constructed,  and  are  handsomely  in  place  at  this  day.  The  upper 
stone  in  each  is  four  feet  by  six  and  one-half,  and  nine  inches  thick. 
The  quick,  heavy  tread  of  hundreds  of  students  to  and  from  chapel 
twice  a  day  for  over  thirty  years  has  perceptibly  worn  down  the 
upper  block  at  the  east  door,  and  the  sill  behind  it,  at  least  two 
inches  at  the  middle  point.  The  only  entrance  to  the  basement  was 
on  the  east  end  of  the  building  near  the  front,  and  this  door  was  also 
handsomely  wrought  and  approached  by  smaller  blocks  in  the  marble 
steps;  but  the  pressing  need  of  another  recitation-room,  besides  the 


458  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

famous  Senior  recitation-room  in  that  corner  of  the  first  floor,  caused 
to  be  constructed,  many  years  after  the  building  itself,  an  annex  of 
one  story,  covering  all  of  the  east  end  in  its  lower  portion,  except 
that  part  covered  by  the  basement  door  and  its  approaches.  This 
low  annex,  wholly  out  of  the  plan  and  forms  of  the  original  build- 
ing, greatly  disfigures  it,  especially  to  those  coming  toward  it  up 
"  Consumption  Hill, "  which  last  designation  sprung  from  a  remark 
of  Dr.  Griffin  to  the  effect,  that  many  a  student  had  been  cured  of 
tendencies  to  consumption  by  breasting  up  that  hill  in  a  hurry  to 
reach  college  prayers !  Barring  this  annex,  Griffin  Hall  is  a  very 
symmetrical  and  beautiful  building.  It  cost  ten  thousand  dollars. 
It  did  and  does  great  credit  to  the  taste  and  skill  of  Edward  Dorr 
Griffin.  It  is  not  likely  that  it  was  drafted  by  any  professional 
architect.  Neither  of  its  external  dimensions  fall  into  even  feet, 
nor  exactly  into  feet  and  half  feet.  It  is  surmounted  by  a  belfry  in 
excellent  proportion  both  as  to  size  and  height,  and  this  is  sur- 
mounted by  a  strong  iron  finial,  on  which  are  fastened  two  gilded 
globes  of  metal,  one  above  the  other,  the  lower  one  twenty-one 
inches  in  diameter  and  the  other  fourteen  inches.  Above  these  is 
the  weather-vane,  seven  feet  long.  The  finial  comes  to  a  point  with 
two  slight  bits  of  scroll-work,  the  broader  sides  toward  the  street. 
The  building  arid  all  its  summit-lines  satisfy  even  the  trained  eye 
and  educated  taste. 

The  evidence  is  direct  and  certain,  although  not  written  down 
contemporaneously,  that  the  copper  balls  and  the  weather-vane  were 
not  fastened  on  the  finial  by  any  predetermined  measurements,  but 
by  the  eye  of  Dr.  Griffin  himself,  standing  across  the  Main  Street  by 
the  old  East  College  fence,  while  the  men  above  the  belfry  lifted  or 
lowered  the  balls  and  the  vane  in  accordance  with  the  motions  of 
his  long  arm  and  huge  hand,  until  each  was  in  exact  relation  to  the 
others  and  in  right  proportions  of  height  with  the  whole  building 
and  with  the  terminating  finial  above,  when  at  his  stentorian 
"Hold!  "  each  and  all  were  made  secure  in  place.  It  is  not  known 
that  balls  and  vane  have  ever  been  unfastened  and  taken  down,  until 
in  August,  1896,  under  the  general  supervision  of  Watkins,  college 
carpenter,  all  three  were  temporarily  removed  for  the  purpose  of 
regilding.  The  only  other  feature  of  Griffin  Hall  that  claims  notice 
in  this  place  is  the  elaborate  central  window  of  the  west  end  of  the 
building,  directly  in  front  of  which  within  stood  the  pulpit  of  the 
chapel.  The  present  writer  is  no  architect,  and,  accordingly,  he 
cannot  technically  describe  this  window;  but  he  had  the  pleasure  a 
few  years  ago  of  running  across  a  professional  architect,  otherwise 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE    TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       459 

unknown  to  him,  who  was  admiring  and  copying  it  by  himself  alone. 
This  man's  emphatic  testimony  was,  that  the  window  was  the  finest 
architectural  feature  on  all  of  the  college  ground.  It  is  but  fair  to 
add,  however,  that  Hopkins  Hall  and  the  three  Thompson  labora- 
tories had  not  then  been  constructed,  and  could  not  consequently 
come  into  this  comparison. 

Before  the  formal  dedication  of  this  chapel,  the  main  feature  of 
which  was  a  useful  historical  address  by  the  president,  the  college 
faculty,  as  such,  suffered  its  first  great  loss  by  the  resignation  of 
Professor  Chester  Dewey.  He  had  been  nineteen  years  in  continu- 
ous service,  two  years  as  a  tutor,  from  1808,  and  seventeen  years  as 


GRIFFIN    HALL   AT    PRESENT. 

a  Professor  in  the  Natural  Sciences.  He  entered  college  from 
Sheffield  in  1802,  and  while  strong  in  mathematics  and  classics,  he 
evinced  from  the  first  a  decided  partiality  for  the  natural  sciences. 
He  was  the  pioneer  on  this  ground,  as  Professor  Silliman  was  at 
New  Haven  a  few  years  earlier,  in  this  class  of  studies,  and  put 
botany  and  chemistry  on  a  permanent  basis,  and  helped  on  in  the 
great  work  of  sorting  out  the  special  sciences,  which  were  then 
grouped  under  the  sole  designation  of  natural  philosophy.  AS  a 
boy,  he  had  been  remarked  for  an  early  and  symmetrical  develop- 
ment of  both  body  and  mind,  for  unusual  good  health  and  buoyant 
spirits;  as  a  student,  he  manifested  quickness  of  perception,  and  a 


460  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

manly  disposition,  and  high  regard  for  the  rights  and  feelings  of 
others,  and  a  hearty  interest  in  whatever  he  undertook,  whether  of 
sports  or  studies;  and  as  a  man,  he  showed  great  facility  in  execut- 
ing business  of  any  kind  and  method,  in  fulfilling  appointed  duties, 
and  a  willingness  to  help  others,  however  weakened  by  habits  or 
circumstances. 

It  is  admitted  on  all  hands  by  his  contemporaries  that  President 
Griffin  was  no  disciplinarian.  He  wholly  lacked  the  wonderful  tact 
possessed  by  his  successor  of  handling  students  practically  without 
discipline;  and  he  lacked  still  more  the  sympathetic  and  whole- 
hearted power,  which  some  college  officials  have  possessed,  of  so 
drawing  the  good-will  and  confidence  of  students,  and  of  so  develop- 
ing the  interest  of  students  in  the  studies  pursued,  that  the  steady 
and  impartial  and  kindly  application  of  a  few  rules  reached  all  the 
ends  of  discipline  with  very  little  friction.  Chester  Dewey  had  all 
the  natural  qualities  implied,  and  quickly  acquired  the  practical 
skill  requisite,  in  governing  students  by  a  combination  of  the  two 
above-mentioned  modes  of  action,  in  which  Griffin  was  deficient. 
The  professor  consequently  came  to  hold  a  prominent  position  in  the 
management,  as  well  as  in  the  instruction,  of  the  College,  and  when- 
ever the  president  was  away,  which  was  then  a  considerable  portion 
of  the  time,  he  acted  tacitly  in  his  stead,  and  usually  with  the  best 
results.  As  a  contemporary  has  well  put  it:  "His  facility  and  suc- 
cess in  the  government  of  young  men  brought  upon  him  special 
responsibilities,  and  constituted  him  the  leader  in  emergencies.  In 
doubt,  his  counsel  was  essential;  in  difficulty,  his  presence  was  in- 
dispensable; in  any  difference  of  sentiment,  his  opinion  was  final." 
Any  one  can  easily  glean  from  what  has  been  said  about  Griffin  in 
this  chapter,  that  he  would  not  relish  such  influence  and  deference 
accorded  to  a  colleague,  or,  as  he  doubtless  conceived  it,  subordinate. 
At  any  rate,  he  disrelished  it.  He  could  not  understand  the  grounds 
of  his  own  weakness  as  a  college  officer.  He  did  not  understand  the 
grounds  of  the  great  strength  of  his  colleague  as  a  college  officer. 
Xor  did  he  at  all  appreciate  the  indispensableness  of  Professor 
Dewey  to  the  College  as  matters  then  stood.  Details  of  the  quarrel 
have  not  come  down  to  us,  nor  direct  proofs  of  the  jealousy  of  the 
president  toward  the  professor;  but  it  is  as  certain  as  anything  in 
the  past  can  be,  that  the  professor  was  far  better  fitted  for  the  func- 
tions of  a  president  than  was  the  president  himself,  and  that  this 
circumstance,  with  others,  made  cordial  relations  between  the  two  in 
the  practical  ongoings  of  the  College  very  difficult,  if  not  impossible. 

It  is  not  suggested  in  these  lines,  neither  can  it  have  been  true, 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       461 

that  Professor  Dewey  was  altogether  without  blame  in  the  misunder- 
standings and  repulsions  that  led  to  his  resignation  of  his  professor- 
ship in  1827.  Such  rare  success  as  his  was  in  winning  the  hearts 
as  well  as  the  judgments  of  the  students,  was  too  well  calculated 
(human  nature  being  what  it  is)  to  inflate  a  comparatively  young 
man,  to  make  it  probable  that  he  kept  himself  as  meek  and  silent 
as  would  have  been  proper  under  the  assumptions  and  criticisms  and 
suspicions  of  his  elder  in  years  and  superior  in  position.  But,  how- 
ever this  may  have  been,  the  loss  of  Professor  Dewey  to  the  College 
was  severe  and  irreparable.  The  only  full  professor  left  was  Ebene- 
zer  Kellogg,  a  man  greatly  inferior  to  Dewey  in  every  respect. 
Dewey  had  studied  divinity  during  the  two  years  between  his 
graduation  and  his  accession  to  the  teaching  force  of  the  College, 
and  he  became  an  excellent  preacher.  Even  at  the  beginning  of  his 
professorship,  William  Cullen  Bryant,  then  a  Sophomore,  regarded 
his  preaching  so  favorably,  that  he  said  of  it  fifty  years  afterward, 
"We  listened  with  more  interest  [than  to  President  Fitch]  to  Pro- 
fessor Chester  Dewey,  then  in  his  early  manhood,  the  teacher  of  the 
Junior  class,  who  was  the  most  popular  of  those  who  were  called  the 
Faculty  of  the  College." 

Albert  Hopkins,  who  commenced  his  long-continued  course  of 
teaching  in  the  College  in  the  year  that  Chester  Dewey  left  it,  in 
that  article  on  the  religious  history  of  the  College  already  referred 
to  and  quoted  from,  mentions  this  departure  as  one  among  several 
causes  of  the  decadence  of  religion  and  increase  of  impiety  at  that 
time  and  afterward.  "  A  want  of  permanence  among  the  officers  of 
the  College,  operating,  of  course,  unfavorably  to  the  exertion  of  any 
systematic  religious  influences."  From  what  happened  directly 
afterward,  as  surely  as  from  all  that  went  before,  it  is  clearly  dis- 
cernible that  the  College  could  have  much  better  spared  its  presi- 
dent than  its  chief  professor.  The  latter  was  just  in  the  prime  and 
fulness  of  his  powers,  forty-three  years  old;  the  former  was  not 
indeed  past  age,  as  we  generally  reckon  it  for  such  functions,  being 
then  in  his  fifty-eighth  year,  but  he  was  uncommonly  old  for  his 
years,  and  unsuited  in  his  whole  make-up  to  enlarge  and  deepen  the 
studies  of  a  college,  which  was  to  him  a  sort  of  mill-horse  round. 
Dewey,  on  the  other  hand,  was  constructive  and  progressive.  He 
had  already  enlarged  the  circle  of  studies,  and  had  imparted  a 
vitality  and  prominence  to  the  natural  sciences,  which  they  kept 
unquestioned  throughout  the  first  third  of  the  century.  In  that 
interval  of  time,  no  other  class  of  studies  equalled  these  in  interest 
to  the  students,  and  in  really  educating  power.  The  credit  of  this, 


462  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

rather  the  great  distinction  of  it,  will  always  rest  with  Chester 
Dewey.  His  immediate  successor  in  the  professorship,  Ebenezer 
Emmons,  and  Albert  Hopkins,  in  a  cognate  professorship  created 
in  1829,  assisted  to  continue  a  certain  preeminence  to  these  studies 
over  others,  until  about  1833;  then  these  slowly  gave  place  to 
another  class  of  studies,  for  the  next  third  of  the  century,  under  the 
leadership  of  Mark  Hopkins. 

On  leaving  Williamstown,  Dewey  went  first  to  Pittsfield,  where 
he  remained  for  nine  years  in  charge  of  a  boys'  school  of  a  high 
grade,  called  the  Pittsfield  "Gymnasium,"  which  offered  unusual 
facilities  for  the  training  of  boys,  and  which  he  conducted  with 
great  success.  In  June,  1826,  the  Berkshire  Association  of  Con- 
gregational Ministers  passed,  at  their  session  in  Stockbridge :  — 

1st-  That  we  will  adopt  measures  to  secure  the  writing,  and  as  soon  as  cir- 
cumstances shall  permit,  the  printing  and  circulation  of  a  History  of  the  County  ; 
which  shall  embrace  an  account  of  everything  important  in  it,  whether  natural 
or  artificial,  civil,  literary,  or  religious  :  —  more  particularly,  which  shall  embrace 
an  account  of  the  settlement  of  the  several  Towns  ;  the  formation  of  Parishes  and 
Churches  ;  the  settlement,  dismission  and  death  of  Ministers  ;  revivals  of  religion, 
and  sketches  of  the  lives  of  eminent  men. 

2d-  That  Rev.  Mr.  Field  be  requested  to  prepare  the  materials  for  said  History. 

In  the  preface  to  this  publication,  when  it  came  to  be  printed,  in 
1829,  Mr.  Field  wrote  as  follows :  "  At  the  time  these  votes  were 
passed,  it  was  designed  to  apply  to  Professor  Dewey  to  write  the 
Natural  History  of  the  County.  He  has  done  more.  The  part  to 
which  his  name  is  prefixed  is  written  by  him,  with  the  exception 
of  the  paragraphs  which  respect  the  early  settlement  of  the  County, 
the  Aboriginal  inhabitants,  the  Revolutionary  War,  Shays's  Insur- 
rection, the  Courts,  revivals  of  Eeligion,  and  most  of  the  Tables. 
These  have  been  supplied  by  the  Committee  according  to  an  early 
understanding  between  the  Professor  and  him." 

The  title-page  of  the  First  Part,  which  embraces  nearly  one-half 
the  entire  book,  runs  as  follows :  — 

A 

HISTORY 

OF 
THE  COUNTY  OF  BERKSHIRE. 

PART  I. 
CONTAINING  A 

GENERAL  VIEW  OF  THE  COUNTY. 
BY  REV.  CHESTER  DEWEY, 

Late,  Professor  of  Chemistry  and  Natural  Philosophy  in 
Williams  College,  and  now  Principal  in  the  Berkshire  Gymnasium. 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       463 

In  1836  he  removed  to  Kochester  to  assume  direction  of  the  "  Col- 
legiate Institute"  there,  which  became,  under  his  auspices,  the 
present  "  University  of  Kochester."  He  never  afterward  removed 
his  home,  but  he  continued  for  many  years  to  give  courses  of  lectures 
on  botany  and  chemistry  in  the  medical  schools  of  Pittsfield  and 
Castleton,  Vermont.  His  old  age  was  a  pleasure  and  a  wonder. 
Preserving  his  youthful  sympathies,  his  vigor  of  mind,  health  of 
body,  and  lifelong  habits  of  industry,  he  passed  away  in  December, 
1867,  at  the  age  of  eighty-three,  with  a  serenity  and  triumph  that 
befitted  a  Christian  philosopher.  He  had  kept  up  in  general  in 
all  the  branches  of  natural  science,  but  his  specialty  was  botany, 
and  he  became  the  highest  authority  in  this  country  and  in  Europe 
in  the  botanical  department  of  sedges.  His  collection  of  grasses, 
also,  said  to  have  been  the  largest  and  best  in  the  world,  he  pre- 
sented to  Williams  College,  and  one  of  the  last  years  of  his  life  was 
much  occupied  in  completing  its  scientific  arrangement.1 

As  we  have  already  seen  in  part,  the  year  1827  was  one  of  the 
landmark  years  in  the  history  of  the  town  and  College.  The  trustees 
voted  to  raise  money  to  build  a  new  chapel,  and  also  to  found  a  new 
professorship.  This  was  termed  of  "  Rhetoric  and  Moral  Philoso- 
phy," and  its  first  incumbent  was  William  A.  Porter,  an  alumnus 
of  1818,  a  tutor  in  1819-21,  in  which  latter  year  he  pronounced 
the  master's  oration,  which  Dr.  Griffin  is  credibly  reported  to  have 
said  was  the  best  that  he  had  ever  heard  on  a  Commencement  occa- 
sion. After  a  leisurely  study  of  theology  under  his  father's  tuition 
at  Catskill,  and  at  Princeton  for  two  years,  he  was  called  to  Bur- 
lington as  a  candidate  for  settlement  in  the  ministry,  but  before 
that  question  was  decided  he  was  chosen  Professor  of  Languages  in 
the  college  there,  in  which  position  he  served  two  years,  and  then 
came  back  to  his  Alma  Mater  to  fill  the  new  professorship,  of  which 
much  was  expected,  and  to  which  Daniel  Noble,  his  father-in-law, 
contributed  pecuniary  support.  Professor  Porter  had  all  the  advan- 
tages of  an  uncommonly  fine  personal  appearance,  a  melodious  voice, 
warm  feelings,  and  even  temper,  talents  and  accomplishments  both 
varied  and  brilliant,  and  local  associations  and  relations  that  were 
of  the  best.  No  man  before  or  since  has  stepped  into  a  professor- 

1 1  am  not  likely  to  forget  the  circumstances  under  which  I  saw  Professor  Dewey 
for  the  first  and  only  time.  It  was  the  morning  of  Commencement  day,  1856.  I  was 
to  be  married  the  next  morning  in  the  college  chapel  hy  Mark  Hopkins;  and  was 
anxious  to  present  to  him  beforehand  my  legal  certificate  to  that  end.  I  found  him 
at  length  on  the  top  of  the  old  astronomical  observatory  in  the  sole  company  of  his 
old  teacher  and  confrere.  I  was  not  introduced,  but  I  had  a  chance  to  mark  the 
features  and  bearing  of  a  man  of  men. 


464  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

ship  on  this  ground  with  obviously  equal  prospects  and  preparations 
for  a  useful  and  excelling  career.  But  time  (an  indispensable  ele- 
ment in  college  success)  was  denied  to  him.  Death  cut  short  his 
opportunities  before  he  finished  his  third  year  of  service.  What  is, 
what  was,  is  open  to  observation  and  record;  the  door  to  what  might 
have  been  is  inexorably  closed  to  human  eyes. 

Mrs.  Porter,  thus  left  a  widow  in  early  life,  was  Mary  Noble, 
eldest  daughter  of  the  treasurer  of  the  College.  Her  beauty  of  per- 
son as  a  girl  and  as  a  woman,  even  to  old  age,  was  noteworthy;  and 
it  has  often  been  repeated  from  one  lip  to  another  that  she  was  the 
handsomest  woman  ever  bred  in  Williamstown.  In  1832,  after  two 
years  of  widowhood,  she  married  Charles  Stoddard  of  Boston,  who 
was  a  competent  and  faithful  trustee  here  from  1839  till  1872,  and 
she  often  accompanied  her  husband  back  to  her  old  home,  especially 
when  their  son,  Charles  A.  Stoddard,  was  filling  out  his  college 
course  to  its  completion  in  1854.  Her  character  was  as  beautiful 
as  her  face,  and  neither  left  much  to  be  desired.  Her  body  was 
brought  to  the  old  cemetery  here  on  the  hillside.  Dust  to  dust. 
Around  her  resting-place  moulder,  too,  the  ancestors  on  both  lines. 
On  the  question  of  personal  beauty,  there  was  sometimes  friendly 
rivalry  and  rallying  as  between  the  special  friends  of  Mrs.  Stoddard 
and  those  of  Mrs.  J.  V.  C.  Smith,  both  natives  of  Williamstown  and 
both  in  mature  life  fellow -residents  in  Boston.  Mrs.  Smith  was  one 
of  the  daughters  of  Henry  C.  Brown,  sheriff  of  the  county.  The 
late  Dr.  H.  L.  Sabin  was  fond  of  telling  a  story,  in  the  simple  inci- 
dents of  which  he  was  a  chief  participator.  In  1854,  Mrs.  Smith's 
husband  was  the  mayor  of  Boston.  Two  or  three  years  after  that, 
Dr.  Sabin  and  two  of  his  colleagues  in  the  State  Legislature  were 
sauntering  along  Washington  Street  of  a  Saturday  afternoon, 
jocosely  killing  time.  There  was  an  empty  dry-goods  box  con- 
veniently near  the  sidewalk,  and  the  three  proceeded  to  sit  down  on 
it  country  style.  One  of  them  proposed  that,  if  a  real  handsome 
woman  passed  by,  those  of  their  number  who  thought  her  such 
should  lift  the  right  hand  in  signal  thereof.  Pretty  soon  all  three 
hands  went  suddenly  up, — it  was  Mrs.  Charles  Stoddard.  Not 
long  after  all  the  three  hands  popped  up  again,  —  and  this  time  it 
was  Mrs.  Mayor  Smith!  Sabin  then  vociferously  claimed  them 
both  as  Williamstown  girls,  and  old  pards  of  his! 

Another  apparently  insignificant,  but  really  historical,  item  of 
this  year,  1827,  bearing  on  both  the  College  and  the  town,  was  the 
master's  oration  delivered  at  Commencement  by  Mark  Hopkins. 
He  was  the  eldest  of  three  sons  of  Archibald  and  Mary  Curtis  Hop- 


TOWN  AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       465 

kins  of  Stockbridge,  born  Feb.  4,  1802.  Their  farm  consisted  of 
375  acres,  and  it  was  one  of  the  old  Indian  mission  farms  of  the 
century  preceding;  and  one  of  the  buildings  upon  it  had  been  erected 
for  mission  purposes  by  the  General  Court  of  Massachusetts,  which 
stood  in  its  place  and  was  put  to  ordinary  farm  uses  till  long  past 
the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Mark  Hopkins 's  grand- 
mother was  Electa  Sergeant,  daughter  of  the  Rev.  John  Sergeant, 
the  sainted  Indian  missionary  of  Stockbridge.  Electa  Sergeant  was 
granddaughter  of  Ephraim  Williams,  Senior,  the  father  of  the 
founder  of  the  College,  the  head  of  one  of  the  four  English  families 
brought  to  Stockbridge  by  the  General  Court  in  order  to  set  an 
example  of  Christian  living  before  the  mission  Indians.  It  is  per- 
haps likely,  although  there  is  no  hint  of  it  anywhere,  that  these 
circumstances  in  the  line  of  their  descent  and  in  the  origin  of  their 
home  may  have  influenced  the  boyish  thoughts  of  Mark  Hopkins 
and  of  his  brother  Albert,  who  was  five  years  younger,  as  toward 
religion  and  missions.  It  is  more  likely  that  these  boys  derived 
from  their  mother,  who  was  a  woman  of  uncommon  strength  of  mind 
and  moral  purpose,  at  once  their  intellectual  traits  and  deeply 
religious  impulses.  Little  is  told  of  their  childhood,  but  this  little 
is  significant.  The  elder  related  of  the  younger  a  family  scene, 
which  he  witnessed.  When  Albert  was  about  three  years  old,  he 
was  standing  in  the  middle  of  the  room,  and  his  mother,  who  was 
seated,  bade  him  come  to  her.  He  refused.  She  used  persuasion 
with  no  avail,  and  then  went  and  whipped  him.  Seating  herself 
again,  she  told  him  to  come.  He  again  refused,  and  was  again 
whipped;  and  this  went  on,  the  whippings  becoming  more  severe, 
till  it  seemed  as  if  he  would  be  whipped  to  death.  During  the 
whippings  he  screamed,  and  then  stood  sullen  and  defiant.  At 
length,  after  the  severest  whipping  of  all,  when  his  mother  had 
seated  herself  and  bade  him  come,  he  stretched  out  both  arms  and 
ran  to  her,  and  hid  his  face  in  her  lap  and  sobbed.  From  that  time 
he  was  never  disobedient,  and  grew  up  to  be  one  of  the  most  affec- 
tionate and  dutiful  of  sons.  It  was  also  remembered  of  Albert  by 
the  older  brother,  that,  when  he  was  just  able  to  run  alone,  he  was 
one  day  missed,  and,  having  been  found  by  his  mother  half  a  mile 
from  home,  and  being  asked  what  he  was  doing  there,  he  said  he 
was  "  looking  at  the  great  treeses."  Mark  also  remembered,  and  some- 
times used  it  as  an  illustration  in  his  lectures  in  anatomy,  that  once, 
when  Albert  had  put  his  arm  out  of  joint  at  the  elbow,  his  father 
had  brought  him  up  to  Williamstown  in  a  wagon  to  be  treated  by 
the  famous  bone-setter  of  that  day,  Dr.  Porter,  and  just  how  the 
2n 


466  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

bone  had  been  thrust  back  into  its  socket  in  half  a  minute's  time. 
The  district  school  which  these  two  boys  attended  in  the  winter  was 
a  mile  and  a  half  from  their  home.  This  tended  to  develop  their 
physical  constitution,  naturally  robust;  the  younger  became  noted 
among  his  fellows  in  Stockbridge,  and  afterward  in  college,  for 
feats  of  strength  and  physical  endurance;  and  the  older  one,  after 
a  few  years  of  half  and  half  health,  came  into  a  forty  years'  course 
of  remarkable  physical  vigor,  though  he  did  not  take  the  active 
exercise  nor  make  the  strenuous  bodily  exertions  of  his  brother.  In 
their  boyhood,  both  worked  on  the  farm  in  the  summer-time,  both 
were  very  fond  of  natural  scenes  and  growths,  and  both  were  early 
stimulated  by  their  parents  to  lives  of  study  and  reflection. 

"  Study  was  more  congenial  to  my  brother  Mark  than  to  me.  He 
entered  upon  the  pursuit  of  knowledge  prompted,  I  think,  by  a  love 
for  it,  mixed  doubtless  with  something  of  a  worldly  ambition."  So 
wrote  Albert  Hopkins,  who  was  five  years  younger  than  his  brother, 
to  a  mutual  friend  of  both  in  1840.  These  boys  had  an  uncle,  Jared 
Curtis,  an  alumnus  of  the  College  in  1800,  who  providentially  came 
to  be  placed  in  a  position  to  supplement  the  influence  of  the  parents 
in  relation  to  their  going  to  college.  After  several  vocations  else- 
where, he  became  principal  of  an  academy  in  Stockbridge,  his  native 
place,  just  at  the  right  time  to  assist  in  persuading  his  nephews  to 
go  to  college  and  to  assist  also  in  fitting  them  to  enter.  When 
Mark  was  about  seventeen  years  old  he  taught  school  for  a  term  in 
Richmond,  the  town  adjoining  Stockbridge  on  the  north,  and  there 
is  good  evidence  that  then  and  there  he  struck  the  key-note  of  his 
after  life.  He  gained  the  hearts  of  his  scholars,  so  that  they  never 
forgot  him  afterward.  This  primal  success  was  followed  up  the 
next  year,  when  he  was  eighteen,  by  an  experience  that  has  but 
recently  come  to  light  (1897),  from  a  bundle  of  old  letters  preserved 
by  his  mother.  Partly  on  account  of  infirm  health,  and  partly  with 
a  view  of  earning  money  with  which  to  go  to  college,  for  his  parents 
were  not  forehanded  and  they  had  just  then  lessened  their  means  by 
opening  their  home  to  the  orphaned  children  of  John  Hopkins, 
whom  they  brought  up  as  their  own,  in  May,  1820,  Mark  went  to 
Virginia,  to  open  a  school  in  Mecklenburg  County,  on  the  border  of 
North  Carolina.  He  boarded  with  a  Mr.  Nelson,  chief  patron  of 
the  school,  who  built  the  schoolhouse  on  his  own  land  after  young 
Hopkins  had  arrived.  Several  of  his  pupils  came  from  a  consider- 
able distance.  The  state  of  society,  according  to  his  letters  to  his 
parents,  was  astonishingly  primitive.  His  pupils  though  ignorant 
were  capable.  He  became  strongly  interested  in  them,  and  stayed 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       467 

with  them  about  eighteen  months  before  he  returned  North.  He 
interested  himself  also  in  the  blacks,  who  were  one-half  of  the  popu- 
lation. At  their  request  he  read  a  chapter  in  the  New  Testament 
to  them  in  each  of  their  fervid  meetings,  but  withdrew  after  reading. 
His  letters  home  though  artless  are  impressive.  Even  then  he  had 
a  master  stroke  in  English.  A  letter  to  Albert  in  Latin  is  scarcely 
English.  A  letter  in  the  bundle  from  the  mother  addressed  to  Mark 
on  his  nineteenth  birthday  is  a  masterpiece  both  in  sense  and 
expression. 

Some  six  or  eight  months  after  his  return  home  from  the  South, 
and  in  the  line  of  some  assurance  of  pecuniary  help  sent  him  by  his 
father  while  there,  Mark  entered  Williams  about  the  middle  of 
Sophomore  year,  and  was  graduated  in  due  course  in  1824.  Per- 
haps because  his  health  was  not  yet  firm,  and  because  the  instruction 
offered  was  not  all  of  it  inviting,  he  was  not  specially  assiduous  or 
constant  at  his  college  studies  even  after  he  had  entered. 

The  full  course  has  always  been  twelve  terms.  Four  of  these  had 
fully  passed  before  he  entered  at  all.  He  was  certainly  absent  most 
of  the  time  for  two  more.  By  entering  late  he  mainly  (perhaps 
wholly)  escaped  the  tuition  of  the  tutors,  who,  in  their  best  estate, 
were  crude  in  their  scholarship.  There  were  then  besides  the  tutors 
two  professors  and  the  president.  The  only  one  of  these  three  who 
was  at  once  a  good  teacher  and  an  inspiring  exemplar  in  life  and 
science,  and  a  hopeful  and  companionable  man,  was  Chester  Dewey, 
Professor  of  " Mathematics  and  Natural  Philosophy."  Mark  Hop- 
kins was  not  an  adept  in  mathematics.  What  parts  of  them  he 
heartily  essayed  to  learn,  he  learned  with  difficulty  and  with  no 
great  success.  Neither  was  he  a  good  student  in  the  ancient  lan- 
guages. Of  his  Greek  lessons,  he  once  said  to  a  college  mate, 
"  They  are  easy ;  I  do  not  know  enough  of  Greek  to  make  them 
hard."  But  upon  the  natural  sciences,  under  the  impulse  and  guid- 
ance of  Professor  Dewey,  he  entered  with  zest,  and  had  a  good  suc- 
cess in  them  throughout.  The  best  and  a  complete  proof  of  this 
may  be  found  in  the  master's  oration,  the  first  writing  of  his  that 
was  published,  in  which  nearly  all  of  his  illustrations  are  drawn 
from  those  departments  of  knowledge  loosely  covered  at  that  time 
by  the  term,  Natural  Philosophy.  His  only  college  training  in  the 
Baconian  logic  was  derived  from  Dewey ;  and  he  speaks,  with  some 
enthusiasm,  in  the  oration  just  referred  to,  of  "an  induction  of  par- 
ticulars," like  that  of  Newton  in  respect  of  gravitation.  It  is  a 
pity  that  he  did  not  afterward  pursue  his  studies  in  logic  farther, 
for  he  never  came  to  a  full  comprehension  of  the  essential  differ- 


468  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

•  « 

ences  between  the  inductive  and  deductive  logic,  and  their  pro- 
digious importance  in  the  studies  of  which  he  was  in  general  a 
profound  master.  "I  have  never  read  Mill's  'Logic,'  or  any  other 
full  book  on  that  subject,"  he  said  apologetically  to  the  writer  in 
the  latter's  Senior  year,  while  he  was  going  over  with  the  class  a 
petty  and  antiquated  book  mainly  on  the  syllogism. 

From  a  boy  his  mind  seems  to  have  taken  a  philosophical  turn,  — 
causa  causarum,  —  although  it  does  not  appear  that  he  found  at 
home  many  (if  any)  philosophical  books  strictly  so  called.  As  soon, 
however,  as  he  had  fairly  entered  college,  he  began  to  search  the 
college  library  for  such  books.  He  found  Eeid,  Dugald  Stewart, 
Paley,  and  some  others,  which  he  read  carefully  and  partially  as- 
similated, before  he  came  under  Dr.  Griffin,  who  then  taught  these 
subjects  in  the  Senior  year.  It  had  been  the  function  of  the  presi- 
dents from  the  beginning  to  teach  the  Seniors  morals  and  meta- 
physics. Dr.  Moore  was  fully  competent  to  do  this;  and  it  is 
probable  that  he  had  secured  to  the  library  the  works  of  Scotch  and 
English  writers,  which  Hopkins  had  devoured  at  his  leisure.  Dr. 
Griffin  was  no  metaphysician,  and  still  less  a  scientific  moralist. 
There  is  no  question  that  Hopkins  was  more  than  a  match  for  his 
teacher  in  these  topics  from  start  to  finish.  Not  that  he  had  yet 
come  to  any  final  conclusions  of  his  own,  as  to  the  ultimate  grounds 
of  mental  or  moral  action;  but  he  knew  what  the  then  current 
writers  had  said  on  these  points,  and  what  was  consistent  or  non- 
consistent  with  their  fundamentals.  We  catch  from  a  letter  of 
Harvey  Rice,  a  classmate  and  friend,  written  to  Franklin  Carter, 
while  the  latter  was  preparing  a  brief  memoir  of  Hopkins  not  long 
after  his  death,  in  1887,  an  interesting  statement  or  two,  and,  what 
is  better,  some  personal  reminiscences  of  Hopkins's  bearing  in  the 
class-room  toward  his  teacher  and  president.  One  statement  is, 
"  He  soon  evinced  a  decided  love  for  the  study  of  metaphysics,  and 
read  all  the  books  on  that  subject  which  he  could  find  in  the  college 
library,  and  took  great  pleasure  in  discussing  the  different  theories 
advanced  by  different  authors."  The  middle  part  of  this  state- 
ment is  loosely  drawn,  as  such  generals  commonly  are,  and  is 
very  probably  exaggerated,  although  the  library  was  then  scant 
enough  in  special  books  on  any  one  branch  of  knowledge;  and 
besides,  the  strong  statement  conflicts  with  what  the  person  con- 
cerned expressly  told  the  present  writer  thirty  years  later.  The 
other  two  clauses  of  the  statement,  however,  are  obviously  and 
abundantly  true. 

The  following  reminiscences  in  Rice's  letter  are  pregnant  with 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       469 

suggestions  in  several  directions,  and  are  beyond  all  price  as  illus- 
trating the  character  of  two  successive  presidents  of  the  College. 

In  the  recitation-room  he  often  put  questions,  arising  out  of  our  lessons,  to 
the  learned  professor  [Griffin],  which  perplexed  him,  and  then  would  answer 
the  questions  himself  with  becoming  deference.  I  well  remember  that  on  one 
occasion,  during  our  Senior  year,  he  read  before  the  class  in  the  presence  of  the 
professor  an  essay  on  a  metaphysical  subject.  About  half  the  essay  was  origi- 
nal, and  the  other  half  copied  from  the  distinguished  Scotch  author,  Dr.  Reid. 
Hopkins  had  placed  quotation  marks  on  what  was  original,  but  omitted  to  credit 
Keid.  The  learned  professor  who  had  the  class  in  charge,  in  criticising  the  essay 
pronounced  the  quotation  all  right,  but  cut  and  scored  Dr.  Reid  unmercifully. 
Hopkins  said  nothing,  but  doubtless  laughed  in  his  sleeve.  He  soon  after  con- 
fided in  me  the  finesse  he  had  practised  on  the  professor  [president],  with  an 
injunction  to  keep  it  secret,  lest  it  might  come  to  the  ears  of  the  professor  and 
wound  his  feelings.  I  doubt  if  he  ever  spoke  of  it  to  any  one  else.  I  kept  the 
secret  for  more  than  forty  years,  and  then  disclosed  it,  for  the  first  time,  in  a 
speech  which  I  made  at  the  Commencement  dinner,  in  1871,  when  Hopkins  was 
president  of  the  College  and  presided  at  the  table.  The  anecdote  was  received 
with  prolonged  applause.1 

Was  it  honest  for  the  pupil  to  put  quotation  marks  around  what 
was  his  own  in  a  composition  destined  to  come  before  the  eye  of  the 
teacher,  and  to  take  bodily  from  another  a  long  passage  and  pass  it 
off  as  his  own? 

Was  the  mere  fact  that  the  teacher  "  cut  and  scored  unmercifully  " 
a  passage  really  from  Reid,  a  proof  of  his  incapacity,  when  the 
pupil  continued  to  do  that  precise  thing,  as  a  teacher,  with  other 
passages  from  Keid  for  forty  years  and  more? 

Because  the  teacher  in  class  approved  of  the  passages  written  by 
the  pupil,  even  though  inveigled  to  do  so  by  the  quotation  marks, 
was  that  a  good  joke  upon  him,  or  any  proof  in  itself  that  the  pas- 
sages approved  were  weak  philosophy? 

Did  Hopkins  impart  to  Rice  the  real  reason  for  his  injunction  to 
secrecy,  in  the  words,  "  lest  it  come  to  the  ears  of  the  professor  and 
wound  his  feelings  "  ? 

Finally,  did  the  pupil  respect  himself  any  the  more  or  his  teacher 
any  the  less  for  the  apparent  success  of  what  he  must  have  known 
was  an  immoral  trick? 

The  child  is  father  of  the  man.     The  simple  truth  is,  that  Mark 

1 1  was  present  at  this  Commencement  dinner,  and  heard  Mr.  Rice  tell  the  above 
story,  and  joined  without  reflection  in  the  laughter  and  applause.  The  laughter  was 
at  the  expense  of  the  memory  of  the  past  president,  Griffin,  and  the  applause  in  honor 
of  the  present  president  Hopkins.  What  reflection  has  led  rne  to  conclude  as  to  the 
character  of  the  whole  matter  from  first  to  last,  is  made  sufficiently  apparent  in  the 
text. 


470  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

Hopkins  displayed  in  this  incident  of  his  student  life  a  trait,  which 
appeared  and  reappeared  at  intervals  in  his  varied  intercourse  with 
others  throughout  his  active  life,  —  a  trait  which  is  well  described 
in  a  review  of  Carter's  book  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  presumably 
written  by  the  editor,  H.  E.  Scudder,  Williams  College  1858,  "  as 
something  very  like  guile."  Perhaps  he  inherited  this  feature  of  his 
character  from  Ephraim  Williams,  father  of  the  founder  of  the 
College,  who  certainly  possessed  it  to  such  a  degree  as  ultimately  to 
destroy  his  influence  in  Stockbridge,  and  indirectly  to  destroy  the 
Indian  Mission  there.1  Hopkins  was  great-great-grandson  of  Wil- 
liams. The  testimony  of  their  college  contemporaries  is  copious 
and  uniform,  that  both  the  Hopkins  brothers  were  good  students, 
correct  and  decorous  in  all  their  deportment,  courteous  to  everybody, 
willing  to  help  anybody  they  could,  and  highly  esteemed  at  once 
for  their  talents  and  their  character.  Mark  was  regarded  by  his 
classmates  as  the  best  writer  and  deepest  thinker  in  college  at  the 
time.  He  received  at  graduation  the  appointment  of  valedictorian, 
"an  honor,'7  says  Harvey  Rice,  "justly  bestowed  and  heartily  ap- 
proved by  every  member  of  the  class.  In  conversation  with  him 
nearly  fifty  years  afterward,  the  writer  happened  to  remark  that  he 
was  greatly  surprised  that  the  only  dullard  of  his  class,  in  his 
graduating  oration,  had  manifested  a  degree  of  ability  and  talent 
which  exceeded  the  expectation  of  everybody  who  knew  him;  and 
that  he  was  unable  to  account  for  it.  'Well,'  said  Hopkins,  'per- 
haps I  may,  now  the  fellow  is  dead,  explain  it.  The  truth  is,  I 
wrote  the  oration  for  him.'  ' 

The  following  is  a  copy  of  an  invitation  to  the  Commencement 
Ball  of  1824:  — 


College 

COMMENCEMENT  BALL,  SEPTEMBER   ist,  1824 


The  Class  of  Graduates  requests  the  attendance  of 

Miss  Lucy  Bridges 
at  Sylvester's  Assembly  Room  at  7  P.M. 

H.   RICE  S.  MOOAR 

M.  HOPKINS  fiftanagerg  c.  w.  BULKLEY 

J.   H.  CARPENTER  J.  S.   ROBINSON 

1  See  for  particulars  Origins  in  Williamstown,  passim. 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.        471 

The  "Assembly  Koom"  in  the  old  Mansion  House,  elsewhere 
described,  was  then  called  "Sylvester's,"  from  the  name  of  the 
lessee  of  the  tavern.  In  the  early  time  these  balls  were  as  regu- 
lar a  feature  of  the  annual  Commencement  as  the  baccalaureate 
sermon  or  the  valedictory  oration.  The  "Miss  Lucy  Bridges" 
herewith  invited  to  this  ball  is  now,  1897,  Mrs.  James  Smedley, 
and  has  kept  this  souvenir  of  her  early  youth  (sixteen  years) 
until  now,  and  has  recently  given  it  to  the  writer  for  the  present 
purpose. 

Soon  after  Hopkins 's  graduation,  in  1824,  he  entered  as  a  student 
the  Medical  College  at  Pittsfield,  but  taught  a  part  of  that  year  in  a 
school  at  Stockbridge.  Then  he  was  chosen  a  tutor  in  his  Alma 
Mater,  and  served  with  acceptance  for  two  years  in  that  position. 
But  his  heart  was  not  in  the  subjects  which  he  taught  in  the  class- 
room. Latin  and  Greek  as  such  had  few  charms  for  him,  although 
for  a  part  of  the  time  he  taught  in  other  subjects,  and  in  the  Junior 
class.  For  the  first  year  he  was  associated  in  the  tutorship  with  his 
classmate  and  warm  friend,  William  Hervey.  Both  were  power- 
fully influenced,  religiously,  by  the  wonderful  outpouring  of  the 
Spirit  upon  the  College  during  that  year,  and  both  powerfully 
influenced  the  students  in  the  way  of  righteousness;  and  not 
the  students  only,  but  also  many  people,  young  and  old,  in  the 
town.  After  Tutor  Hervey  retired,  and  during  the  year  when 
Hopkins  was  what  was  then  called  "Sophomore  tutor,"  he 
taught  a  class  of  ten  or  twelve  boys  in  the  Sunday-school  of 
the  town.  The  testimony  is  direct  and  pathetic  as  to  his  religious 
influence  over  that  class.  Said  one  of  them  of  their  teacher,  "  He 
left  in  the  autumn  of  that  year,  and  the  final  meeting  with  us 
was  an  occasion  whose  memory  of  more  than  sixty  years  is  still 
tearful." 

The  faculty  appointed  Tutor  Hopkins,  as  a  compliment  to  him 
and  fittingly  to  round  out  his  official  connection  with  them,  to 
deliver  the  master's  oration  at  Commencement.  This  appointment 
continued  to  be  an  honor,  so  regarded  by  the  donors  and  so  relished 
by  the  recipients,  to  one  of  those  seeking  that  degree  three  years 
after  graduation,  for  about  thirty  years  after  this,  as  it  had  been 
considered  an  honor  for  a  long  time  before  this.  At  this  very  Com- 
mencement, William  A.  Porter  was  chosen  Professor  of  Moral 
Philosophy  and  Rhetoric,  largely  on  account  of  distinction  gained  in 
1821  by  his  master's  oration,  as  has  been  already  noted;  and  it  is 
as  certain  as  any  such  matter  can  be  made,  that  Hopkins  became 
Porter's  successor  in  this  professorship  in  1830,  still  more  largely 


472  WILLIAMSTOWN  AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

in  consequence  of  distinction  gained  by  his  own  master's  oration 
in  1827. 

This  piece,  which  reads  like  an  essay  in  philosophy,  and  has  few 
oratorical  features  in  it  from  beginning  to  end,  except  clearness  and 
force  of  statement  and  reasoning,  convincingly  shows  what  his  read- 
ing had  been,  and  how  the  bent  of  his  mind  had  been  set,  in  the 
three  years  since  graduating.  Its  subject  was  "Mystery."  It  does 
not  show  a  trace  of  any  of  the  subjects  he  had  been  teaching  in  for 
two  years  in  College.  No  one  could  have  guessed  from  it  that  he 
had  attended  medical  lectures,  and  was  about  to  resume  them,  in 
preparation  for  the  profession  which  he  had  chosen  for  his  life- 
work.  It  made  a  deep  impression  upon  those  who  heard  it.  It  was 
published  the  next  April  in  the  American  Journal  of  Science  and 
Arts.  There  is  no  evidence,  indeed  the  evidence  is  all  the  other 
way,  that  the  delivery  of  the  oration  on  the  commencement  stage 
added  anything  to  its  impressiveness  over  and  beyond  what  has  been 
received  by  careful  and  intelligent  readers  of  it.  About  1880,  at 
any  rate  the  last  time  that  John  Morgan,  of  the  class  of  1826,  was 
here,  Hopkins  told  in  the  alumni  meeting  at  his  own  expense  and 
in  the  presence  of  Morgan,  who  had  been  for  a  lifetime  Professor  of 
Biblical  Literature  in  Oberlin  College,  of  an  amusing  passage  once 
happening  between  the  two  just  after  Hopkins  had  spoken  on  the 
stage :  — "  Mark,  you  are  the  aivkwardest  man  that  ever  1  heard 
speak!"  Morgan  was  a  native  Irishman,  born  the  same  year  as 
Hopkins,  immigrating  in  early  childhood,  fitting  for  college  in 
Stockbridge  Academy,  becoming  a  classmate  here  with  Albert  Hop- 
kins, and  always  continuing  intimate  with  the  older  brother  also. 
John  Morgan  was  as  tall  and  burly  as  Mark  Hopkins,  but  far  more 
supple  in  motion  and  graceful  in  attitude,  as  befitted  a  well-to-do 
native  of  the  Isle ;  while  stiffness  and  awkwardness  in  attitude  and 
motion  continued  to  characterize  the  public  addresses  of  the  other 
even  to  old  age,  although  they  gradually  became  less,  or  at  least 
less  noticeable.  Much  earlier  in  life  than  most  men,  Hopkins  lost 
his  hair  on  the  top  of  the  head,  while  considerable  tufts  remained 
till  the  last  upon  the  sides  and  back  of  it;  and  it  was  a  very 
peculiar  motion  of  his  in  public  speaking,  to  bring  up  over  the  top 
of  his  head  with  one  hand  or  the  other  the  long  stray  hairs  on 
one  side  or  the  other,  which  were  doubtless  brushed  and  trained 
to  stay  there  in  general,  as  appears  in  all  his  pictures.  His  eyes 
were  deep  set  in  his  head,  very  bright,  shaded  by  uncommonly 
thick  and  long  lashes,  so  that  it  was  difficult  for  any  one  to  tell 
of  what  color  they  were.  He  used  sometimes  to  amuse  himself 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       473 

by  asking  chance  groups  of  young  people  to  tell  him  what  color  his 
eyes  were. 

With  that  master's  oration  Hopkins  took  permanent  leave  of  the 
College,  as  he  supposed.  The  only  professorship  then  founded  that 
he  was  fitted  for,  or  would  have  thought  of  accepting  had  it  been 
offered  to  him,  had  been  just  at  that  time  filled  by  Professor  Porter, 
an  earlier  alumnus,  a  very  suitable  man,  and  a  man  more  favored 
by  President  Griffin  than  Hopkins  then  was  or  ever  after  came  to 
be.  Albert  Hopkins  became  a  tutor  at  the  same  time  that  Mark 
went  out  of  his  two  years'  tutorship;  and  if  either  of  them  had 
then  thought,  that  a  college  life  would  be  desirable  for  himself  or 
the  other,  the  chances  would  have  looked  brighter  for  the  younger 
brother;  for  he  was  the  better  mathematician,  better  fitted  for  and 
grounded  in  those  .natural  sciences,  which  Professor  Dewey  had 
brought  and  kept  to  the  fore.  And  so  it  happened  in  point  of  fact. 
Albert  Hopkins  did  not  leave  the  College  from  1827  till  his  death, 
in  1872;  not  that  he  was  teaching  all  the  time  in  that  long  interval, 
and  still  less  teaching  in  single  lines  of  study.  He  remained  for 
two  years  a  tutor,  then  assumed  the  duties  of  Professor  of  Mathe- 
matics and  Natural  Philosophy  for  nine  years,  and  then  for  just 
thirty  years  continued  in  the  chair  of  Natural  Philosophy  and 
Astronomy,  when  he  practically  ceased  teaching  in  1868,  though 
nominally  bearing  the  title  of  "Memorial  Professor  of  Astronomy," 
on  a  foundation  given  by  his  lifelong  friend,  David  Dudley  Field. 
Mark  Hopkins  went  back  to  his  medical  lectures,  to  some  teaching, 
pursued  as  a  means  of  paying  his  expenses,  and  to  a  futile  effort  to 
establish  himself  as  a  physician  in  New  York  City.  His  own  phrase 
in  relation  to  this  was  often  repeated  in  after  life,  "  I  had  pretty 
much  got  out  of  practice  in  New  York,  or  rather,  I  had  never 
got  in." 

There  must  also  be  chronicled  under  this  year  of  1827,  something 
perhaps  equally  interesting  in  the  history  of  the  town  and  college 
both,  since  both  were  concerned  in  its  initiation  and  maintenance 
while  it  lasted,  namely,  the  establishment  in  April  of  that  year  of 
a  weekly  newspaper,  entitled  the  American  Advocate,  "Edited  and 
Published  by  Eidley  Bannister,  nearly  opposite  the  West  College, 
for  the  Proprietors."  A  random  file  of  these  newspapers,  extending 
from  No.  11  to  No.  76,  though  far  from  complete  within  these 
numbers,  is  now  lying  on  the  writer's  desk.  They  are  well  able  to 
yield  some  gleanings  of  promise  to  our  general  purposes  in  this 
chapter.  Bannister  was  the  printer  as  well  as  the  editor  and  pub- 
lisher, the  only  printer  in  town  who  has  ever  left  a  name  behind 


474  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

liim  as  such,  and  probably  the  only  man  who  ever  exercised  the 
printer's  art  within  its  limits.  The  printing-office  was  at  first 
down  street,  — '"  nearly  opposite  the  post-office,"  —  as  was  announced 
in  the  earlier  headlines,  but  more  eligible  quarters  were  later  found 
in  the  Williamstown  Academy  building,  undoubtedly  in  the  east 
room  of  the  lower  floor,  in  which  Keyes  Danforth,  still  later,  held 
his  law  office,  and  also  the  post-office  from  1853  till  1861,  nearly 
the  entire  front  of  which  building  is  shown  in  the  accompanying 
woodcut.  It  is  quite  possible,  that  the  trustees  of  the  Academy  and 
owners  of  the  building  were  among  the  "  proprietors  "  mentioned  in 
the  headlines  of  the  newspaper  in  every  issue.  Who  the  "proprie- 
tors "  were  is  not  otherwise  known;  but  it  is  plain  enough  that  the 


ambitious  enterprise  (for  so  small  a  town)  did  not  prove  to  be 
profitable  to  them;  for  it  is  believed  that  no  number  of  the 
paper  was  printed  after  November,  1828.  It  died  within  two 
years  of  its  hopeful  beginning.  It  died  amid  the  bitter  disputes 
and  turmoils  of  the  first  election  of  Andrew  Jackson  to  the 
presidency. 

The  name  of  the  newspaper,  American  Advocate,  hints  at  the  in- 
fluence and  policy  of  Henry  Clay,  at  that  time  a  Democratic  politi- 
cian of  wonderful  personal  magnetism,  but  with  no  claims  to  profound 
statesmanship.  If  there  were  ever  anything  absolutely  un-American 
in  every  fibre  of  it,  it  was  that  jumble  of  restrictions  and  prohibi- 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       475 

tions  on  foreign  trade,  which  Clay  dubbed  the  "American  System." 
There  was  no  "  system  "  about  it  whatever,  but  only  a  game  of  greed 
and  grab,  and  the  devil  take  the  hindmost;  there  was  nothing 
''American"  about  it,  because  it  denied  the  fundamentals  of  Jeffer- 
son's Declaration,  and  forbade  to  the  whole  people,  at  the  instance  of 
a  few  schemers,  the  "  liberty  "  to  buy  and  sell  and  get  gain.  Never- 
theless, there  were  then,  as  there  have  been  more  or  less  ever  since, 
ignorant  dupes  of  these  public  plunderers,  led  astray  by  the  sound 
and  fury  of  deceptive  words  like  "Protective"  and  "American"  and 
"Home  Market."  Clay  was  a  candidate  for  the  presidency  in  1824 
under  this  false  hue  and  cry,  but  was  beaten  by  John  Quincy  Adams 
in  the  national  House  of  Eepresentatives,  the  only  time  a  President 
has  been  chosen  by  that  constitutional  method.  Clay  himself  voted 
in  the  House  for  Adams,  and  became  almost  immediately  the  latter 's 
Secretary  of  State,  in  consequence  of  which  the  charge  of  "  bargain 
and  corruption  "  was  vehemently  raised  against  him,  and  he  lost  a 
large  part  of  his  great  popularity,  and  never  afterwards  regained  it. 
Clay  had  many  warm  friends  in  Massachusetts,  particularly  Henry 
Shaw  of  Lanesboro,  father  of  the  late  "  Josh  Billings  "  of  humorous 
memory.  He  visited  Shaw  on  one  occasion  in  Lanesboro  as  a  per- 
sonal friend,  whose  vote  in  favor  of  Clay's  "Missouri  Compromise" 
in  1820  put  a  sudden  end  to  Shaw's  political  life  in  Berkshire.  A 
large  majority  of  the  people  of  Wllliamstown  had  been  Democrats 
in  distinction  from  Federalists  ever  since  that  party  line  was  drawn, 
and  some  of  them  had  been  misled  by  the  wretched  fallacies  of  Clay 
and  others  into  supposing  that  prohibitions  on  trade  could  increase 
riches  whose  only  possible  source  is  trade;  and  there  were  enough 
of  these  people  in  Williamstown  in  1827,  and  they  were  influential 
enough,  to  give  both  a  name  and  a  sort  of  policy  to  their  respectable, 
though  short-lived  newspaper.  We  notice  in  one  of  the  numbers  an 
editorial  in  ostensible  support  of  this  restrictive  and  prohibitive 
theory  of  commerce ;  but  there  is  not  a  paragraph  or  a  line  in  it  that 
is  worth  quoting,  because  the  right  of  citizens  to  buy  and  sell  freely 
is  not  a  subject  that  has  two  sides  to  it  any  more  than  any  one  of 
the  ten  commandments  has  two  sides.  Jefferson,  in  immortal  words, 
has  pronounced  this  right  and  liberty  to  be  at  once  self-evident  and 
inalienable.  Government,  which  in  the  last  analysis  is  nothing  in 
the  world  but  a  committee  of  the  citizens  to  act  in  their  behalf  and 
for  their  good  as  a  whole,  may  indeed,  with  their  consent  and  at 
their  instance,  restrict  and  prohibit  trade  proved  to  be  prejudicial 
to  the  public  health  or  the  public  morals  or  the  public  revenue,  and 
on  no  other  grounds  whatever. 


476  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

In  politics,  the  Williamstown  Advocate  supported  the  then  incum- 
bent of  the  presidency,  John  Quincy  Adams,  as  against  General 
Jackson.  The  paper  did  not  survive  the  triumphant  election  of  the 
latter  in  the  fall  of  1828.  The  "Tariff  of  Abominations,"  so  called 
in  the  parlance  of  the  time,  passed  in  the  summer  of  that  year,  and, 
increasing  greatly  the  tariff-taxes  over  those  of  the  then  unprece- 
dentedly  high  taxes  of  the  "Tariff  of  1824,"  was  a  main  means  of 
overthrowing  the  administration,  and  of  a  reaction  that  in  turn 
overthrew  protectionism  for  that  generation. 

The  members  of  the  faculty  contributed  freely  to  the  columns  of 
the  Advocate.  Ebenezer  Emmons,  for  one,  who,  during  his  college 
course  of  1814-18,  became  greatly  interested  in  the  several  brandies 
of  natural  science  under  the  tuition  of  Chester  Dewey  and  Amos 
Eaton,  and  continued  these  studies  as  a  practical  physician  in  Ches- 
ter and  Williamstown,  and  subsequently  had  a  large  share  in  intro- 
ducing these  studies  into  the  country  at  large.  In  1826  he  published 
his  "  Manual  of  Mineralogy  and  Geology."  Soon  after  he  moved  to 
Williamstown  as  a  physician  and  was  appointed  Lecturer  on  Chem- 
istry. He  furnishes  a  short  series  of  articles  to  the  newspaper  on 
the  minerals  and  plants  in  the  neighborhood.  He  was  a  plain  and 
unpretentious  man,  full  of  scientific  information,  zealous  in  his 
work,  and  willing  to  teach  anybody  who  was  willing  to  learn  at  any 
time  and  in  any  way  he  could/  He  was  chosen  a  deacon  in  the 
church  here  in  1828,  and  continued  to  serve  in  that  capacity  till 
1836,  when  he  removed  his  family  to  Albany,  and  began  to  take  his 
share  in  the  geological  survey  of  the  State  of  New  York.  And  this 
was  a  prodigious  share  too.  He  retained  his  connection  with  the 
College,  however,  coming  annually  to  Williamstown  to  deliver  a 
course  of  lectures  on  geology  and  mineralogy  for  many  years,  until 
his  public  work  as  a  scientist  for  the  State  of  North  Carolina  inhib- 
ited this,  and  he  died  there  in  1863. 

Albert  Hopkins  was  a  tutor  in  the  College  during  most  of  the  time 
when  the  newspaper  was  published  in  the  town.  A  series  of  moral 
and  religious  essays  appeared  in  the  paper,  signed  "U,"  of  which 
the  thirteenth  was  printed  in  No.  76.  The  style  of  these  essays 
leads  the  writer  to  believe  that  they  were  written  by  Tutor  Hopkins. 
They  were  given  a  prominent  place  in  the  paper,  in  some  instances 
certainly  the  first  column  of  the  first  page.  We  have  seen  that 
Mark  Hopkins  quit  his  connection  with  the  College  as  tutor  at  the 
Commencement  in  1827,  gaining  much  reputation  for  himself  on 
that  occasion  by  his  master's  oration  on  "Mystery."  We  learn 
from  a  number  of  the  Advocate,  printed  October  18,  that  he  delivered 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       477 

on  the  second  of  that  month,  in  Stockbridge,  an  address  before  the 
Agricultural  Society  of  that  town,  then  celebrating  its  fourth  anni- 
versary. The  paper  prints  the  address  in  full,  and  thus  becomes  a 
curious  channel  for  transmitting  to  posterity  his  first  published 
effusion,  all  knowledge  of  whose  existence  had  passed  out  of  the 
minds  of  living  men.  A  feeling  of  the  grotesque  is  excited  in  com- 
paring the  metaphysical  and  sustained  effort  of  September  with  the 
mechanical  and  strained  effusion  of  October.  Mark  Hopkins  never 
owned  a  rod  of  land  in  his  life.  And  if  there  ever  was  a  farmer's 
son  born  and  bred  who  separated  himself  more  completely  in  after 
life  in  sympathy  and  knowledge  and  interests  from  the  men  of  the 
plough,  it  has  not  been  the  writer's  lot  to  know  him.  We  are  glad 
to  give  the  opening  passage  of  this  address  verbatim,  and  then  a 
paragraph  from  the  middle  of  it,  thus  seizing  a  chance  to  perpetuate 
a  transient  phase  of  personal  and  public  opinion. 

GENTLEMEN  OF  THE  AGRICULTURAL  SOCIETY: 

As  the  agricultural  interest  is  the  great  interest  of  the  country,  it  behooves  no 
good  citizen  to  decline  anything,  which,  in  the  judgment  of  others,  may  conduce 
to  its  promotion.  A  conviction  of  this,  together  with  an  application  from  your 
committee  under  circumstances  somewhat  peculiar,  must  be  my  apology  for  pre- 
suming to  appear,  in  niy  present  capacity,  before  a  body  of  agricultural  men. 
Who  is  there  indeed,  that  would  not  be  happy  to  hail  the  spirit  on  this  subject, 
which  has  brought  together,  upon  a  day  so  unpropitious,  so  large  an  assemblage 
of  our  agriculturalists ;  and  especially  the  spirit  that  has  this  day  gratified  the 
Society  by  a  very  interesting  exhibition  from  one  of  our  neighboring  and  most 
enterprising  towns  ? 

One  thing  more  I  mention  as  requisite  to  the  prosperity  and  respectability  of 
Agriculturists,  and  that  is  a  republican  simplicity  of  manners.  Under  this  head 
properly  falls  the  encouragement  of  Domestic  Manufactures,  a  subject  upon 
which  I  had  not  intended  to  touch.  But  the  exhibition  of  them  this  day  at 
the  Academy,  for  the  abundance  and  beauty  of  the  articles,  for  their  fineness 
and  firmness  of  texture,  was  such  as  to  make  a  most  interesting  part  of  the 
exhibition,  and  afford  a  subject  of  congratulation  to  all  who  witnessed  it.  It 
implies  a  strength  of  character,  a  persevering  industry,  public  spirit  and  domes- 
tic habits  truly  valuable,  which  it  is  no  flattery  to  mention,  which  it  would  be 
even  wrong  not  to  commend.  A  perseverance  in  this  course  would  go  far  to 
remove  the  pernicious  influence  of  the  first  cause  at  war  with  simplicity  of  man- 
ners. This  is  vanity,  which  is  always  clamorous  ;  and  the  encroachments  of  a 
spirit  of  ostentation  and  useless  expense  are  to  be  constantly  guarded  against. 
The  vexation  which  it  brings  is  but  a  thorny  pillow  to  sleep  on,  and  he  who 
knows  not  to  quell  its  solicitations  to  the  measure  of  his  income,  deserves  to  read 
in  a  writ  the  record  of  his  folly.  The  man  who  does  not  ground  his  respect  on 
the  attributes  which  God  has  given  him  as  a  man  rather  than  on  anything  which 
money  can  purchase,  deserves  not  the  name. 


478  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

Because  he  never  gave  any  radical  thought  or  analysis  to  that 
subject  which  was  indeed  beyond  his  sentry's  beat,  Mark  Hopkins 
never  emancipated  himself  from  the  notion  implied  in  his  use  of 
the  then  current  phrase,  Encouragement  of  Domestic  Manufactures. 
No  wonder  this  was  "a  subject  upon  which  I  had  not  intended  to 
touch."  The  farmers  of  Berkshire  were  by  no  means  agreed  upon 
it,  and  their  orator  first  and  last  was  always  cautious  to  timidity 
and  sometimes  timid  to  moral  cowardice.  If  domestic  manufactures 
were  profitable  under  the  natural  conditions  of  the  time  and  place, 
they  needed  no  artificial  encouragement.  Profit  is  the  only  legiti- 
mate and  the  always  sufficient  stimulus  to  industry  and  trade.  But 
the  tariff  of  1824  had  already  made  it  luridly  evident  what  was  the 
nature  of  the  "encouragement"  sought  to  be  given  to  "domestic 
manufactures."  It  was  by  means  of  tariff-taxes  levied  on  a  large 
part  of  the  population  in  order  to  exclude  foreign  commodities  of 
certain  kinds  and  grades,  so  that  a  very  small  part  of  the  same  popu- 
lation might  sell  in  a  monopoly-market  thus  secured  their  own  wares 
at  an  artificial  price  grossly  enhanced.  The  "encouragement,"  of 
which  the  country  has  heard  so  much  at  intervals  even  down  to  the 
present  day,  is  nothing  but  the  encouragement  of  taxes  ;  and  the 
"  domestic  industries "  thus  encouraged  at  the  expense  of  their 
neighbors  are  always  found  to  be  few  in  comparison  with  the  whole ; 
the  industries  thus  "  encouraged  "  by  their  own  conspiracy  and  secret 
combination  are  found  to  be  the  oldest  and  already  richest  and  most 
natural  (except  agriculture)  of  any  in  the  land ;  and  the  whole  result 
is  always  and  of  necessity  loss  and  wrong  and  ruin.  Mark  Hopkins 
was  young  and  inexperienced  in  the  ways  of  the  world  when  he 
applauded  in  Stockbridge  what  he  so  little  understood.  In  the 
course  of  a  long  life  he  never  analyzed  into  its  elements  a  single 
case  of  trade,  either  foreign  or  domestic,  to  find  how  good  it  is  in 
the  plan  of  God  for  both  parties  to  it,  how  buying  is  always  at  the 
same  instant  selling  and  selling  ipso  facto  buying,  how  the  keeping 
out  of  foreign  goods  that  want  to  come  in  is  inevitably  the  keep- 
ing in  of  domestic  goods  that  want  to  go  out  to  pay  for  them,  and 
how  selfish  interference  with  the  divinely  appointed  laws  of  trade 
comes  home  to  roost  and  to  defile  in  financial  losses  and  social  dis- 
tinctions and  moral  hatreds  and  national  decay. 

The  extant  copies  of  the  American  Advocate  exhibit  a  good  many 
interesting  bits  of  information  and  advertisement  as  to  the  ways  of 
living  and  thinking  in  town  and  in  College  three-quarters  of  a  cen- 
tury ago.  We  learn  from  one  of  them,  for  instance,  that  the  profes- 
sors then  on  their  induction  delivered  an  inaugural  discourse,  just 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       479 

as  the  successive  presidents  do  now,  a  custom  that  has  since  fallen 
into  "  innocuous  desuetude,"  as  our  good  President  Cleveland  would 
doubtless  express  it.  Two  new  professors,  Porter  and  Hovey,  were 
inaugurated  at  Commencement,  1827,  and  both  gave  public  discourses 
pertinent  to  their  respective  departments,  which  were  editorially 
commended,  not  to  say  criticised,  in  the  columns  of  the  newspaper. 
The  programme  of  the  exercises  of  Commencement  Day  was  printed 
entire,  and  we  reproduce  it  here  for  the  benefit  of  any  of  our  readers 
who  may  be  curious  in  such  matters. 

COLLEGE   KECOKD. 

Commencement  at  Williams  College  took  place  on  Wednesday,  the  5th  inst. 
The  day  was  fine,  which  gave  an  opportunity  for  a  much  larger  and  more 
brilliant  audience  to  attend,  than  we  have  ever  before  witnessed  on  similar 
occasions,  at  this  College. — The  following  was  the  order  of  exercises:  — 

MORNING. 

1.  Sacred  Music. 

2.  Prayer  by  the  President. 

3.  Salutatory  Oration  in  Latin. — JAMES  BALLARD,  Charlemont. 

4.  Oration.  —  The  importance  of  high  aims.  —  GEORGE  HUBBELL  TRACY, 
Troy,  N.  Y. 

5.  Dissertation. — The  Inquisition. — SAMUEL  WILCOX,  Hartford,  Con. 

6.  Conference.  —  Henry  Martyn  and  Gordon  Hall.  —  WILLIAM  BRADLEY, 
Lee,  DAVID  DOWNS  GREGORY,  Sand  Lake,  N.  Y. 


7.  Dissertation. — The   claims  of  the  Aborigines. — BARNABAS  PHINNEY, 
Lee. 

8.  Oration.  —  Influence  of  climate  on  physical  and  mental  constitution.  — 
BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN  HOXSEY,  Williamstown. 

9.  Oration.  — Triumphs  of  Truth.  —  JOSEPH  MERRILL  SADD,  New  Hartford, 
Con. 

10.  Disputation.  —  The  expediency  of  attempting  an  entire  suppression  of  the 
use  of  ardent  spirits.  — ORSAMUS  TINKER,  Worthington  ;  ASAHEL  FOOTE,  Lee. 

MUSIC. 

11.  Oration.  —  Oriental  Poetry.  —  OSCAR  HARRIS,  Goshen,  N.  Y. 

12.  Conference. — Reputation   as   depending  on   Genius,    Application,    and 
Circumstances.  —  GEORGE  WHITEFIELD  HATHAWAY,  Freetown  ;  WILLIAM  LEWIS, 
New  Windsor,  N.  Y.  ;  BARUCH  BUTLER  BECKWITH,  Great  Barrington. 

13.  Philosophical  Oration. — Light. — JOSEPH  ANDERSON,  Shelburne. 

EVENING. 

14.  Sacred  Music. 

15.  Greek    Oration. — Character    of    Lucian's    Satire.  —  JAMES    MORRISON 
ARNELL,  Goshen,  N.  Y. 

16.  Oration.  —  Palestine.  —  MASON  NOBLE,  Williamstown. 


480  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

17.  Poem. — A  vision  of  the  year  two  thousand. — AMOS  DEAN  WHEELER, 
Leicester. 

MUSIC. 

18.  Oration.  —  Mystery.  —  Mr.  Tutor  HOPKINS. 

MUSIC. 

19.  Oration.  —  Infidelity  not  Philosophy;  with  the  Valedictory  Address. — 
NATHAN  BROWN,  Whitingham,  Vt. 

20.  Degrees  conferred. 

21.  Sacred  Music. 

22.  Prayer. 

Prize-speaking  of  the  undergraduates  at  some  time  during  Com- 
mencement Week,  usually  in  the  evening  preceding  Commencement 
Day,  whence  the  current  name  of  the  exercise,  —  "Moonlight,"  — 
began  early  in  the  history  of  the  College  and  has  continued  from 
that  time  until  this  without  intermission  and  scarcely  without  dimi- 
nution of  interest,  to  be  an  anticipated  and  remembered  and  impor- 
tant feature  of  the  exercises  of  the  week.  We  copy  from  the  Advocate 
its  editorial  notice  of  this  speaking  for  the  year  1827,  more  particu- 
larly because  all  the  prize-winners  were  or  came  to  be  residents  and 
citizens  of  Williamstown.  One  of  the  prizes  on  this  occasion  was 
the  first  scholastic  honor  that  fell  to  Professor  Edward  Lasell  of 
wholesome  memory. 

The  prize  speaking  on  the  same  evening,  deserves  particular  notice.  A  high 
degree  of  improvement  in  declamation,  is  less  frequently  attained,  than  in  most 
other  branches  of  education  in  our  colleges.  The  fact  is  undeniably  true  ;  and  no 
other  reason  can  be  assigned  for  it,  than  a  culpable  neglect  on  the  part  both  of 
officers  and  students.  Simple  elocution  is,  of  itself,  sufficiently  important,  to 
claim  a  separate  rank,  and  share  its  separate  honors.  Without  it,  a  collegiate 
education  is  like  a  structure  of  rough  marble,  strong  and  durable  indeed,  but 
lacking  the  polish  that  renders  it  inviting.  A  conviction  of  this  fact,  would 
induce  more  students  to  cultivate  this  elegant  accomplishment ;  —  and  we  were 
gratified  to  perceive  from  the  specimens  exhibited  by  those  selected  on  the 
occasion,  that  they,  at  least,  were  aware  of  its  importance.  The  successful 
candidates  were,  in  the  Freshman  Class,  Ebenezer  S.  Cannon  of  Williamstown, 
in  the  Sophomore  Class,  Henry  Hubbell  of  Williamstown,  and,  in  the  Junior 
Class,  Edward  Lasell  of  Schoharie,  New  York. 

The  office-bearers  in  the  town  government  for  the  year  1828  are 
found  in  a  record  of  the  "  March  Meeting  "  of  that  year,  as  follows. 
All  shades  of  politics  are  represented  in  the  names  of  these  office- 
bearers. The  chairman  of  the  Board  of  Selectmen,  a  place  he  often 
filled  during  a  long  series  of  years  on  account  of  his  strong  sense 
and  unusual  executive  ability,  was  Keyes  Danforth,  a  Democrat  of 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       481 

Democrats,  whose  fine  farm  at  the  western  end  of  the  village  was 
inherited  by  his  son  of  the  same  name  and  of  the  same  political 
sentiments,  Williams  College,  1846,  who  kept  with  his  few  surviving 
classmates  their  semi-centennial  anniversary  at  Commencement, 
1896. 

MARCH  MEETING. 

The  following  are  the  TOWN  OFFICERS  elected  at  the  meeting  in  this  place 
on  Monday  last :  — 

Edmund  Badger,  Town  Clerk. 
Keyes  Danforth,   -j 

Ebenezer  Foster,    I  Selectmen,  Assessors,  and  Bridge  Committee. 
Amasa  Shattuck,  ) 
Stephen  Hosford,  ^ 

Lyman  Hubbell,     >  Overseers  of  the  Poor. 
Daniel  N.  Dewey,  J 

Josephus  Bardwell,  )    _. 

,    ,        >  Constables. 
Thomas  C.  Phelps,  J 

It  appeared  by  the  Report  of  the  Overseers,  that  the  whole  expense  to  the 
town,  of  supporting  the  poor  during  the  last  year,  was  $25,  more  than  the 
income  of  their  labour,  and  that  the  clothes  of  the  paupers  are  worth  more  than 
$25,  more  than  they  were  at  the  commencement  of  the  year. 

It  is  noticeable  in  this  list  of  town  officers  how  strongly  the  South 
part  is  represented  in  it.  Ebenezer  Foster  and  Lyman  Hubbell  and 
Thomas  C.  Phelps  were  all  prominent  men  in  that  part  of  the  town 
at  that  time.  Relative  decadence,  however,  in  comparison  with  the 
northern  half,  had  already  manifested  itself  there;  and  a  general 
decadence  of  the  whole  town,  in  the  point  of  leading  men  and  in 
comparison  with  forty-five  years  before,  was  visible  enough.  No 
such  men  as  Isaac  Stratton  and  JSTehemiah  Woodcock  at  the  south, 
and  Benjamin  Simonds  and  Thompson  J.  Skinner  and  David  Noble 
at  the  north,  were  in  active  life  in  town  in  the  decade  of  1820-30. 
And  a  relative  decadence,  both  in  prominent  men  and  in  financial 
prosperity,  is  to  be  observed  in  general  for  about  thirty  years  longer. 
The  causes  and  extent  of  this  decline  will  be  treated  farther  on  in 
these  pages,  so  far  as  this  may  be  called  for  in  a  book  of  this 
character. 

The  general  story  and  characteristics  of  the  "Gore,"  so  called, 
may  be  found  in  the  early  part  of  the  "  Origins  in  Williamstown." 
The  petition  of  Samuel  Comstock  to  the  General  Court  of  Massa- 
chusetts in  1827,  a  citizen  who  then  lived  on  the  Gore,  as  do  also  his 
descendants  of  the  same  name  to  this  day,  is  here  quoted  at  length 
from  one  of  the  numbers  of  the  Advocate,  because  it  is  a  legal  paper 
and  illustrates  a  state  of  things  in  the  southwest  corner  of  the  town, 
2i 


482  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

—  a  portion  that  still  remains  more  unchanged  from  what  it  was  a 
century  ago  than  any  other  portion. 

To  the  Honorable  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  in  General  Court 
assembled  — 

SAMUEL  COMSTOCK  an  inhabitant  of  the  Gore  of  Land  on  the  South  West 
Corner  of  Williamstown  Called  Trees  Grant  humbly  shews, 

npHAT  the  land  of  your  petitioner  lies  wholly  on  said  Gore  and  is  bounded  on 
-L  the  East  by  Williamstown  line.  That  his  business  leads  him  to  Williams- 
town  (where  he  pays  State  and  County  taxes  and  performs  Military  duty)  to 
Hancock,  Pittsfield  and  Albany  —  that  there  is  no  open  travelled  way  by  his 
house  ;  a  County  road  running  from  Williamstown  is  the  nearest  which  is  about 
100  rods  from  the  town  line  before  mentioned. — That  the  road  which  your 
Petitioner  now  enjoys  by  sufference  crosses  Moses  Young's  Land  and  Daniel  A. 
Sherwood's  land  and  the  said  Sherwood  refuses  to  allow  your  Petitioner  to 
occupy  the  said  road  any  longer  than  next  Spring  —  and  your  Petitioner  cannot 
go  to  any  of  the  places  above  mentioned  without  permission  from  the  said 
Young  and  Sherwood,  or  others  over  whose  land  he  must  pass,  and  he  does  not 
know  that  he  can  get  his  permission  after  the  next  Spring.  —  And  your  Peti- 
tioner further  shows  that  he  has  been  informed  and  wisely  believes  that  the  next 
Commissioners  of  Highways  for  the  County  of  Berkshire  nor  the  Selectmen  of 
the  town  of  Williamstown  aforesaid  have  any  authority  by  law  to  locate  a  road 
for  the  convenience  of  your  Petitioner,  as  is  provided  in  other  cases  and  for 
other  Citizens  of  the  Commonwealth. 

Wherefore  your  Petitioner  prays  that  the  said  Commissioners  of  Highways  or 
the  said  Selectmen  of  the  town  of  Williamstown,  as  in  the  discretion  of  your 
Honorable  body  shall  seem  most  fit,  may  be  empowered  to  lay  out  and  locate  a 
road  for  the  convenience  of  your  Petitioner,  and  as  in  duty  bound  will  ever  pray. 

(Signed}  SAMUEL  COMSTOCK. 

Among  the  Williamstown  advertisers  in  the  Advocate  were 
Daniel  Noble  and  Charles  Baker,  lawyers ;  Ralph  W.  Gridley, 
Chairman  of  the  School  Committee ;  Samuel  Duncan,  Saw-mill ; 
Luther  Bartlett,  Tanner  and  Currier ;  Ridley  Bannister,  Printer  and 
Bookseller;  Cheney  Taft,  Chair-Maker;  Abraham  Hanson,  Saddle 
and  Harness ;  William  D.  Beardsley,  Tailor ;  Mrs.  West,  Millinery 
and  Dress  Making;  Daniel  N.  Dewey,  Fire  Insurance;  Charles 
Chapin,  Book-Binding ;  Samuel  Smith  and  Henry  L.  Sabin,  Physi- 
cians and  Surgeons;  C.  A.  Butler,  Tailor;  Whitmans  and  Benjamin, 
Merchants;  Samuel  Kellogg,  Executor;  Solomon  Bulkley,  Deputy 
Sheriff;  John  Hickcox,  a  runaway  indented  boy  named  William 
Pratt ;  William  C.  Johnson,  Dry  Goods ;  John  West,  the  buildings 
and  lot  of  the  Williamstown  Mineral  Spring;  Thacher  G.  Platt, 
Wool-Carding  and  Cloth  Dressing;  Hosford  and  Brown,  Lumber; 
and  the  Directors,  namely,  Ralph  W.  Gridley  and  Daniel  Noble  and 
Stephen  Hosford  and  Solomon  Bulkley  and  Daniel  N.  Dewey  and 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       483 

Lyndon  A.  Smith  and  Charles  Benjamin  and  Charles  Baker,  The 
Williamstown  Academy.  Four  of  these  directors  and  promoters, 
namely,  Bulkley,  Baker,  Benjamin,  and  Dewey,  had  advertised  in 
the  Advocate  on  July  4,  1827,  for  a  contractor,  "  to  erect  a  building 
suitable  for  an  Academy,  to  be  forty-four  feet  by  twenty-eight,  and 
two  stories  high ;  to  be  built  either  of  wood  or  brick,  the  latter  is 
preferred."  Precisely  such  a  building  as  is  thus  described  was  put 
up  in  less  than  a  year,  and  stood  at  what  is  now  the  opening  of 
Park  Street  from  Main.  The  site  was  afterwards  occupied  by  the 
Catholic  church,  the  first  one  erected  in  town ;  and  the  fee  simple 
of  the  land  passed  from  that  body,  in  1896,  to  the  President  and 
Trustees  of  the  College. 

There  is  a  "Notice"  in  the  Advocate  of  June  28,  1827,  that  is 
worth  quoting  entire. 

FOURTH  OP  JULY.  An  Oration  will  be  delivered  by  a  member  of  College, 
accompanied  by  the  other  exercises  usual  on  the  occasion,  at  10  o'clock,  A.M., 
in  the  College  Chapel. 

An  Address  will  also  be  made  by  appointment  of  the  Anti-Slavery  Society, 
by  a  Member. 

Contemporary  evidence  in  abundance  is  forthcoming  at  call,  that 
the  students  for  a  long  while  publicly  celebrated  the  Fourth  of 
July  by  orations  delivered,  music  performed,  and  other  appropriate 
exercises ;  but  the  sole  evidence  known  to  the  writer,  that  there  was 
ever  an  Anti-Slavery  Society  in  College,  and  that  it  proposed  to 
agitate  that  subject  publicly  in  combination  with  the  customary 
celebration  of  Independence  Day,  is  contained  in  this  precious 
notice,  worth  its  weight  in  gold,  and  in  an  editorial  in  the  next 
week's  paper  describing  the  joint  celebration.  How  this  society 
originated,  who  its  members  were,  how  long  the  society  lasted,  and 
what  put  an  end  to  its  existence  are  questions  that  cannot  be 
answered  now,  and  probably  never  will  be.  But  at  any  rate,  and 
this  is  significant  enough,  there  was  an  Anti-Slavery  Society  in  Wil- 
liams College  in  1827,  and  it  gave  a  public  address  and  furnished 
an  ode  sung  in  the  chapel  on  the  4th  of  July.  Was  there  an  earlier 
and  similar  society  anywhere  else  in  New  England  ?  William  Lloyd 
Garrison  did  not  set  up  his  Free  Press  in  Newburyport  until  1826, 
nor  his  Journal  of  the  Times  at  Bennington  until  1828. 

We  gladly  copy  the  Advocate's  editorial,  and  the  odes  musically 
performed  on  that  memorable  occasion. 

FOURTH  OF  JULY. — This  Anniversary  was  celebrated  in  the  College  Chapel 
by  the  Faculty  and  Students,  and  the  inhabitants  of  our  village. — An  oration 


484  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

was  pronounced  by  Mr.  ROBINSON  of  the  Sophomore  Class,  and  an  address  was 
delivered  before  the  Anti-Slavery  Society  of  Williams  College  by  Mr.  BECKWITH, 
of  the  Senior  Class.  —  After  the  oration  the  following  ODE  was  sung. 

HAIL  to  the  day  that  awakens  good  feeling, 

The  day  that  struck  liberty's  spark  ; 
Once  more  it  salutes  us,  again  'tis  appealing 
To  every  American  heart, 

Remember  the  days, 
Those  hard-foughten  days ; 
Our  fathers  well  acted  their  part. 

E'en  now  round  our  mem'ry  past  glories  assemble, 

The  triumphs  of  conquest  are  heard  ; 
The  victor  is  wreath'd,  see  the  diadem  tremble, 
It  falls  never  more  to  be  rear'd. 

Hail,  land  dearly  bought, 
'Twas  our  fathers  that  fought, 
For  this  it  is  ever  endear'd. 

The  struggle  is  o'er  and  the  voice  of  complaining 

Is  lost  in  the  shouts  of  our  joy  : 
We  hear  not  the  wretched  oppression  bewailing, 
We  have  peace  without  any  alloy. 

From  the  east  to  the  west 
The  whole  nation  is  blest ; 
Let  praise  our  glad  voices  employ. 

These  blood-purchas'd  blessings  call  loud  for  oblations, 

And  bid  our  thanksgivings  arise  ; 
We  proffer  hearts  beating  with  grateful  pulsations, 
And  waft  them  afresh  to  the  skies. 

To  him  who  sustain'd  us, 
The  Saviour  all  glorious, 
We  gratefully  lift  up  our  eyes. 

Come  laud  his  high  name  who  hath  kept  us  from  falling, 

Who  made  our  lov'd  ancestors  brave  ; 
On  him  when  in  trouble  our  hearts  will  be  calling, 
For  he  is  Almighty  to  save. 

To  Jehovah  we  raise 
Ascriptions  of  praise, 
For  all  we  inherit  he  gave. 

The  following  ode  was  sung  after  the  address,  and  closed  the  exercises.  —  It 
is  supposed  to  be  the  Hymn  of  the  liberated  slave,  just  embarked  for  his  native 
shore. 

The  high  heaving  bark  spread  her  wings  to  the  sweep 
Of  the  grove-scented  gales  as  she  moved  in  her  pride  ; 
While  bright  eyes  were  glancing  afar  o'er  the  deep, 
And  soft  strains  of  gladness  were  blent  with  the  tide. 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       485 

We  are  free,  brothers,  free  from  the  scourge  and  the  chain, 
That  has  cankered  for  years  round  the  toil-callous' d  limb, 
Then  light  bound  our  hearts  as  the  roe  of  the  plain, 
And  the  sun  of  our  joy  let  no  sorrows  bedim. 

The  bright  star  of  freedom  beams  proudly  and  high, 
Lo,  the  night  of  oppression  shall  shroud  us  no  more, 
For  the  white  friend  has  wiped  every  tear  from  our  eye, 
And  bade  us  go  free  from  his  crime  darken'd  shore. 

Farewell,  mighty  land  of  the  noble  and  brave, 
Sincerely  we  leave  our  best  blessing  to  thee, 
With  a  sigh  when  we  think  that  the  groan  of  the  slave, 
Is  heard  on  the  same  breeze  with  songs  of  the  free. 

How  gladly  our  tears  would  erase  the  foul  blot, 
That  cankering  lies  on  the  scroll  of  thy  worth  ; 
But  the  grief  of  a  world  can  ne'er  hallow  the  spot, 
Where  man,  reckless  man,  trode  his  fellow  to  earth. 

We  are  bound  for  the  land  of  our  fathers  afar, 
And  the  blue  wilds  of  ocean  exulting  we  roam  — 
For  hope  tells  of  kindred  that  watch  for  us  there, 
And  glad  bosoms  bounding  to  welcome  us  home. 

And  when  on  the  soil  of  our  sires  we  repose, 
'Neath  the  cocoa  tree  lifting  its  voice  to  the  wind, 
While  we  smile  at  the  kindness  that  solac'd  our  woes, 
We  will  weep  for  the  lov'd  ones  left  groaning  behind. 

For  ourselves,  we  were  gratified  with  the  performances,  and  are  disposed 
to  consider  the  strictures  (if  they  are  meant  as  such)  of  our  correspondent  ID. 
as  random  shots,  in  this  instance  at  least,  of  a  somewhat  careless  archer.  It 
was  not,  we  believe  the  least  pleasing  circumstance  attending  this  celebration, 
that  there  was  nothing  to  awaken  strong  feeling,  and  boisterous  mirth, — and 
that  with  the  exercises  above  enumerated,  all  further  public  demonstrations 
ceased.  We  do  not  mean,  however,  by  this,  to  express  any  disapprobation  of 
celebrations  of  a  different  character.  — It 'is  the  right  and  privilege  of  every  one, 
especially  on  such  an  occasion,  to  manifest  his  feelings  in  his  own  way,  provided 
he  does  not  pass  the  bounds  of  morality,  and  good  order. 

At  the  same  time,  with  this  anti-slavery  society,  there  was  also 
in  College  a  Temperance  Society,  whose  purpose  and  members  are 
known,  and  whose  influence  in  reaction  from  tendencies  and  practices 
to  be  characterized  a  little  later  was  wholesome  and  permanent. 
Mason  Noble  and  Asahel  Foote,  both  of  the  class  of  1827,  the  one 
a  native  and  the  other  a  lifelong  resident  of  Williamstown,  were 
prominent  in  this  society.  Mason  Noble  was  a  distinguished  Pres- 
byterian clergyman  in  New  York  and  Washington;  and  Asahel 


486  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

Foote  reflected  credit  throughout  a  long  life  upon  his  native  town  of 
Lee  and  his  early  chosen  William  stown,  as  a  teacher,  a  temperance 
man,  a  cultivator  of  fruits,  a  deacon  in  the  church,  and  a  holder  of 
public  office  both  local  and  State. 

In  parting  now  finally  with  the  American  Advocate,  whose  stray 
copies,  accidentally  preserved  in  a  garret  for  seventy  years,  have 
afforded  the  readers  several  interesting  bits  of  information  relating 
to  that  early  time,  we  make  one  more  excerpt,  which  brings  before 
us  moderns  in  a  pleasant  light  at  once  a  granddaughter  of  General 
Samuel  Sloan,  and  Dr.  Ebenezer  Emmons,  physician  and  professor. 
It  is  an  editorial  of  Ridley  Bannister. 

SURGICAL   OPERATION. 

Last  Sunday,  a  young  Lady  of  this  town,  the  daughter  of  D.  W.  Sloan,  Esq. 
accidently  swallowed  a  pin,  which  lodged  about  half  way  down  in  its  passage  to 
the  stomach.  In  the  confusion  and  alarm  that  ensued,  many  expedients  were 
adopted  by  kind  hearted  and  afflicted  friends,  such  as  swallowing  hard  sub- 
stances, &c.  —  and  by  medical  advice,  which  was  immediately  procured,  emetics 
were  also  administered,  —  but  all  to  no  purpose,  except  to  render  the  situation 
of  the  patient  more  distressing.  About  ten  hours  after  the  accident,  Doct. 
EMMONS  of  this  town  was  called  in,  and  the  remedy  he  applied,  though  simple, 
was  to  us  novel  and  ingenious,  and  may  be  of  use  in  similar  cases,  if  made 
public.  A  common  wire  was  used,  about  twelve  inches  and  a  half  long,  and 
doubled,  with  a  piece  of  sponge  attached  to  the  end,  — this  in  a  dry  state  was 
easily  passed  down  the  passage  below  the  pin,  where  it  absorbed  moisture  and 
became  so  much  swollen,  that  in  drawing  it  up,  it  completely  filled  the  oesopha- 
gus, and  brought  up  the  pin,  strongly  attached  to  it. 

The  ingenuity  and  success  of  this  operation  reflect  great  credit  on  Dr.  E.  — 
and  though  modest  merit,  if  consulted,  might  have  forbidden  any  comment  on 
our  part,  we  feel  that  justice  to  him,  and  duty  to  the  public,  both  require  it. 

Passing  now  in  general  to  the  state  and  progress  of  the  College  in 
the  last  years  of  Dr.  Griffin's  presidency,  it  may  be  remembered  that 
Albert  Hopkins  became  a  tutor  in  1827  and  a  professor  in  1829,  and 
so  came  into  a  position,  in  which  he  continued  uninterruptedly  for 
forty  years,  to  know  intimately  and  to  remember  vividly  the  state 
of  morals  and  religion  in  college,  and  so  to  put  into  a  written  account 
his  knowledge  and  recollections  about  1860  for  Durfee's  "  History  of 
the  College."  Some  of  the  salient  points  of  this  account  are  quotable, 
and  more  are  condensable,  for  the  purpose  at  present  in  hand.  The 
professor's  personal  religious  experience  was  not  only  peculiar,  but 
also  entirely  unique  on  this  ground.  He  understood  that  the  one 
great  need  of  man  is  conformity  to  the  will  of  God ;  and  he  under- 
stood, too,  that  this  conformity  is  not  to  be  reached  and  maintained 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       487 

without  a  great  and  constant  struggle ;  and  it  was  his  own  belief  at 
times,  if  not  uniformly,  as  we  learn  from  his  own  written  words  and 
from  unnumbered  oral  expressions,  that  perfection  might  be  attained 
as  the  result  of  such  a  struggle  under  the  impulse  and  guidance  and 
blessing  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  He  says,  "  The  doctrine  of  perfection, 
as  that  doctrine  has  since  been  held  by  various  persons,  scattered 
throughout  the  country  [especially  in  Oberlin],  started,  so  far  as  I 
have  been  able  to  ascertain,  here  at  this  time.  The  original  principle 
here  appears  to  have  been  good,  but  it  has  since  been  adulterated 
with  many  things."  From  the  first  he  gave  himself  to  a  practical 
and  incessant  study  how  he  could  bring  himself  into  this  lofty 
spirituality,  and  then  how  he  could  help  to  bring  the  largest  num- 
bers of  others  into  it.  As  compared  with  an  ordinary  Christian 
community,  a  college  community  offers  to  such  a  man  seeking  such 
ends  extraordinary  obstacles.  (1)  The  community  itself  is  not  con- 
tinuous. It  is  wholly  changed  once  in  every  four  years.  Impetus 
given,  example  set,  influence  gained,  outlooks  widened,  some  spiritual 
peaks  reached,  —  then  all  are  scattered  to  the  four  winds.  (2)  Each 
single  year  is  broken  into  by  very  considerable  vacations.  Periodic 
religious  fervors  kindled  in  the  fall  are  apt  to  be  cooled  by  the  holi- 
days at  home  or  by  the  winter's  schoolkeeping.  The  spring  term  is 
followed  by  the  out-of-doors  attractions  and  distractions.  (3)  The 
evangelist  has  to  rely  all  the  time  upon  inexperienced  coadjutors, 
—  young  men  subject  to  youthful  moods,  —  sometimes  religiously 
exhilarated,  and  oftentimes  discouraged  and  depressed.  (4)  Cur- 
rents of  worldliness  and  wickedness  sweeping  over  whole  regions 
of  country  at  times  are  sure  to  deposit  in  a  college  successive  classes 
of  young  men  intractable  and  wholly  averse  to  religious  influences. 

In  accordance  with  this  last  statement,  Professor  Hopkins  puts 
in  strong  testimony  as  to  the  moral  decadence  following  the  great 
upliftings  of  1825-26. 

There  came  an  influx  of  an  uncommon  amount  of  impiety,  — men  of  corrupt 
principles  or  no  principles,  and  dissolute  life,  spoiled  before  coming,  and  fitted, 
of  course,  only  to  taint  and  corrupt  the  moral  atmosphere.  College  soon  became 
again  corrupt,  probably  quite  as  much  so  as  before  the  revival  of  1825.  Intem- 
perance and  card-playing  prevailed.  Also,  at  this  time  there  was  not  a  little 
licentiousness.  Enjoying  great  opportunities  of  association,  wicked  men  "  waxed 
worse  and  worse."  The  college  buildings,  or  at  least  the  West  College,  was 
repeatedly  set  on  fire,  there  is  reason  to  believe  wantonly.  The  Bible  was  stolen 
from  the  desk,  and  worse  than  burnt.  This  state  of  things  ran  on  till  the  fall  of 
1829,  when  some  engaged  Christians  [Hopkins  was  their  leader]  instituted  a 
meeting  at  nine  o'clock  in  the  evening,  which  Dr.  Griffin  used  to  attend.  No 
decided  change  in  the  religious  aspect  of  College  occurred  till  the  following  winter. 


488  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

The  change  then  manifesting  itself  was  a  great  breaking  down 
among  professors  of  religion.  One  of  this  description  came  out  as 
a  new  convert ;  and  within  three  days  more  than  twenty  professors 
of  religion  had  given  up  their  hopes.  "  This  breaking  up  of  hopes 
probably  will  furnish  a  clew  to  the  awful  and  reigning  stupidity 
and  dissoluteness  of  morals  before  adverted  to."  Professor  Hopkins 
did  not  think  well  of  this  form  of  religious  experience,  especially  as 
he  was  aiming  for  himself  and  for  others  a  steadiness  of  Christian 
development,  from  term  to  term  and  from  year  to  year,  such  as  had 
not  heretofore  been  witnessed  in  the  College.  One  genuine  conver- 
sion was  to  him  much  better  than  two  ostensible  ones.  He  says 
expressly :  "  Of  those  who  were  awakened  in  this  revival,  several 
went  back;  some  became  infidels,  of  whom  two  have  since  died; 
one,  however,  renouncing  his  infidelity  on  his  dying  bed."  Of  far 
greater  interest  and  importance  than  these  shiftings  and  risings 
and  fallings  is  the  professor's  own  account  of  the  institution  of 
the  famous  noon  prayer-meeting  in  College,  which  went  on  uninter- 
ruptedly in  term  time  for  thirty-five  years  under  his  own  supervision 
and  constant  personal  attendance.  It  was  his  prayer-meeting  in  every 
sense  of  the  word ;  not  alone  because  he  instituted  it  and  attended 
it  and  controlled  it  for  more  than  a  generation,  but  also  because  it 
sprang  out  of  certain  theories  and  characteristics  of  his  own,  which 
would  have  made  it  impossible  for  any  other  man  to  carry  it  on 
after  he  left  it,  even  if  any  other  man  had  been  bold  enough  to 
attempt  it.  Indeed,  in  his  own  hands,  some  years  before  his  death 
in  1872,  the  potent  sceptre  lost  the  greater  part  of  its  unique  efficacy, 
and  he  was  called  upon  to  bear  a  cross,  which  nearly  all  old  men  of 
peculiar  and  striking  powers  in  active  life  must  bear,  namely,  the 
wonderment  and  disappointment  that  the  ancient  wand  of  power  is 
weakened  and  is  broken.  Probably  nothing  in  the  entire  history  of 
the  town  and  the  College  is  so  distinctive  and  significant  as  is  this 
story  of  the  Williams  noon  prayer-meeting. 

The  spring  of  1832  was  one  of  religious  interest  in  town.  Rev.  Dr.  Beman 
held  a  protracted  meeting  here.  A  number  of  conversions  occurred  in  the  Col- 
lege, in  the  course  of  the  term.  Those  who  came  in  at  this  time  were,  for  the 
most  part,  made  special  objects  of  prayer  and  labor.  They  came  in  lingeringly, 
one  or  two  in  the  course  of  a  week,  for  a  considerable  time.  Not  many  were 
awake,  but  these  labored  hard.  It  was  a  time  of  much  trial  in  the  church,  and 
it  is  believed  that  spiritual  religion  gained  ground.  The  necessity  of  toiling  on 
under  a  heavy  burden,  and  working  as  it  were,  at  arm's  length,  on  account  of  the 
sluggishness  of  the  mass  of  professed  Christians,  inured  those  who  came  under  this 
burden  to  severe  toil,  contributed  to  form  habits  of  patient,  persevering  effort ; 
and  the  College  probably  has  never  turned  out  a  more  faithful  set  of  working 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       489 

men  than  those  who  passed  through  this  ordeal.  Indeed,  I  regard  this  as  in  some 
sense  the  commencement  of  a  new  era  in  the  religious  history  of  the  College. 

I  am  now  going  to  explain  in  what  way  I  think  the  revival  of  1832  contributed 
to  a  more  permanent  religious  order.  It  did  so,  I  think,  by  exercising  the  prin- 
ciple of  personal  exertion  and  self-sacrifice,  till  it  became  habitual,  and  led  on 
to  a  system  which  I  shall  presently  give  some  account  of.  The  principle  of  per- 
severing, steady  devotedness  has  been  firmly  established  in  some  minds,  in  all 
ages.  But  too  little  has  been  done  to  perpetuate  this  sentiment.  One  and 
another  has  cut  his  way  through  the  solid  rock,  and,  as  it  were,  filled  up  the 
space  behind  him,  so  that  others  have  been  little  benefited,  except  as  they  have 
seen  them  safe  out,  and  therefore  gathered  hope,  on  the  ground  that  such  a 
thing  was  possible.  Peter  says,  to  be  sure,  "The  God  of  all  grace,  after  ye 
have  suffered  awhile,  stablish  you."  But  we  are  not  to  infer  from  all  this  that 
direct  means  are  of  no  use  toward  the  confirmation  of  piety.  There  is,  no 
doubt,  in  respect  to  means,  such  a  thing  as  millennial  order  (using  the  term 
millennial  generically  here),  and  it  was  towards  this  that  numbers  among  us 
were  led  at  this  time  to  look.  Having  become  inured  to  a  pretty  steady  course 
of  religious  action,  anxious  to  persevere  in  this  without  faltering,  and  sensible  at 
the  same  time  of  the  sluggishness  of  nature,  and  warned  by  the  experience  of 
the  past,  the  inquiry  came  up  :  What  corrective  can  be  thrown  in,  what  stimulus 
to  excite  us  forward  in  an  unwavering  onward  course  of  Christian  action?  It 
was  resolved  by  the  Christians  of  that  period  that  they  would  meet  together  at 
noon.  This,  it  was  thought,  would  furnish  a  strong  antidote  against  a  tendency, 
so  prevalent  everywhere,  but  perhaps  especially  in  college,  to  fall  in  with  the 
tide  of  worldliness.  By  setting  up,  as  it  were,  a  dam  at  midday,  it  was  thought 
possible  to  check  the  current,  and  thus  prevent  our  Christianity  from  being 
overflown,  and  everything  relapsing  again  into  a  stagnant  and  dead  state,  as 
had  been  the  case  after  most  previous  revivals. 

I  must  be  permitted  to  say,  that  I  think  the  idea  of  a  perfect  Christianity, 
that  is,  of  living  in  perfect  conformity  to  the  injunctions  of  Christ  without 
regard  to  seasons  or  circumstances,  and  without  reference  to  the  feelings  or 
practices  of  others,  had  to  do  with  this  institution  of  means.  A  very  good 
opportunity  was  approaching  to  test  it,  or  at  least  to  test  the  strength  of  the 
resolution  which  determined  on  its  adoption,  namely,  the  approach  of  the  sum- 
mer term,  when  there  is  uncommon  temptation  to  laxness,  and  a  letting  down 
of  the  Christian  watch.  The  result  proved  that  the  idea  is  a  very  practicable 
one,  and  very  salutary  in  the  operation  of  it.  A  few,  from  five  to  seven,  from 
the  two  college  buildings,  met  in  rainy  as  well  as  sunshiny  weather,  during  the 
term,  and  felt  improved  by  it.  This  meeting,  somewhat  modified  in  its  char- 
acter, has  continued  to  the  present  time,  and  has  more  than  answered  the 
anticipations  of  those  who  originated  it.  It  has  served  as  a  balance-wheel,  to 
check  the  irregular  movements  of  individual  action,  to  temper  well-meaning 
but  injudicious  zeal.  I  am  just  now  in  from  one  of  these  meetings,  consisting  of 
from  forty  to  fifty  students.  The  average  sometimes  ranges  considerably  higher 
than  this,  in  times  of  awakening,  and  sometimes  falls  short  of  it.  I  have  intro- 
duced this  subject  here,  because  the  religious  history  of  the  College  cannot  be 
given,  from  this  point,  without  frequent  allusions  to  this  meeting,  it  having 
become  a  pretty  certain  criterion  by  which  the  religious  pulse  of  the  College  may 
be  judged  of. 


490  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

It  will  be  observed  by  careful  readers,  that  no  reference  is  made, 
in  this  critical  and  conscientious  record  of  a  new  religious  departure 
in  College,  to  Dr.  Griffin,  still  president  and  still  supposing  himself 
to  be  the  fount  of  all  influence  both  scholarly  and  also  Christian. 
The  truth  is,  that  the  zealous  and  masterful  young  professor,  after 
five  years'  experience  in  the  College  as  a  teacher,  and  learning  the 
bottom  state  of  affairs,  including  Griffin's  loss  of  moral  hold  on  town 
and  College,  found  it  needful  to  plan  and  act  religiously  without 
taking  the  head  of  the  College  into  account.  There  was  no  other 
way  to  do,  if  anything  effectual  were  to  be  done.  "  One  generation 
passeth  away,  and  another  generation  cometh;  while  the  earth 
abideth  forever."  In  his  eager  search  after  light  and  duty  and 
power,  Professor  Hopkins  put  himself  forward  without  hesitation 
as  the  religious  leader  of  College,  and  kept  that  place  without  serious 
question  for  about  thirty  years.  Griffin  grossly  overestimated  him- 
self, especially  as  a  theologian  and  a  college  president.  About  this 
time  he  published  his  "  Treatise  on  Divine  Efficiency,"  in  opposition 
to  what  then  began  to  be  known  as  the  "  New  Divinity,"  of  which 
Mr.  Finney  was  the  chief  and  ablest  exponent.  He  was  fully  of 
the  opinion,  and  had  a  supreme  confidence  in  it,  that  the  views 
which  he  supposed  to  be  held  by  the  divines  of  that  school  were  at 
variance  alike  with  Scriptures  and  sound  philosophy;  and  hence 
he  felt  himself  called  upon  to  take  up  his  pen  in  defence  of  what 
he  believed  to  be  important  truth.  Within  a  little  more  than  a 
year,  besides  the  "Divine  Efficiency,"  he  published  a  sermon  entitled 
"  Regeneration  not  effected  by  Light,"  and  a  formal  letter  on  "  The 
New  Measures  and  the  New  Doctrines."  These  controversial 
writings,  to  which  he  attributed  a  vastly  exaggerated  importance, 
fell  pretty  flat  on  the  public  eye  and  ear,  partly  because  the  old 
New  England  theology  as  formulated  by  Edwards  and  Hopkins  was 
already  worn  thin  and  bare,  but  chiefly  because  of  Finney's  pungent 
and  incessant  (though  indirect)  attacks  upon  it  in  his  revival 
preaching,  as  virtually  making  God  the  author  of  sin  and  respon- 
sible for  its  interminable  existence  in  His  own  universe.  The  theo- 
logical allies  of  Edwards  in  Scotland  perceived  this  inevitable 
inference  from  the  "  Freedom  of  the  Will,"  and  begged  the  author 
to  recast  certain  parts  in  a  new  edition,  which  he  did;  but  not 
striking  down  to  the  logical  root  of  the  matter,  his  Scotch  friends 
were  as  much  confounded  as  David  Hume  and  Lord  Kames  were 
delighted. 

These  futile  controversies  not  only  occupied  Griffin's  time  and 
thought  to  the  exclusion  of  proper  college  work,  but  also  set  him  on 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       491 

heresy-hunting  in  general ;  one  consequence  of  which  was,  the  local 
church  lost  the  best  and  most  beloved  pastor  they  ever  had,  and 
relations  with  his  college  colleagues  became  more  or  less  embittered. 

"  The  truth's  worst  foe  is  he  who  claims 

To  act  as  God's  avenger, 
And  dreams,  beyond  his  sentry  beat 
The  crystal  walls  in  danger. 

Who  sets  for  heresy  his  traps 

Of  verbal  quirk  and  quibble, 
And  weeds  the  garden  of  the  Lord 

With  Satan's  borrowed  dibble." 

Professor  Hopkins,  then,  obtained  no  help  from  the  president  of 
the  College  in  his  impressive  novelty  of  the  noon  prayer-meeting. 
He  received  help,  nevertheless,  from  another  potent  quarter.  Simeon 
Howard  Calhoun.  whose  parents  were  among  the  original  members 
of  Park  Street  church  in  Boston,  of  which  Dr.  Griffin  had  been  the 
first  pastor,  aid  who  was  graduated  here  in  1829,  became  a  tutor  in 
February,  1834,  and  remained  in  that  capacity  till  Commencement 
in  1836.  He  commenced  at  once  to  attend  the  noon  prayer-meeting, 
which  had  increased  during  the  previous  season  to  fifteen  or  more, 
and  which  was  held  in  the  East  College;  and  it  was  not  very  long, 
as  times  and  terms  go  in  college,  before  his  fervid  spirit  brought  so 
many  students  with  him  daily  from  the  West  College,  where  the 
tutors  always  roomed,  that  it  was  proposed  to  divide  the  meeting 
on  three  days  of  the  week,  the  Freshmen  and  Sophomores  meeting 
with  Calhoun  in  the  West  College,  and  all  classes  coming  together 
on  Fridays  with  Hopkins  and  Calhoun  in  the  East  College.  In  the 
words  of  Professor  Hopkins,  —  "  The  West  College  set  up  for  them- 
selves and  the  silent  influence  of  their  operations  appears  to  have 
been  considerable.  An  infidel  has  told  me  lately,  —  one  at  least 
who  was  either  tempted  or  trying  to  be  so  at  that  time,  —  that  the 
prayers  and  singing  kept  him  constantly  uneasy,  so  much  so  that  at 
length  he  divulged  his  feelings  to  his  teacher  [Calhoun],  renounced 
his  infidel  principles,  and  became  one  of  the  most  steady  supporters  of 
the  meeting."  This  arrangement  continued  until  Tutor  Calhoun  left 
the  College  to  enter  upon  that  remarkable  foreign  missionary  career 
on  Mt.  Lebanon,  in  which  he  was  conspicuously  useful  till  his  death 
in  1876.  About  twenty-five  years  after  this  reunion  of  the  two 
branches  of  the  noon  meeting,  they  separated  again  at  the  request 
of  the  Christian  students  in  West  College  and  Kellogg  Hall  on  the 
same  conditions  as  before ;  and  Arthur  Latham  Perry,  who  had 


492  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

been  a  constant  attendant  on  the  meeting  during  his  college  course  and 
after  his  return  as  a  teacher  in  1853,  took  charge  of  the  western  and 
weaker  branch,  until  the  enlistment  of  students  in  the  army  and  the 
excitement  of  the  Civil  War  resolved  it  again  into  the  other  branch.1 
The  apparently  untimely  and  much-lamented  death  of  Professor 
William  A.  Porter,  in  1830,  made  necessary  an  election  to  fill  that 
then  most  important  professorship.  Mark  Hopkins  had  quit  the 
College  as  a  tutor  in  1827  with  a  considerable  reputation  along  the 
lines  of  this  now  vacant  chair  of  Moral  Philosophy  and  Ehetoric, 
acquired  mainly  by  his  master's  oration,  which  had  been  published 
not  long  after  its  delivery.  He  had  studied  medicine,  received  his 
medical  degree,  and  made  some  futile  attempts  to  get  into  practice 
in  New  York  and  elsewhere.  The  letters  are  still  extant,  preserved 
by  his  mother,  in  which  may  be  read  some  of  the  replies  to  his  vari- 
ous inquiries  made  of  his  friends  as  to  a  proper  location  for  a  young 
physician.  Harvey  Bice,  his  college  classmate,  invited  him  to  come 
to  Cleveland,  then  a  rising  town  of  twelve  hundred  inhabitants.  Dr. 
Emmons,  then  just  settled  in  Williamstown  as  a  doctor,  had  already 
made  quasi  arrangements  to  take  into  partnership  with  himself 
Henry  L.  Sabin,  of  the  class  of  1821 :  Sabin  was  then  about  to  marry 
one  of  the  young  ladies  of  the  Whitman  family,  then  the  principal 
merchants  here;  and  Emmons  wrote  to  Hopkins,  that  if  Sabin  did 
this,  and  went  into  business  with  the  Whitmans,  he  would  take 
Hopkins  into  partnership  instead  of  Sabin!  The  marriage  indeed 
took  place,  but  Sabin  preferred  his  profession  to  a  country  store. 
Hopkins  was  transiently  disappointed.  But  his  heart  was  not  in 
the  life  of  a  physician.  He  was  not  built  in  that  way.  But  he 
was  built  in  another  and  very  distinct  way.  Providence  designed 
him  for  a  teacher  along  the  highest  walks  of  that  profession.  His 
anatomical  and  medical  studies,  however,  were  a  foundation  and 
preparation  for  much  that  came  to  him  later  in  his  life-work  as  a 
teacher.  When  his  name  was  proposed  in  the  meeting  of  the  Board 
of  Trustees  as  the  successor  of  Professor  Porter,  there  was  much 
divergence  of  opinion  in  that  body.  President  Griffin  was  opposed 
to  the  selection;  some  of  his  reasons  may  be  easily  guessed  at  from 
items  given  on  preceding  pages ;  another  may  be  surmised  in  the 
fact,  that  Hopkins  was  a  doctor  and  not  a  minister,  and  in  no  way 
trained  with  reference  to  his  becoming  a  minister;  and  this  last  is 
confirmed  by  the  fact  that  three  years  later,  when  Hopkins  applied 

*  The  writer  well  remembers  the  fervor  of  the  prayers  of  Edward  Payson  Hopkins, 
only  son  of  Albert  Hopkins,  in  this  smaller  meeting,  who  himself  was  killed  in  the 
service  at  Ashland,  Va.,  in  1864. 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE    TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       493 

to  the  Berkshire  Association  for  license  to  preach,  Griffin  is  known 
to  have  opposed  its  granting  on  the  ground  of  insufficient  technical 
preparation.  Nevertheless,  the  license  to  preach  was  granted  then 
and  there  by  a  majority  of  votes.  In  the  earlier  question  of  the 
professorship,  whatever  opposition  there  was  was  overcome  by  a 
somewhat  novel  method.  When  a  man  is  preordained  to  any  post, 
there  is  always  a  champion  to  present  him  at  the  door.  Henry  W. 
D wight,  Jr.,  born  in  Stockbridge  in  1788,  and  consequently  fourteen 
years  older  than  Hopkins,  a  grandson  of  General  Joseph  Dwight, 
whose  wife,  Abigail  Williams,  was  great-grandmother  of  Hopkins, 
was  at  that  time  a  member  of  the  Board  of  Trustees.  He  was  a 
lawyer  and  a  colonel.  He  had  represented  western  Massachusetts 
in  the  House  of  Representatives  at  Washington.  He  was  a  man  of 
talents  and  attainments,  and  of  uncommonly  fine  and  commanding 
personal  appearance.  He  had  known  Mark  Hopkins  from  a  child, 
and  they  were  of  the  same  kith  and  kin.  At  the  proper  moment  in 
the  discussion,  Colonel  Dwight  arose  and  made  an  eloquent  and 
resounding  plea  in  behalf  of  his  young  neighbor  and  distant  kins- 
man; and  he  was  accordingly  elected.  Posterity  owes  its  thanks  to 
Dwight  for  this  signal  service;  and  his  name,  otherwise  beclouded 
by  a  single  evil  habit  contracted,  or  at  least  intensified,  at  Washing- 
ton, will  be  perpetuated  in  connection  with  it.  In  this  way  there 
came  into  the  faculty  permanently  one  who  was  ready  and  able  to 
hold  up  his  brother's  hands  in  all  religious  plans  and  movements, 
although  he  never  fully  shared  in  the  latter 's  theological  views  in 
the  matter  of  perfection.  President  Griffin  looked  askance  at  both 
of  these  young  men  religiously;  but  it  made  no  difference;  both 
went  on,  each  in  his  own  way,  in  accordance  with  their  diverse  con- 
genital and  hereditary  endowments  and  tendencies;  while  the  elder, 
even  after  he  became  president,  never  superseded  the  younger  as  the 
practical  religious  leader  and  guide  to  the  students,  especially  in 
times  of  religious  awakening.  The  elder  resigned  his  presidency 
the  year  in  which  the  younger  died,  1872. 

Before  passing  now  to  some  more  continued  characterization  of 
the  man  who  became  Dr.  Griffin's  successor  in  the  presidency,  it  is 
more  than  in  order  to  append  here  the  recollections  of  his  own  col- 
lege days,  1822-26,  of  William  Hyde,  eldest  of  the  four  graduated 
sons  of  Rev.  Dr.  Alvan  Hyde  of  Lee,  long  the  vice-president  of  the 
College.  William,  who  became  in  many  ways  a  large  benefactor  of 
the  College,  wrote  these  reminiscences  at  the  writer's  request  and 
for  the  present  purpose,  more  than  fifty  years  after  his  graduation 
in  1826. 


494  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 


WILLIAMSTOWN  AND   COLLEGE 

When  I  entered  college  in  1822  Dr.  Griffin  had  been  president  but  one  year. 
The  number  of  students  was  small.  Many  had  left  with  Dr.  Moore  for  Ainherst 
and  other  colleges.  The  senior  class  numbered  only  seven.  The  college  had 
been  under  a  cloud,  and  its  continuance  in  doubt.  We  entered  a  class  of  about 
25.  The  only  college  buildings  were  the  West  college  and  the  East  college, 
since  burned,  and  a  small  wooden  building  used  by  Prof.  Dewey  for  chemistry. 
We  met  in  the  freshman  recitation-room,  bare  of  furniture  except  a  wooden 
bench  with  no  back.  Another  bench  was  necessary  and  was  ordered  from  Dea. 
Taft  by  the  class,  and  my  first  financial  exploit  was  to  assess  and  collect  a  tax 
of  six  cents  and  a  quarter  to  pay  his  bill  of  f  1.50.  Blackboards  were  not  known 
in  my  college  course.  We  drew  our  diagrams  on  paper  and  used  slates  in 
algebra ;  while  Prof.  Dewey  drew  his  illustrations  and  worked  his  problems  with 
chalk  on  the  floor  of  the  recitation-room,  when  lecturing  on  natural  philosophy 
and  astronomy.  There  was  not  a  carpet  on  any  floor  in  college,  except  in  the 
room  of  the  excellent  Prof.  Kellogg  in  the  West  college.  He  had  an  open  Frank- 
lin stove,  and  close  box  stoves  were  in  the  recitation-rooms,  in  all  other  rooms 
open  fire-places.  The  chapel,  then  in  the  West  college,  had  one  stove,  but  no 
fire  in  it  when  we  went  to  prayers  at  6  o'clock  in  cold  winter  mornings.  The 
scriptures  were  read  by  the  light  of  tallow  candles  and  the  prayers  were  none  too 
short.  The  students  were  generally  poor ;  many,  like  myself,  the  sons  of  min- 
isters with  scanty  salaries  and  large  families.  Economy  was  necessary  and 
easily  practised.  We  bought  wood  at  $2  per  cord,  cut  it  ourselves  and  carried 
it  to  our  rooms.  Prof.  Kellogg  did  the  same.  This  was  exercise  and  amuse- 
ment. We  had  no  base-ball  or  boating  clubs,  but  kicked  foot-ball.  Washing 
cost  12|  to  17  cents  per  week.  I  paid  usually  $1.17  per  week  for  board,  one 
summer  but  $1.  The  last  term  of  senior  year  a  few  of  us  felt  big  and  boarded 
with  John  R.  Bulkley,  with  the  tutors,  paying  a  dollar  and  a  half  for  aristo- 
cratic fare.  Livery  bills  were  small,  and  cigars  seldom  seen.  Pipes  and 
tobacco  were  common.  I  gave  them  up  in  the  revival  of  my  senior  year,  and 
have  not  resumed  their  use.  A  few  students  tried  to  board  themselves  in  their 
rooms,  but  with  sad  results  to  their  health.  There  were  two  professors,  Dewey 
and  Kellogg,  with  salaries  of  $800.  Tutors  were  employed  for  a  year  or  two  at 
$400 ;  such  men  as  Emerson  Davis,  Erastus  C.  Benedict,  Joseph  Hyde,  Mark 
and  Albert  Hopkins.  The  instruction  given  was  about  like  the  pay.  In  these 
days  it  would  be  called  superficial.  It  certainly  was  far  below  the  present 
standard.  I  could  hardly  enter  college  now  with  the  attainments  of  my  college 
course.  Marking  was  not  then  known,  except  for  absences  from  prayers  and 
recitations.  We  worshipped  with  the  town  in  the  church.  Dr.  Griffin  supplied 
every  third  Sabbath,  when  Mr.  Gridley  preached  at  South  Williamstown,  and 
frequently  at  other  times.  He  was  called  the  "prince  of  preachers."  There 
were  two  or  three  seasons  of  special  religious  interest  in  my  time  in  college.  Dr. 
Griffin  preached  with  great  power  in  the  church,  in  the  chapel  and  in  school- 
houses  packed  full.  The  candles  would  go  out  for  want  of  oxygen,  so  great  was 
the  press.  The  whole  town  was  moved,  as  was  the  college.  Many  were  con- 
verted who  have  been  prominent  in  the  ministry  and  as  missionaries.  I  never 
heard  such  powerful  presentation  of  truth.  His  style  would  now  be  called  arti- 
ficial. It  was  studied,  elaborate,  finished,  not  at  all  adapted  to  these  days.  I 


WILLIAM    HYDE. 
W.  C;,   1826. 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       495 

heard  the  sermon  on  the  "  Worth  of  the  Soul "  three  times  while  in  college,  and 
the  "Flood  sermon"  as  many.  His  majestic  presence  and  his  studied  modula- 
tions and  gestures  could  not  be  printed.  The  relations  of  the  college  and  town 
were  always  friendly.  The  students  were  as  gallant  to  the  ladies  as  now,  and 
as  many  found  life  partners.  What  changes  in  50  years !  The  college  funds 
were  then  about  $20,000,  the  president's  salary  $1200 ;  the  buildings  and 
grounds  with  no  adornments  or  attractions  ;  the  material  for  an  education, 
meagre.  My  father  furnished  me  with  less  than  $400  for  my  education.  It 
was  enough  for  the  times  and  his  means.  The  tendency  is  now  too  much  the 
other  way.  Expenses  are  too  large.  Do  you  make  better  men  than  when  it 
cost  self-denial  to  work  through  college  ?  We  have  seen  great  progress  in  50 
years.  Methuselah  saw  nothing  like  it  in  his  long  life.  It  would  have  taken 
him  200  years  to  have  gone  through  college. 

Mark  Hopkins  was  beyond  all  question  the  most  conspicuous  fig- 
ure and  the  most  useful  man  in  any  connection  with  Williams  Col- 
lege during  the  first  century  of  its  existence.  From  1830,  when  he 
became  a  professor,  till  1887,  when  he  passed  away  from  earth,  he 
drew  the  eyes  of  men,  he  won  the  confidence  and  applause  of  stu- 
dents, and  exerted,  on  the  whole,  a  deeper  and  steadier  and  more 
wholesome  influence  than  any  other  man  has  ever  done.  But  it  is 
a  great  mistake  to  suppose,  as  many  persons  have  done  unadvisedly, 
that  this  confidence  drawn  and  influence  exerted  were  uniform  and 
unintermitted.  Not  so.  In  the  first  place,  he  had  his  trade  to 
learn  just  like  all  other  men.  He  did  not  jump  into  the  confidence 
of  the  students,  nor  into  the  best  modes  of  teaching,  nor  into  accept- 
able methods  of  governing,  by  a  single  leap,  nor  by  several  leaps. 
He  found  his  footing  slowly  and  tentatively,  just  as  every  other 
successful  teacher  in  the  College  has  done.  He  was  accustomed 
himself  to  say  to  his  friends,  that  he  made  many  mistakes  at  first, 
particularly  in  the  matter  of  government.  He  once  told  the  writer, 
that  so  unpopular  did  he  become  in  connection  with  some  cases  of 
discipline,  that  a  student  told  him  to  his  face  that  he  had  not  a  single 
adherent  in  the  whole  body  of  students.  Till  he  became  president 
himself,  in  1836,  he  was  placed  in  truly  difficult  circumstances. 
Much  as  in  the  previous  case  of  Chester  Dewey,  though  of  course 
with  varying  elements,  the  students,  in  the  deepening  infirmities  of 
Dr.  Griffin,  saw  that  Hopkins  was  really  the  head  of  the  College, 
but  he  could  not  ostensibly  act  as  such  without  offending  his  nominal 
superior.  He  did  the  best  he  knew  how  under  trying  conditions; 
his  brother  was  doing  the  same  at  the  same  time  in  relation  to  reli- 
gious means  and  methods;  the  two  supported  each  other  as  best 
they  could,  and  each  succeeded  in  the  end;  but  nothing  can  take 
the  place  of  experience ;  and  both  missed  their  aim  in  part.  As  is 


496  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

usually  the  case  with  young  men  at  first  charged  with  authority  in 
prominent  positions,  these  two  were  more  strenuous  in  discipline  at 
the  beginning  than  afterwards.  Indeed,  so  far  as  the  elder  brother 
is  concerned,  there  was  a  notable  reaction  from  his  first  ten  years  of 
service  towards  a  milder  and  more  relaxed  discipline,  which  contin- 
ued and  perhaps  increased  so  long  as  he  was  in  office. 

The  election  of  Mark  Hopkins  to  the  presidency  of  the  College, 
in  1836,  was  attended  by  circumstances  that  were  striking  at  the 
time,  and  are  instructive  at  all  times.  The  trustees  elected  Rev. 
Absalom  Peters,  a  graduate  of  Dartmouth  College  in  1816,  a  pastor 
in  Benningtori  from  1820  to  1825,  as  president  immediately  on  the 
resignation  of  Dr.  Griffin;  but  Peters  declined  the  position,  for 
which  indeed  he  was  unfitted,  and  which  was  not  attractive  at  that 
time  to  any  one  not  well  knowing  the  state  of  things  both  within 
and  without.  Dr.  Griffin's  health  had  been  such  and  his  practical 
separation  from  College  so  complete,  that  he  had  not  heard  a  single 
recitation  nor  attended  any  exercise  of  the  class  of  1836  during  their 
Senior  year.  Hopkins  had  been  their  sole  teacher  throughout  that 
year.  They  liked  him,  and  admired  him,  and  believed  him  to  be 
the  most  suitable  man  for  the  new  president.  They  were  as  a  class 
too  sensible  of  the  proprieties  to  take  upon  themselves  the  function 
of  giving  advice  to  the  trustees  to  elect  Mark  Hopkins  as  the  presi- 
dent of  the  College ;  they  took  a  less  objectionable,  a  more  indirect, 
and,  probably,  a  securer  way,  to  affect  the  election  favorably ;  they 
prepared  a  careful  paper,  which  all  the  members  signed,  expressing 
their  deep  satisfaction  with  the  instruction  of  Professor  Hopkins 
for  the  Senior  year,  and  expressing  the  hope  also  that  future  Senior 
classes  might  receive  similar  instruction  and  participate  in  similar  sat- 
isfaction. These  facts  were  communicated  to  the  writer  more  than 
once  in  detail  by  Joseph  White,  a  prominent  member  of  the  class 
of  1836,  long  a  trustee,  and  of  late  the  treasurer,  of  the  College. 
When  this  paper  was  read  to  the  trustees  in  Commencement  week, 
Dr.  Samuel  Shepard  of  Lenox,  vice-president  of  the  College  and 
presiding  at  the  board,  is  credibly  said  to  have  exclaimed  to  his 
colleagues,  —  "If  the  boys  want  him,  let  them  have  him ! "  Emerson 
Davis,  then  the  youngest  member  of  the  Board  of  Trustees,  was 
present,  and  soon  reported  the  election  as  consummated. 

The  year  1836  thus  became  another  epochal  point  in  the  history 
of  the  College,  worthy  to  be  placed  alongside  the  year  1827,  and 
certainly  looked  back  upon  ever  since  as  the  beginning  of  a  num- 
ber of  new  and  better  things.  The  class  itself  then  graduated  was 
in  several  respects  unusual  and  notable.  It  was  larger  in  number 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       497 

than  any  previous  class  after  1811,  filling  out  thirty -two  men ;  and 
a  larger  proportion  of  these  than  usual  came  to  distinction  in  after 
life,  several  of  them  in  close  connection  with  the  College  itself. 
Let  this  suffice  as  a  special  roll  of  honor :  — 

ROBERT  CRAWFORD  CHAUNCEY  GILES 

NATHAN  W.  HARMON  WILLIAM  HOPKINS 

SAMUEL  KNOX  THOMAS  NELSON 

JOB  SWIFT  OLIN  ZALMON  RICHARDS 

JOHN  TATLOCK  RANDOLPH  W.  TOWNSEND 

BUSHNELL  WHITE  JOSEPH  WHITE 

JAY  A.  WIGHT  EDMUND  WRIGHT 

The  reader  will  not  be  displeased  to  see  in  this  place  a  copy  of  the 
"  Order  of  Exercises  "  at  the  noteworthy  Commencement  of  1836. 
It  fell  on  Aug.  17. 

ORDER  OF  EXERCISES. 

1.  SACRED  Music. 

2.  Prayer  by  the  President. 

3.  Salutatory  Oration  in  Latin.  WALTER  WRIGHT,  Chicago,  III. 

4.  Oration.  — Character  of  John  Jay.         THOMAS  NELSON,  Peekskill,  N.  Y. 

5.  Oration.  —  Influence  of  France  on  our  Manners  and  Morals. 

JOSEPH  PYNCHEON,  Springfield. 

6.  Oration.  —  Influence  of  Eloquence  in  Republican  Governments. 

SAMUEL  KNOX,  Blandford. 
Music. 

7.  Oration.  — Importance  of  high  Aims. 

PHILO  CANFIELD,  Bridgeport,  Ct. 

8.  Conference.  —  The  Reformation  in  Scotland,  and  in  Spain. 

JOHN  WILSON,  Andover. 

ZALMON  RICHARDS,  Chester,   Ohio. 

9.  Oration.  —  Division  of  Labor.  JOB  OLIN,  Shaftsbury,  Vt. 

10.  Oration.  —  New  Hampshire.  ANSON  L.  HOBART,  Columbia,  N.  H. 

Music. 

11.  Conference.  —  Resemblance  ;    Contiguity  in  time  and  place  ;   Cause  and 

Effect. 

E.  WM.  KELLOGG,  Sheffield. 
THEODORE  J.  CLARK,  Northampton. 
HAZEN  CHENEY,  Lunenburgh,  Vt. 

12.  Philosophical  Oration. — Volcanoes.  BUSHNELL  WHITE,  Buckland. 

Music. 

13.  Oration.  —  Connection  of  Science  and  Religion. 

ROBERT  CRAWFORD,  Lanark,  U.  C. 

14.  Oration.  —  Superstition.  GEORGE  CLISBY,  Medford. 

2K 


498  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

15.  Poem.  —  Burning  of  the  Turkish  Fleet  by  Kanaris. 

J.  AMBROSE  WIGHT,  Jamaica,  L.  I. 

16.  First  English  Oration.  —  The  right  estimate  of  our  abilities. 

JOSEPH  WHITE,  Charlemont. 
Music. 

17.  Oration.  —  Prejudice.  MR.  MARTIN  I.  TOWNSEND,  Troy,  N.  T. 

18.  Oration.  —  Connection  of  Moral  Science  with  Religion. 

MR.  SAMUEL  BUEL,  Troy,  N.  T. 
Music. 

19.  Oration  before  the  Alumni.  HENRY  H.  CHILDS,  M.D. 

Music. 

20.  Valedictory  Oration.  —  Metaphysics.       JOHN  TATLOCK,  Liverpool,  Eng. 

21.  Degrees  Conferred. 

22.  SACRED  Music. 

23.  Prayer. 

Under  date  of  August  16,  the  diary  of  Albert  Hopkins  holds  the 
concise  statement,  "Mark  was  chosen  president  this  afternoon." 
Under  date  of  September  16,  the  same  holds  this  entry,  "Term 
commenced  yesterday,  but  there  were  no  exercises  on  account  of  the 
Inauguration  service."  This  relates  to  his  brother's  inaugural 
discourse,  whose  theme  was,  "A  Wise  System  of  Education." 

All  things  taken  into  consideration,  it  is  extremely  unlikely  that 
Mark  Hopkins  would  have  been  chosen  president  when  he  was,  if  at 
all,  if  it  had  not  been  on  account  of  a  shrewd  and  proper  move  of  a 
part  of  the  student-body  as  towards  that  end.  This  was  the  first 
occasion  in  the  history  of  the  College,  when  undergraduates,  as 
such,  exerted  a  clean-cut  and  positive  influence  on  the  policy  of  the 
College.  It  was  a  well-considered,  timely,  and  wholesome  stroke. 
It  was  good  in  itself,  and  it  led  off  in  a  good  direction.  From  that 
day  till  the  date  of  the  present  writing  is  sixty  full  years ;  and  the 
long  interval  is  marked  by  several  similar  instances  of  happy  influ- 
ence initiated,  or  fortified,  by  the  student-body  as  standing  in  con- 
trast with  the  trustee-body,  the  faculty-body,  or  the  body  of  the 
alumni.  All  four  of  these  bodies  are  now  recognized  constituents 
of  the  common  weal.  No  man  can  state  in  terms,  no  existing  writ- 
ing even  attempts  to  define,  the  proper  order  in  point  of  time  or 
proportions  in  respect  of  weight  of  these  four  authoritative  influ- 
ences ;  but  they  are  all  felt,  when  important  questions  are  pending, 
each  within  certain  limits,  due  regard  being  had  at  the  same  time 
to  each  of  the  others.  The  accession  of  Hopkins  marked  the  first 
considerable  change  in  the  order  and  proportion  of  these  four  rela- 
tive and  governing  forces.  The  reasons  for  this  are  obvious  enough. 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       499 

They  are  to  be  found  partly  in  the  characteristics  of  the  man,  and 
partly  in  the  circumstances  of  his  accession. 

The  body  of  trustees  were  and  remain  first  in  the  order  of  time 
and  of  moral  precedence.  They  alone  of  the  four  are  a  legal  body. 
They  alone  hold  the  purse-strings,  and  manage  the  property  of  the 
College.  They  are  the  fons  et  origo  of  everything.  They  choose  a 
president,  who  becomes  ipso  facto  their  head,  and  the  head  also  of 
a  body  of  teachers,  who,  owing  their  appointment  to  the  act  of  the 
trustees,  become  the  secondary  body  indeed,  but  the  working  body 
also,  the  only  body  that  comes  into  direct  and  constant  influence 
and  control  over  the  tertiary  body,  the  students,  for  the  sole  sake  of 
whose  training  all  the  causes  and  effects  are  instituted  from  the 
first.  In  1821  the  Society  of  Alumni  was  instituted  here,  the  first 
known  organization  of  the  kind;  and,  barring  certain  transitory 
slips  and  falls,  this  "  fourth  estate  "  has  had  a  pretty  steadily  aug- 
menting and  usually  useful  influence  for  three-fourths  of  a  century. 
Naturally  enough,  the  president  of  a  college  is  apt  to  emphasize  in 
its  working  the  authority  of  the  corporate  body,  which  only  meets 
twice  a  year,  and  over  which  it  is  easy  for  him  to  keep  the  drive- 
hand,  rather  than  the  body  of  instruction,  which  meets  weekly  in 
term-time,  and  between  whose  head  and  members  friction  and  com- 
bination are  much  more  likely  to  arise.  At  Williams,  neither  the 
faculty  as  such  nor  the  students  as  such  came  to  have  any  recogni- 
tion as  over  against  the  trustees  and  the  president,  until  about  the 
middle  of  Griffin's  administration,  when  Chester  Dewey  was  forced 
out  of  the  faculty,  because  he  was  better  liked  and  more  heeded 
than  the  president  was;  and  we  have  just  now  noticed  that  both 
Mark  and  Albert  Hopkins  were  obliged,  a  little  later,  to  combine 
their  personal  and  faculty  influence  in  derogation  of  Griffin's  lead 
and  mischief.  In  other  words,  the  faculty  as  such  came  first,  and 
have  usually  since  been  able  to  maintain  their  own  proper  make- 
weight as  over  against  the  trustee-body. 

Mark  Hopkins  understood  perfectly  well  that  he  was  indebted  for 
his  easy  accession  in  1836  to  the  approbation  and  politic  action  of 
the  student-body  as  such.  This  circumstance  by  itself  naturally 
and  powerfully  led  him  to  look  for  support  and  good  understanding 
to  the  successive  classes  of  students,  especially  as  they  came  under 
his  sole  instruction  and  management  during  their  Senior  year.  He 
had  less  use  for  the  trustees  as  such,  than  any  one  of  his  three  pred- 
ecessors had  had;  and  there  commenced  at  once  a  shifting  of  steady 
influence  from  them  and  from  their  carefully  compiled  body  of  col- 
lege laws,  'towards  the  faculty  of  instruction  and  their  head,  and 


500  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

particularly  towards  them  in  their  new  relations  to  the  students  of 
better  acquaintance  and  growing  confidence.  As  Mark  Hopkins 
handled  thereafter  the  Senior  class  both  as  instructor  and  college 
officer,  so  Albert  Hopkins  became  college  officer  and  principal  in- 
structor of  the  Junior  class;  the  two  brothers,  though  markedly 
different  in  personal  characteristics,  acted  together  as  a  unit  college- 
wise  ;  the  two  upper  classes  tended  more  and  more  to  give  tone  and 
opinion  to  the  two  lower;  and,  consequently,  faculty  and  students 
from  this  time  on  gained  a  more  controlling  influence  relatively  to 
trustees  and  alumni. 

Another  circumstance  conspired  with  this  at  the  same  time  to 
throw  into  the  hands  of  Mark  Hopkins  a  wider  influence  and  a 
steadier  control  than  had  fallen  personally  to  the  lot  of  any  one  of 
his  three  predecessors  in  office.  Each  of  these  was  a  stranger  when 
he  came  hither.  Fitch  and  Griffin  were  natives  of  Connecticut,  and 
graduates  of  Yale.  Moore  was  a  Scotch-Irish-American,  born  and 
bred  among  those  peculiar  people,  a  graduate  of  Dartmouth  in  1793, 
and  more  at  home  in  New  Hampshire  than  in  any  other  part  of  New 
England.  But  Hopkins  was  to  the  manor  born.  He  was  a  native 
of  Berkshire,  and  a  graduate  of  Williams.  Local  pride  turned  to 
him  from  both  ends  of  the  county.  The  leading  trustees  had  been 
Berkshire  men  from  the  first,  and  they  were  so  at  the  time  of  his 
accession.  This  gave  him  a  decided  moral  advantage  over  each  of 
the  three  who  preceded  him,  and  also  over  each  of  the  two  who  suc- 
ceeded him.  So  far  as  the  writer  is  aware,  no  one  has  ever  noticed 
before  this  coign  of  vantage  of  the  Berkshire  man,  though  it  obvi- 
ously helps  explain  that  surprising  degree  of  high  and  early  and 
easy  and  long-held  success  in  office,  which  has  never  yet  seemed  to 
any  competent  judge  to  be  fully  accounted  for  by  merely  extraordi- 
nary natural  gifts  and  heredity,  special  opportunities  of  education, 
habits  of  industry,  depth  and  serenity  of  character,  unselfish  and 
persistent  devotion  to  the  ends  set  before  him  in  life.  It  is  certain 
that  he  would  have  had,  he  could  have  had,  no  such  prompt  and 
wide  success  as  he  had  here,  had  he  been  called  in  1836  to  Amherst, 
to  Brown,  to  Dartmouth.  Dwight's  speech  before  the  trustees  in 
1830,  when  Hopkins  was  chosen  professor,  gave  the  key-note  to  the 
song  of  1836,  and  to  its  local  reverberations  for  forty  years  there- 
after. That  was  a  Berkshire  speech  by  a  Berkshire  congressman, 
in  behalf  of  a  Berkshire  native  and  graduate  before  a  tribunal  com- 
posed largely  of  Berkshire  judges.  More  than  this.  It  was  a  Stock- 
bridge  speech  by  a  Stockbridge  citizen  in  favor  of  another  Stockbridge 
citizen,  both  of  the  two  directly  out  of  the  loins  of  the  three  earliest 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       501 

and  most  prominent  citizens  of  Stockbridge,  namely,  Ephraim  Wil- 
liams and  John  Sergeant  and  Joseph  D  wight.  The  tribunal  of  the 
trustees  in  1836  was  antecedently  quite  as  favorable  of  the  candidate 
as  was  that  of  1830. 

It  will  do  our  eyes  good  to  look  over  a  selected  roll  of  the  most 
prominent  Berkshire  trustees  from  the  opening  of  the  College,  in 
1793,  till  the  opening  of  the  fourth  presidency,  in  1836. 

STEPHEN  WEST  JOHN  BACON 

DANIEL  COLLINS  ISRAEL  JONES 

DAVID  NOBLE  WOODBRIDGE  LITTLE 

THEODORE  SEDGWICK  TOMPSON  J.  SKINNER 

SETH  SWIFT  WILLIAM  WILLIAMS 

ALVAN  HYDE  DANIEL  DEWEY 

SAMUEL  SHEPARD  JOSEPH  WOODBRIDGE 

DANIEL  NOBLE  LEVI  GLEZEN 

NATHANIEL  BISHOP  WILLIAM  P.  WALKER 

CHARLES  A.  DEWEY  EDWARD  A.  NEWTON 

RALPH  W.  GRIDLEY  *  HENRY  W.  DWIGHT 

DANIEL  N.  DEWEY  EDWIN  W.  DWIGHT 

While  Providence  placed  the  College  at  the  north  end  of  the 
county,  and  in  the  valley  of  the  Hoosac,  which  had  been  from  im- 
memorial time  the  war-path  of  hostile  Indians  back  and  forth,  and 
also  a  war-path  of  French  and  British  and  colonial  forces  in  several 
hard-fought  campaigns,  thus  making  this  valley-line  historical  and 
deeply  interesting,  the  same  Providence  appointed  the  south  end  of 
the  county  (and  particularly  Stockbridge)  the  seat  of  the  engrossing 
Indian  Mission  and  its  famous  missionaries  and  teachers,  and  also 
the  place  of  earlier  English  settlements  and  more  thriving  and  popu- 
lous towns.  Williamstown  opened  the  doors  of  its  Free  School  and 
College,  but  it  was  from  Stockbridge  and  its  vicinity  that  the  most 
of  the  scholars  came  for  the  first  quarter-century.  The  four  per- 
sons composing  the  first  graduate  class  of  the  College,  in  1795, 

SAMUEL  BISHOP 
JOHN  COLLINS 
CHAUNCY  LUSK 
DANIEL  STONE 

all  hailed  from  Stockbridge.  Let  him  believe  it  who  chooses,  — 
the  historian  avers  not,  —  but  it  is  said  of  late  years,  that,  in  conse- 
quence of  a  minuter  survey  of  the  town-line,  John  Collins  was  born 
just  over  the  border  in  Lenox.  Very  likely.  This  concession  does 
not  militate  against  the  point  of  the  present  paragraph.  The  entire 
county,  both  ends  and  all  parts,  girded  up  the  loins  of  its  mind  and 


502  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

its  purpose  in  1836  to  sustain  the  Berkshire  college  as  such.  This 
impulse  was  intensified  and  made  more  reasonable,  and  even  neces- 
sary, by  what  had  been  taking  place  for  twenty  years  in  the  next 
neighboring  county  of  Hampshire.  They  had  now  gotten  a  good 
college  of  their  own  at  Amherst.  Hampshire  had  formerly  sent  a 
goodly  number  of  students  over  the  mountains  to  Williamstown. 
Such  could  no  longer  be  expected.  While,  as  we  have  seen  before 
in  the  proper  place,  there  was  no  rational  ground  for  any  ill  feeling 
as  toward  the  more  eastern  institution,  such  a  feeling  was  cherished 
in  certain  quarters  for  some  years;  and  the  natural  reaction  from  it 
riveted  local  feeling  in  and  around  the  older  college.  The  rise  and 
prosperity  of  Amherst  has  never  harmed  the  Berkshire  college  at  all 
in  any  broad  view  of  the  matter,  while  it  has  served  to  exhibit, 
somewhat  in  the  way  of  contrast,  the  topographical  advantage  of  the 
latter,  in  that  the  Hoosac  River  opens  up  an  easy  access  to  the  broad 
and  fertile  valleys  of  the  north  and  west.  Williams  is  in  touch 
with  the  Hudson  Eiver  and  Lake  Cham  plain,  and  their  tributaries. 
New  York  soon  made  up,  and  more  than  made  up,  any  losses  from 
the  region  of  the  Connecticut. 

No  such  considerations  as  these,  however,  entered  the  minds  of 
Mark  Hopkins  and  of  his  few,  but  willing  colaborers,  as  they 
buckled  down  to  their  tasks  in  the  autumn  of  1836.  They  did  not 
expect  great  things,  and  they  had  no  reason  to  expect  great  things. 
The  new  entrance  did  not  quite  make  up  in  numbers  the  relatively 
large  class  that  was  graduated.  The  first  class  to  be  graduated 
under  Hopkins,  that  of  1837,  numbered  but  eighteen  men,  but  there 
were  three  men  in  it  who  became  quite  distinguished  in  after  life, 
and  who  always  maintained  close  relations  of  friendship  with  their 
then  youthful  president.  These  were  Stephen  J.  Field,  Justice  of 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States;  Israel  Ward  Andrews, 
President  of  Marietta  College ;  and  Brigadier-General  Lewis  Bene- 
dict, killed  in  battle  for  his  country,  pierced  by  five  balls,  in  the 
Ked  Kiver  campaign,  April,  1864.  The  next  class,  1838,  held  at 
graduation  twenty-three  men,  of  whom  James  Denison  Colt,  Judge 
of  the  Supreme  Court,  Massachusetts;  William  Bross,  Lieutenant- 
Governor  of  Illinois;  Henry  Martyn  Field,  Editor  of  the  New  York 
Evangelist;  John  V.  P.  Quackenbush,  Surgeon -General  of  New  York; 
and  Judge  John  Wells  were  the  most  notable  members.  The  next 
class,  that  of  1839,  the  third  under  Hopkins,  was  the  largest  in 
point  of  numbers  that  had  ever  taken  their  degrees  at  the  College, 
namely,  thirty-five,  — very  encouraging  to  the  new  regime,  which  pre- 
sented the  same  number  again  in  1842,  and  increased  it  by  one  in 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       503 

1845.  The  College  was  evidently  getting  on.  The  new  president 
was  becoming  increasingly  popular.  What  now  first  becomes  notice- 
able is,  that  young  men  begin  to  take  the  honors  of  the  College,  who 
make  themselves  influential  and  memorable  as  college  teachers  in 
after  life.  In  this  class  of  1839,  the  largest  in  number  that  had 
then  been  dowered,  were  three  men  who  subsequently  distinguished 
themselves  beyond  their  classmates,  and  all  three  of  them  along 
lines  of  college  teaching  and  kindred  work.  These  were  Samuel 
James  Andrews,  author  of  the  "Life  of  our  Lord  on  the  Earth," 
and  Professor  of  Metaphysics  and  Logic  in  Trinity  College,  the  first 
graduate  of  Williams  to  become  an  Episcopalian  churchman  of 
mark;  George  Kerr,  Professor  of  Mathematics  in  the  New  York 
Agricultural  College;  and  William  Porter,  a  prominent  professor 
for  many  years  in  Beloit  College,  Wisconsin. 

Of  course,  in  contrast  with  the  widely  known  and  courtly  and  cor- 
pulent briifin,  Hopkins  at  first  was  often  indirectly  made  to  realize 
that  he  was  relatively  obscure  and  awkward  and  spindling;  and, 
later  in  life,  he  was  fond  of  repeating  to  his  intimates  depreciatory 
remarks  made  in  this  connection,  either  in  his  presence  or  that 
came  to  his  ears.  For  example,  Eev.  Mr.  Jennings,  long  the  eccen- 
tric pastor  of  Dalton,  who  had  been  accustoxmed  occasionally  to  call 
upon  Dr.  Griffin,  called,  after  his  accession,  upon  Dr.  Hopkins, 
and  said  to  him,  "  You  have  not  much  abdominal  dignity  !  " 

It  may  be  a  mere  fancy,  or  it  may  express  some  relation  of  cause 
and  effect,  to  connect  the  notable  success  of  these  three  men  of  a 
single  class  as  college  teachers,  with  the  accession  here  of  a  new 
administration  of  comparatively  young  men  but  three  years  before, 
and  particularly  with  the  coming  to  the  front  in  influence  and  con- 
trol, both  by  precept  and  example,  of  President  Mark  Hopkins. 
He  felt  the  weight  of  personal  responsibility  very  keenly.  Under 
all  the  circumstances  of  the  case,  a  view  of  which  has  been  carefully 
given  in  the  pages  preceding,  his  election  was  a  vastly  more  impor- 
tant matter  to  the  College  than  the  ordinary  accession  of  a  college 
president  in  New  England.  This  was  sui  generis  in  vital  respects. 
Hopkins  knew  the  crevasses  in  Griffin's  character  and  administra- 
tion thoroughly.  He  knew  better  than  most  men  know  at  thirty- 
four  what  he  himself  could  do,  and  what  he  could  not  do.  He  knew 
that  he  had  no  financial  ability,  and  that  he  should  never  acquire 
the  capacity  successfully  to  solicit  subscriptions  for  college  uses, 
either  from  individuals  or  the  Commonwealth.  Accordingly,  he 
made  exemption  from  this  duty  a  formal  condition  of  his  acceptance 
of  the  presidency.  This  is  stated  on  his  own  authority  repeatedly 


504  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

given.  On  the  other  hand,  he  knew  by  a  sort  of  instinct,  and  better 
still  by  a  steady  experience  of  six  years,  that  he  could  teach  in  his 
otvn  way,  and  that  his  own  way  was  more  or  less  a  new  way.  As 
soon  as  his  hands  were  free,  and  he  was  consciously  master  of  the 
situation,  he  entered  at  once  with  zeal,  but  saying  nothing  to  any 
one,  upon  what  came  to  be  a  successful  and  famous  method.  It  has 
often  been  called  the  "Socratic  method,"  but  this  name  cannot  be 
intelligently  applied  to  it.  The  originality  of  Hopkins's  mode  of 
teaching  can  be  easily  vindicated  by  a  few  simple  comparisons 
between  it  and  that  of  the  great  Athenian ;  and  still  more  easily  by 
the  statement,  that  the  Yankee  president  scarcely  knew  in  those 
days  that  there  ever  was  a  man  by  the  name  of  Socrates ;  certainly 
he  did  not  know  that  he  practised  a  manner  of  teaching  different 
from  that  pursued  by  Plato,  or  by  the  Scotch  metaphysicians  at  the 
close  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Men  entered  and  quitted  college 
in  those  days  with  marvellously  little  knowledge  of  the  past,  —  or 
even  of  the  present.  Hopkins  said  of  himself,  that  he  did  not  know 
enough  of  Greek  to  know  whether  it  were  a  hard  language  or  not. 
More  than  twenty  years  after  he  became  president,  he  said  to  one 
of  his  own  professors,  whom  he  was  apt  to  catch  reading  when  he 
called,  "You  read  books:  I  don't  read  any  books;  in  fact,  I  never  did 
read  any  books." 

It  seems  more  than  likely,  indeed  almost  certain,  that  the  sharp- 
eyed  Seniors  in  those  days,  as  well  as  in  the  later  days,  when  they 
came  exclusively  and  gratefully  under  his  instruction,  and  felt  them- 
selves stimulated  by  it,  watched  his  manner  of  imparting  to  such 
good  purpose,  that,  when  they  came  to  be  teachers  themselves,  they, 
consciously  or  unconsciously,  caught  something  of  method  as  well, 
as  spirit;  or,  at  any  rate,  instinctively  trusted  themselves,  as  he 
did,  to  an  inner  voice,  and  went  on  to  distinction  as  public  teachers. 

The  Senior  class  had  two  distinctions  in  those  days  from  the  three 
other  classes,  namely,  they  had  but  two  recitations  a  day,  and  they 
came  exclusively  (or  nearly  so)  under  the  instruction  of  the  presi- 
dent. These  differences  seemed  large  to  the  students,  and  the  presi- 
dent properly  emphasized  them  in  order  to  secure  a  better  attention 
to  new  studies,  and  to  employ  a  general  method  both  of  instruction 
and  discipline  more  grateful  to  the  self-respect  of  his  classes.  He 
used  no  strict  rules  of  any  kind  in  order  to  make  sure  of  attendance 
on  his  hours  of  teaching,  nor  did  he  any  more  treat  all  alike  in 
reference  to  absence  from  college  prayers  and  Sabbath  services. 
He  made  his  hours  as  attractive  as  possible  to  all,  laying  very  little 
stress  upon  the  text-book,  catching  quickly  at  the  close  attention 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       505 

and  power  of  apprehending  on  the  part  of  the  brighter  and  more 
earnest  fellows,  and  wasting  very  little  time  in  questioning  the 
dullards  or  explaining  to  them  even  the  radical  distinctions  of  the 
subject.  For  the  vigor  and  pleasure  of  his  recitation  hours,  he  was 
usually  dependent  on  the  leaders  of  his  class,  who  were  not  always 
by  any  means  those  who  stood  the  highest  in  scholarship  in  the 
earlier  years.  His  peculiar  magnet  generally  attracted  a  consider- 
able majority  in  his  classes,  but  never  all  of  them;  and  he  had  not 
the  knack  of  some  teachers  of  making  a  recitation  seem  to  go  off  well 
when  the  class  did  not  contribute  their  fair  share  to  it.  He  was 
never  exacting  in  respect  of  the  text ;  and  he  did  not  insist  even  upon 
his  own  vital  distinctions  nearly  so  much  as  most  teachers  do  who 
have  vital  distinctions  of  their  own  to  make.  He  did  this  on  theory, 
and  not  simply  in  practice.  He  did  not  believe  in  teaching  particu- 
lars much,  but  only  generals;  and  generals  rather  in  a  way  to  wake 
up  the  mind  of  the  pupil  to  act  for  itself,  and  to  come  to  some  con- 
clusions of  its  own,  rather  than  to  bring  it  to  accept  definite  propo- 
sitions inductively  and  strictly  arrived  at. 

There  are  advantages  and  disadvantages  in  this  general  method 
of  teaching  the  moral  sciences.  (1)  There  is  this  advantage,  that 
present  interest  and  prospective  progress  in  these  depend  less  than 
might  be  expected  beforehand  on  the  previous  interest  and  standing 
in  those  college  studies  usually  regarded  as  preparatory.  Hopkins 
cared  little  personally  for  what  had  gone  before.  Of  course,  he  saw 
the  results  in  mental  discipline  of  previous  studies  of  languages  and 
mathematics  and  natural  sciences,  if  those  results  were  present; 
and  he  saw  equally  well  proofs  of  discipline  secured  in  other  ways, 
in  practical  life  or  by  teaching;  but  he  did  not  use  such  scaffolding 
a  great  deal  for  his  own  purposes.  It  was  not  much  a  condition  of 
his  own  good  work,  that  his  colleagues  had  done  good  work  and 
reaped  good  fruit  in  the  earlier  years.  A  student  could  largely 
redeem  himself  in  the  Senior  year.  Minus  is  minus  and  plus  is  plus 
everywhere;  but  Mark  Hopkins  could  get  on  pretty  well  with  ill- 
fitted  students  and  those  who  had  been  personally  neglectful  up  to 
Senior  year,  provided  only  they  would  give  their  best  attention  day 
by  day,  and  put  their  minds  thoroughly  into  contact  with  his,  and 
send  out  a  hopeful  spirit  to  meet  his  helpful  spirit.  The  loose 
organization  of  college  studies  in  those  times,  the  little  coordination 
between  the  separate  years,  worked  less  mischief  on  the  Seniors  on 
account  of  certain  peculiarities  in  the  president's  way  of  teaching. 
He  could  open  up  his  own  paths  of  approach  to  the  minds  of  stu- 
dents. His  method  allowed  of  this.  With  a  certain  class  of  stu- 


506  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

dents  it  gave  him  more  creative  credit  than  he  deserved.  Another 
class,  who  prized  the  paths  behind  them,  in  which  they  had  dili- 
gently walked,  and  who  thought  their  gains  should  be  utilized  in 
the  new  progress,  were  often  disappointed  and  inclined  to  fall  back, 
giving  the  new  leader  less  credit  than  he  deserved.  In  short,  the 
best  way  was  to  take  what  he  offered  then  and  there,  without  much 
reference  to  past  or  future  connections.  Such  students  oriented 
themselves  with  him  quickly  and  found  a  rich  repast,  — not  every 
day  indeed,  nor  in  every  subordinate  subject,  but  generally  speaking 
and  on  the  whole.  They  were  his  true  supporters  and  admirers  and, 
generally,  his  lifelong  friends. 

(2)  There  was  a  second  and  greater  advantage  in  his  flowing-robe 
methods.  He  did  not  generalize  a  great  deal  in  the  presence  of  his 
classes.  He  did  not  ask  them  to  accept  bodily  the  results  which  his 
own  mind  had  reached  by  induction,  any  more  than  he  urged  them 
to  accept  the  logical  conclusions  reached  by  the  text-book  writers. 
He  had  never  trained  his  mind  in  the  strict  logical  methods,  whether 
inductive  or  deductive;  and,  consequently,  he  rarely  (if  ever)  felt 
that  inflexible  conviction  of  truth  which  a  careful  and  repeated  in- 
duction of  particulars  never  fails  to  impart  to  the  trained  logical 
reasoner.  He  knew  that  God  had  made  the  world  and  men  on  ever- 
lasting lines  of  order;  but  he  often  missed  the  blessed  consequences 
of  this,  namely,  that  any  just  generalization,  made  and  fortified 
inductively,  is  put  thereby  beyond  hazard  of  essential  chance  for  all 
time.  While  this  feature  of  his  mind  and  teaching  gave  room  for 
that  advantage  to  some  of  his  pupils,  to  be  specified  in  a  moment, 
he  recognized  it  in  himself  as  a  lack  in  any  broad  and  final  view. 
"I  have  never  read  Mill's  'Logic,'"  he  said  in  a  deprecatory  way 
to  the  writer  when  a  Senior,  as  if  he  had  said,  "I  wish  I  had."  The 
differences  between  induction  and  deduction  were  never  very  clear 
to  his  mind;  but  he  had  what  was  in  many  respects  better  for  him: 
a  broad  and  common-sense  and  penetrative  insight  into  the  nature 
of  things,  which  made  his  reasoning,  in  all  cases  in  which  he  was 
tolerably  familiar  with  the  particular  facts,  cogent  and  convincing, 
which  is  only  another  way  of  saying  that  he  possessed  a  sort  of 
native,  or  instinctive,  power  of  inductive  reasoning;  which,  how- 
ever, of  course,  failed  him  wretchedly  in  all  departments  in  which 
he  was  ignorant  of  the  essential  facts. 

Now,  there  were  in  every  college  class  a  few  students  of  naturally 
constructive  minds,  which  liked  to  come  to  their  own  conclusions 
by  their  own  freely  chosen  and  practised  steps,  and  which  only 
needed  to  be  stimulated  into  action  on  any  important  topic  in  order 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL    THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       507 

to  see  its  postulates  and  relations  and  results.  Such  students  were 
the  delight  of  the  great  teacher.  They  did  not  need  to  have  pointed 
out  to  them  particularly  and  numerically  either  in  the  text-book 
or  by  the  teacher  the  inferences  and  the  opposites  implied.  The 
processes  were  fructifying  in  such  minds,  whether  the  results  were 
worth  tabulating  or  not,  or  whether  the  fruits  ripened  in  the  minds 
of  the  pupils  corresponded  in  hue  and  succulence  with  those  in  the 
mind  of  the  teacher.  He  rarely  quarrelled  in  class  with  the  state- 
ments there  of  this  limited  class  of  men.  He  seemed  more  desirous 
that  they  should  think,  and  think  vigorously  in  their  own  way,  and 
state  the  result  in  their  own  language,  than  that  they  should  think 
rightly  according  to  his  suppressed  standard,  or  express  themselves 
technically.  These  men  profited  by  their  liberty,  and  rejoiced  in 
the  consciousness  of  mental  powers.  He  encouraged  them.  He 
sometimes  praised  them,  perhaps  beyond  what  was  their  due.  He 
treated  them,  at  any  rate,  as  fellow- wayfarers.  He  claimed  no  pre- 
cedence over  them.  It  may  have  happened  in  a  few  cases  that  these 
privileged  men  even  before  graduation  became  better  reasoners  in  a 
general  way  than  the  doctor  was  himself.  It  goes  without  saying, 
however,  that  there  were  probably  in  every  class  at  least  one-third  of 
the  members  who  would  have  gone  straighter  and  better  in  stronger 
leading-strings.  To  this  class,  the  actual  results  at  the  end  of  the 
year  in  knowledge,  in  distinction,  in  resemblances,  in  facts,  were 
meagre  enough,  — too  meagre  for  graduates. 

(3)  There  was  a  third  advantage,  or  quasi-advantage  at  least,  in 
what  may  perhaps  justly  be  called  the  university  method  of  Dr. 
Hopkins  in  his  personal  teaching,  namely,  he  had  very  little  occa- 
sion ever  to  rebuke  with  any  severity  any  of  his  pupils  as  such. 
There  was  very  little  of  strict  requirements  of  any  kind  in  his 
lecture-room.  The  majorities  were  uniformly  interested  in  his 
work,  and  fairly  met  his  expectations.  The  text-book,  in  general, 
was  so  little  regarded,  that  no  student  could  be  accused  of  having 
neglected  his  particular  lesson.  If  his  behavior  in  classroom  were 
good,  his  attention  there  sufficient  to  keep  the  general  run  of  the 
discussion,  and  his  wits  enough  about  him  to  make  reasonably  per- 
tinent replies  to  the  questions  put  to  him  individually,  — all  was 
fair  sailing  between  teacher  and  pupil.  Each  was  very  well  satis- 
fied with  the  other.  There  was  no  friction  anywhere,  and  consid- 
erable mutual  admiration  instead.  The  doctor  was  much  less 
disturbed  than  most  good  teachers  are  by  a  little  whispering  here 
and  there  in  class  by  the  way  of  side  discussion  or  comment,  or  even 
by  a  little  laughing  now  and  then  in  a  corner.  He  was  a  perfect 


508  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

master  of  the  situation,  and  he  knew  it,  and  all  the  members  of  the 
class  knew  it;  and  the  bolt,  when  it  came,  which  was  very  seldom 
indeed,  to  smite  the  wanton  disturber  of  the  peace,  was  terrific.  In 
the  class  of  1852,  it  crashed  but  once  in  the  entire  year,  and  then  it 
came  in  such  a  way  that  neither  offender  nor  observer  ever  forgot  it. 
The  member  was  sitting  near  the  head  of  the  class,  and  near  to  the 
desk,  which  Griffin  had  planned  for  the  old  recitation-room.  He 
was  gabbling  and  laughing  oblivious  of  what  was  going  on  from  the 
desk.  There  was  an  impressive  pause  throughout  the  room.  Turn- 
ing halfway  round  in  the  desk,  and  looking  the  sinner  full  in  the 
face:  "  Some  folks  talk  because  they  have  something  to  say,  AND  SOME 

BECAUSE    THEY    ARE    LEAKY!" 

It  seems  scarcely  needful  to  add,  that  there  were  some  obvious  dis- 
advantages in  the  president's  general  mode  of  carrying  on  college 
instruction  and  discipline.  (1)  The  first  was  one  which  he  recog- 
nized himself,  and  more  than  once  spoke  of  to  some  in  whom  he  had 
confidence  as  colleagues.  "  There  are  alwa}^s  in  my  class  some  six 
or  eight  or  ten  men,  about  whom  I  do  not  care  morally  whether  they 
are  at  my  recitations  or  not.  I  cannot  get  anything  out  of  them, 
and  they  do  not  get  anything  out  of  me.  Of  course,  we  must  insist 
on  formal  attendance,  but  I  don't  care  whether  they  are  in  my  room 
or  not."  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  did  not  himself  insist  on  the 
formal  attendance  of  this  residuum,  nor  had  he  any  means  of  enforc- 
ing it,  as  he  never  called  the  roll  in  his  class,  nor  had  any  monitor 
keep  a  record  there  for  him.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  also,  most  of  these 
men  were  generally  there,  because  the  recitations  were  uniformly 
pleasant,  and  it  was  altogether  the  fashion  for  the  Seniors  to  attend 
them,  and  so  be  able  to  join  in  the  social  gossip  about  "Prex."  On 
the  other  hand,  there  were  almost  always  two  or  three  other  teachers 
in  College,  and  the  writer  was  always  one  of  them,  who  took  special 
pains  in  their  respective  years  to  look  after  and  encourage  as  much 
as  possible  the  poor  scholars,  the  dullards,  who  not  infrequently 
were  sufficiently  helped  forward  by  these  teachers  to  enable  them  to 
do  good  work  in  their  Senior  year.  The  gratitude  of  such  men  to 
these  teachers  has  been  perennial  and  a  hundredfold  rewarding.  It 
has  been  well  for  the  College  for  a  half -century  past,  that  the  special 
methods  of  its  best  teacher  were  not  followed  in  detail  by  others 
justly  inferior  in  reputation,  but  perhaps  not  inferior  in  usefulness 
on  the  whole. 

(2)  A  second  disadvantage  of  the  president's  general  methods  with 
his  classes  was,  that  they  were  not  so  readily  emptied  under  these 
of  their  self-conceit  as  by  the  methods  of  some  other  good  teachers. 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE    TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       509 

To  preserve  the  self-respect  of  pupils  is  a  great  desideratum,  and 
Hopkins  possessed  that  art  almost  to  perfection;  but  the  self-conceit 
and  over-estimate  so  common  among  young  men  is  a  very  different 
matter,  and  is  an  obstacle  to  genuine  intellectual  progress,  and 
needs  to  be  well  gotten  out  of  students  in  order  to  make  room  for 
thorough  and  growing  acquirements.  The  president  attained  this 
end  with  skill  in  certain  cases,  and  not  only  saved  his  man,  but 
began  at  once  to  build  him  up;  but  his  usual  point  of  touch  with 
the  average  student  tended  rather  to  inflate  than  to  puncture.  He 
missed  his  chance  with  many  men.  All  other  teachers  miss  their 
chance  with  many  men.  The  present  criticism  relates  to  a  courteous 
and  attractive  and  comprehensive  method,  under  which  the  average 
results  were  excellent,  but  which  involved  certain  unexcusable 
defects.  During  the  central  portions  of  Hopkins's  career  as  a 
teacher,  when  he  was  justly  and  widely  popular,  it  used  often 
to  be  said  by  chance  observers  in  the  way  of  compliment,  "  Every 
graduate  bears  on  him  the  stamp  of  Mark  Hopkins."  This  was 
never  a  true  saying  in  its  full  significance  of  any  single  class  of 
graduates.  Speaking  generally  and  with  due  allowance  for  the 
unexpected  and  ever-present  exceptions,  the  president  either  did  a 
good  deal  for  the  student  and  left  on  him  a  deep  mark,  —  far  more 
visible  to  the  wearer,  however,  than  to  the  onlooker,  —  or  he  did 
very  little  for  him  and  left  on  him  no  outward  visible  mark  at  all. 
Numerically  the  former  class  was  the  larger. 

(3)  There  was  one  other  disadvantage  worth  noting  in  this  con- 
nection of  Dr.  Hopkins's  way  of  dealing  with  students,  particularly 
in  the  matter  of  offences  against  the  college  order.  He  did  not  treat 
all  students  alike  in  such  cases  by  any  manner  of  means ;  nor  did  he 
practically  allow  the  officers  of  discipline  in  the  classes  below  his 
own  to  treat  their  offenders  alike  in  the  way  of  penalties  and  dis- 
abilities. This  was  his  greatest  fault  as  a  college  officer.  It  some- 
times wrought  extensive  mischiefs  and  demoralizations.  Instances 
of  such  results  will  be  given  farther  on.  In  the  class  of  1842,  John 
B.  Gale,  who  is  still  leading  an  honored  life  in  Williamstown  in 
1896,  after  an  unusual  successful  professional  career  elsewhere,  has 
lately  made  the  following  statement  in  relation  to  himself.  While 
he  was  in  college,  the  written  or  unwritten  well-understood  college 
rule  was,  that  no  student  should  be  absent  from  his  college  room 
past  midnight ;  and,  if  he  were  known  to  be  so,  he  must  give  account 
to  his  class-officer  of  the  fact  and  cause  of  such  absence.  Professor 
Kellogg  was.  a  sort  of  night-owl,  and  used  often  to  perambulate  both 
Colleges  late  at  night  in  search  of  information.  Gale  came  to  col- 


510  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

lege  from  an  excellent  family  in  Troy,  accustomed  to  amusements 
not  then  common  in  the  best  of  families  in  New  England,  and,  though 
nearly  the  youngest  member  of  his  class,  was  a  level-headed  and 
right-principled  boy.  Moreover,  he  could  afford  to  indulge  in  a  style 
and  limit  of  expenditures  denied  to  most  of  the  college  boys  at  that 
period,  —  a  fact  that  never  failed  to  influence  the  president's  mind 
favorably  toward  such  a  boy,  so  long  as  he  taught  and  governed  in 
the  College,  although  he  cared  nothing  for  the  riches  and  honors  of 
the  world  for  himself.  In  his  Senior  year,  young  Gale  was  more 
than  once  invited  to  balls  given  in  Pittsfield,  whose  acceptance 
necessitated  of  course  an  all-night  absence,  involving  morning  pray- 
ers in  chapel.  The  president  did  not  suffer  him  to  be  called  to 
account  by  anybody  for  this.  He  trusted  the  young  man,  which 
naturally  increased  the  latter's  self-respect  and  moral  safety.  Per- 
haps no  harm  was  done  to  anybody  in  that  particular  case.  But 
was  that  a  right  principle  in  college  government?  And  would  it 
work  well  in  the  long  run,  and  in  a  college  later  to  become  larger  ? 

The  following  is  a  good  and  authentic  instance  of  Dr.  Hopkins's 
way  of  dealing  with  a  certain  class  of  college  offences.  Silas  W. 
Sanderson  was  a  member  of  the  class  of  1846.  He  and  another 
student  unknown  were  coming  back  from  Hancock  way  very  early 
one  Sunday  morning,  when  the  wheel  to  their  wagon  broke  down, 
and  they  stopped  at  the  Mills  farm  at  the  South  Part  to  get  another 
vehicle  to  reach  home  with.  One  of  the  two  students  gave  his  name 
as  Sanderson.  Mr.  Mills  very  properly  gave  the  facts  as  he  saw 
and  heard  them  to  Dr.  Hopkins.  The  latter  called  up  Sanderson, 
and  rehearsed  what  had  been  reported  to  him,  —  "  but  the  student 
may  not  have  given  his  right  name,"  he  added.  "It  was  I  —  I 
always  give  my  right  name  ! "  There  was  supposed  to  be  a  woman 
in  the  case.  Sanderson  did  not  wish  to  bring  out  his  comrade  under 
any  circumstances.  "I  will  give  you,"  said  the  president,  "an 
honorable  dismission  now,  or  we  will  have  an  investigation,  with  the 
chances  of  an  expulsion  later."  Sanderson  took  the  dismission, 
went  to  Union  College,  and  was  graduated.  He  was  from  Sunder- 
land,  Vermont.  He  afterward  went  to  California,  and  became  at 
length  Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  there.  "  He  was  the 
smartest  man  in  our  class !  "  [Keyes  Danforth.] 

Hopkins's  professional  training  as  a  doctor  stood  him  in  good  stead 
as  a  teacher  from  the  first  day  until  the  last.  He  naturally  and 
uniformly  commenced  his  teaching  .with  the  human  body,  with  all 
the  parts  of  which  he  had  become  familiar  as  a  medical  student. 
He  did  not,  however,  make  the  mistake,  which  has  been  conspicu- 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       511 

ously  made  since,  of  attempting  to  teach  an  entire  college  class  the 
Latin  names  of  all  the  muscles,  nor  even  of  all  the  bones  of  the 
body.  Analysis  must  indeed  precede  synthesis  in  all  good  teaching ; 
but  it  is  possible  and  often  actual  to  carry  this  primary  analysis  too 
far  for  the  general  purposes  of  the  study.  Inexperienced  teachers 
and  sometimes  professed  educators  forget  that  life  is  short,  and 
that  a  college  course  of  four  years  is  quite  too  short  a  time  in  which 
to  teach  young  men  the  minutice  of  any  great  subject  on  science 
whatever.  Precisely  at  this  point  of  difficulty  has  arisen  the  ten- 
dency of  the  times  to  change  by  stealth  the  colleges  into  quasi-uni- 
versities.  This  college  has  not  escaped  the  attempt  thus  to  mongrelize 
institutions  of  a  radically  diverse  kind.  .Hopkins  took  the  medium 
and  wise  course  of  presenting  to  his  classes  the  organs  and  functions 
one  by  one  of  the  subordinate  systems  of  which  the  body  is  made  up, 
such  as  the  Osseous  system,  the  Muscular  system,  the  Respiratory 
system,  the  Circulatory  system,  and  so  on,  to  complete  the  entire 
round ;  and  then  he  brought  before  his  class  all  these  systems  united 
both  anatomically  and  physiologically  in  the  entire  body,  in  their 
interactions  and  mutual  dependencies,  in  their  resemblances  and  dif- 
ferences. In  all  this  he  showed  himself  to  his  students  as  masterful, 
as  those  matters  were  understood  and  taught  at  that  time. 

He  then  passed  in  his  exposition  from  the  body  to  the  mind,  a 
subject  in  itself  for  many  reasons  far  more  difficult  to  expound  in 
the  classroom.  The  illustrative  specimens  and  mechanisms  and 
mannikin  had  now  to  be  left  wholly  behind.  It  was,  relatively, 
both  to  teacher  and  pupils,  a  new  as  well  as  difficult  field.  He  still 
exhibited  himself  to  them  as  a  master,  but  of  necessity  in  a  much 
less  masterful  way.  Two  of  the  ablest  and  most  appreciative  of  all 
his  pupils,  Professors  Bascom  and  Spring,  have  given  their  inde- 
pendent and  yet  conjoint  testimony,  each  gathering  from  widely 
differing  data  and  approaching  the  point  by  diverse  routes,  that 
there  was  little  of  his  own  either  in  Dr.  Hopkins's  intellectual  or 
moral  philosophy,  so  far  as  substance  of  doctrine  or  collocation  of 
material  are  concerned.  Bascom  says,1  "President  Mark  Hopkins, 
so  long  a  distinguished  teacher  of  mental  science,  entertained  the 
Scottish  philosophy  in  a  modified  form.  He  did  not  accept  the 
doctrine  of  a  direct  knowledge  of  the  external  word  in  perception, 
but  thought  that  we  gain,  in  one  act,  a  recognition  of  two  opposing 
forces,  mental  and  physical,  in  connection  with  muscular  activity, 
—  an  inroad  of  force  from  without,  and  our  resistance  to  it.  The 
question  is  not  much  altered  by  this  transfer  of  the  point  of  deter- 
1  An  Historical  Interpretation  of  Philosophy,  pp.  318-320. 


512  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

urination.  We  are  still  called  on  to  know  the  unplienomenal  term 
which  we  call  '  force  '  directly,  to  separate  between  two  conflicting 
' forces,'  the  one  arising  within  the  field  of  spiritual  being,  and  the 
other  without  it.  We  shall  not  make  much  progress  in  philosophy 
till  we  learn  to  distinguish  between  the  strength  of  a  crowbar  and 
the  strength  of  a  desire,  the  push  of  a  purpose  and  the  push  of  an 
elephant,  the  grip  of  conscience  and  the  grip  of  a  right  hand,  the 
sensations  which  accompany  muscular  effort  and  the  energy  produced 
by  it,  the  force  due  to  exertion  and  the  mental  states  which  accom- 
pany it ;  and  also  that  in  all  these  cases  the  '  force  '  is  an  inference 
from  this  experience  and  not  a  part  of  it.  Dr.  Hopkins,  having  thus 
accepted  a  direct  knowledge  of  ' force'  as  force,  finds  no  occasion 
of  causation  as  a  primitive  idea.  The  mind  already  drops,  in  mus- 
cular experience,  plumb  to  the  bottom  of  things." 

Professor  Spring,  in  an  excellent  essay  on  "Mark  Hopkins, 
Teacher,"  which  may  be  found  in  volume  second  of  the  Berkshire 
Book,  pages  124-150,  makes  a  truthful  and  delightful  summary  of 
the  peculiarities  of  the  Hopkinsian  teaching,  in  which  appear  the 
following  pregnant  sentences :  — 

Dr.  Hopkins  did  not  establish  a  school  of  philosophy.  In  the  nature  of  the 
case  that  was  impossible.  The  undogmatic  temper  of  his  instruction,  the  absence 
of  partisan  bias,  the  constant  appeal  which  he  made  to  the  individual  to  be  true 
to  himself,  precluded  such  an  issue  to  his  career.  To  train  men  into  habits  of 
broad  and  independent  thinking ;  to  develop  the  resources  of  personality,  that 
loftiest  summit  toward  which  we  move  in  our  attainment,  was  his  mission,  and 
it  did  not  call  for  the  erection  of  a  party.  A  grander  and  more  fitting  memorial 
of  his  work  remains,  —  the  memorial  that  is  found  in  the  enlarged  and  vitalized 
lives  of  his  pupils. 

Dr.  Hopkins's  methods  remained  substantially  unchanged  during  his  long 
career  as  a  teacher.  I  think,  however,  that  he  himself  supposed  they  had  under- 
gone considerable  modification.  Indeed,  he  said  something  to  that  effect  on  the 
only  occasion  when  I  remember  to  have  heard  him  refer  to  them.  I  spoke  of  his 
class-room  work  in  1862-63,  as  I  recalled  it.  "Things  are  different  now,"  — it 
was  in  the  winter  of  1885-86, —  he  replied.  "  I  have  changed  my  ways  of  teach- 
ing since  you  were  here."  The  innovation  which  he  had  in  mind  was  the  use 
of  the  blackboard.  He  employed  it  successfully  in  his  lectures  at  the  Lowell 
Institute  to  illustrate  points  in  his  so-called  system  of  philosophy,  and  this  expe- 
rience led  him  to  have  analyses  and  summaries  of  the  lessons  written  upon  it  for 
the  use  of  the  pupils.  But  I  am  confident  that  he  overrated  the  importance  of 
his  innovation,— that  in  reality  it  brought  with  it  very  slight  modification  of 
method. 

With  these  discriminating  observations  of  Professor  Spring,  whose 
privileges  as  an  interested  and  observant  pupil  of  the  president  were 
ten  or  eleven  years  later  than  his  own  in  the  same  relation,  the 


TOWN    AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       513 

present  writer  is  wholly  at  one.  It  was  natural,  and  perhaps  in- 
evitable, from  his  early  choice  of  a  profession  and  his  thorough 
training  as  a  physician,  that  Dr.  Hopkins,  as  a  later  metaphysician, 
should  have  laid  great  stress  upon  sensations,  and  their  obvious  rela- 
tions to  the  external  world.  Moreover,  whatever  previous  training 
he  had  gained  in  the  higher  realm  of  mental  science,  had  come  from 
the  Scottish  writers ;  and  these  had  been  compelled,  in  order  to  avert 
the  consequences  of  the  widespread  acceptance  of  Hume's  sceptical 
and  even  nihilistic  philosophy,  to  fall  back  upon  what  they  called 
"common  sense,"  that  is,  the  general  convictions  of  mankind.  In 
this  they  did  wisely.  Indeed,  there  was  nothing  else  to  be  done. 
All  philosophy  must  have  a  starting-point  for  its  explanations  in 
that  which  is  to  be  explained,  namely,  the  common  and  fundamen- 
tal beliefs  of  mankind,  such  as  the  difference  between  right  and 
wrong,  the  difference  between  self  and  non-self,  the  difference 
between  cause  and  effect.  Having  thus  gained  a  valid  starting- 
point  for  philosophical  inquiry,  the  Scotch  writers  make  a  vast  leap 
in  the  dark,  and  assert  that  the  mind  itself  has  a  direct  perception 
of  the  external  world,  thus  blindly  linking  the  Ego  and  the  non-Ego 
through  an  immediate  activity  of  the  former.  Thomas  Reid,  Dugald 
Stewart,  Thomas  Brown,  and  Sir  William  Hamilton,  all  Scotch,  and 
all  holding  the  same  fundamentals,  were  the  writers  with  whom 
from  first  to  last  Mark  Hopkins  was  most  familiar.  He  merely 
modified  their  common  contention  by  the  hypothesis,  that,  in  mus- 
cular action,  we  gain  a  recognition  of  two  opposing  forces:  one 
mental  and  the  other  physical,  the  one  energy  proceeding  from  our- 
selves and  the  other  from  without  ourselves.  He  did  not,  there- 
fore, escape,  nor  even  try  to  escape,  the  limitations  of  the  Scottish 
philosophy.  Apparently  he  did  not  employ  his  mind  upon  the  radi- 
cal distinctions  at  issue  between  the  so-called  intuitional  and 
empirical  schools  of  thought. 

Within  the  former  of  these  schools  the  terms  and  distinctions, 
sense  and  understanding  and  reason,  are  well-established  landmarks 
within  what  is  strictly  mental  science.  As  has  been  already  said, 
Dr.  Hopkins  emphasized  sensations,  developed  in  his  own  way  the 
action  of  the  mind  in  analysis  and  generalization,  but  had  very 
little  room  in  his  system  for  the  reason,  or  intuition.  He  not  only 
did  not  employ  these  terms,  nor  adopt  any  of  his  own  correspond- 
ing with  them,  but  he  scarcely  recognized  the  distinctions  under- 
lying them.  He  certainly  did  not  steadily  build  into  his  system 
anything  analogous  with  these  primary  mental  differences. 

When  it  came  to  ethics,  upon  which  he  bestowed  a  great  deal  of 

2L 


514  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

labor  and  exposition,  — one  of  the  most  important  of  his  books  being- 
entitled  "The  Law  of  Love  and  Love  as  a  Law,"  —  Dr.  Hopkins 
does  not  seem  to  be  able  to  snap  the  chain  that  binds  him  in  a  subtle 
bondage  to  Paley,  any  more  than  he  was  able  to  emancipate  himself 
from  the  radical  postulate  of  Reid.  Perhaps  it  was  at  bottom  the 
same  bond  in  both  cases.  Hopkins  was  fond  of  turning  points  on 
Paley  in  the  classroom;  but  it  was  rather  the  incidental  points  of 
the  great  churchman,  than  his  fundamental  point,  namely,  that  the 
broad  pleasures  of  obedience  and  the  pains  and  penalties  of  disobe- 
dience are  the  ultimate  ground  of  moral  obligation.  He  used  Paley's 
work  as  the  text-book  for  some  years,  although  he  early  projected  a 
manual  of  his  own,  which  was  not  realized  until  1862,  in  the  mean- 
time using  for  a  good  while  Wayland's  "Elements  of  Moral  Sci- 
ence." His  brightest  pupils  always  enjoyed  the  keen  critical  thrusts 
by  which  hei  often  brought  the  blood  out  of  Paley's  long-lived  cor- 
pus; and,  in  talking  with  one  of  these  about  his  own  project  of  a 
text-book,  the  pupil  asked  him  if  he  thought  it  would  be  any  better 
for  the  classes  than  to  keep  "  hacking  "  Paley.  He  replied  that  he 
presumed  it  might  not. 

Dr.  Hopkins  found  in  "  Blessedness "  the  ultimate  ground  of 
human  duty.  This  is  a  different  word  from  "Pleasure,"  which  is 
Paley's  word;  but,  as  used  in  ethical  inquiry,  can  these  two  words 
denote  different  things?  If  so,  where  does  "pleasure"  end,  and 
"blessedness "  begin?  What  is  the  difference  between  them?  And 
what  organ  or  power  of  the  mind  is  it,  that  discriminates  between 
the  two,  and  measures  the  distance  between  them?  The  hatchet 
that  was  sharp  enough  to  hack  off  some  of  the  limbs  of  Paley's  tree, 
to  the  delight  of  the  spectators,  does  not  seem  to  have  been  broad 
and  keen  enough  to  fell  the  main  trunk  of  it.  Hopkins  found  in 
the  Beatitudes  of  our  Lord,  which  are  the  deepest  and  most  perva- 
sive and  most  compacted  portion  of  His  teachings,  a  term  which 
appeared  to  him  able  to  transplant  ethical  discussion  upon  higher 
and  firmer  ground.  Mere  words  were  more  to  him  than  they  ever 
can  be  to  one  who  knows  thoroughly  their  earthly  origin,  their 
changeableness  in  meaning,  and  their  inevitable  decay.  Words  as 
such  owe  their  significance  to  what  men  put  into  them  for  the  time 
being,  and  not  to  what  is  in  them  for  all  time.  They  are  like  ships, 
which  may  be  freighted  with  all  precious  substance,  but  which  also 
are  ever  liable  to  wasting  winds  and  wrecking  rocks.  They  are 
vehicles.  They  are  earthen  vessels.  They  may  indeed  be  so  inter- 
laced with  each  other,  so  made  by  comparative  prescience  to  support 
and  strengthen  one  another,  so  anchored  as  a  whole  in  the  great  deeps 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       515 

of  human  consciousness,  as  truly  they  were  in  our  Lord's  Sermon 
on  the  Mount,  that  they  come  down  through  the  ages  over  all  the 
interminable  hazards  of  the  way,  a  rich  heritage  to  every  generation, 
though  doubtless  blurred  and  marred  more  or  less  and  all  the  time. 
Not  so  with  single  words.  "Blessed  are  the  meek."  What  is  it 
to  be  blessed?  More  to  the  present  purpose,  whence  comes  the  sense 
of  blessedness?  What  is  its  ground?  Is  it  tentative  experience  or 
instant  insight?  Here  divide  the  empirical  and  the  institutional 
schools  in  philosophy.  And  between  them  is  a  great  gulf  fixed. 

The  present  writer  can  never  forget  the  first  hour  spent  by  his 
class  of  1852,  at  the  beginning  of  Senior  year,  with  Dr.  Hopkins  on 
the  "Assembly's  Catechism."  Its  significance  in  the  present  con- 
nection is  the  proof  it  furnishes  that  Hopkins  was  through  and 
through  a  disciple  of  Paley,  so  far  as  essentials  go.  He  took  up 
with  us,  as  with  all  his  classes  in  succession,  the  first  question  of  the 
catechism,  —  "  What  is  the  chief  end  of  man?  "  He  spent  the  entire 
hour  on  an  exposition  of  the  answer,  "  To  glorify  God  and  enjoy 
Him  forever."  The  class  were  unanimously  carried  away  with  the 
force  and  fervor  of  his  main  contention,  namely,  that  the  two  ap- 
parent parts  of  this  answer  are  in  reality  but  one.  To  glorify  God 
is  to  enjoy  Him  forever,  and,  transversely,  to  enjoy  Him  forever  is 
the  only  way  to  glorify  Him.  The  moral  basis  of  the  universe  is 
enjoyment,  or  blessedness.  This  is  at  once  ground  and  end  of  obe- 
dience. Joy  begun  is  duty  done.  The  two  are  interchangeable 
and  identical.  Joy  is  not  so  much  the  issue  of  the  duty  done  as  it 
is  the  motive  to  it  and  the  realization  of  it.  It  is  not  probable  that 
a  single  member  of  that  class  was  able  to  follow  on  that  occasion  the 
steps  of  the  reasoning  (if  such  there  were)  by  which  the  president 
seemed  overwhelmingly  to  establish  his  main  propositions;  but 
every  member  of  it  was  electrified  by  a  brand-new  experience,  —  by 
a  gorgeous  display  of  rhetorical  and  moral  power;  and  a  class-meet- 
ing held  shortly  after  unanimously  invited  the  doctor  not  to  confine 
himself  strictly  to  an  hour  in  the  exercise  on  the  catechism  to  fol- 
low, but  to  take,  if  he  would,  an  hour  and  a  half  each  time.  No 
hours  like  that  followed  in  that  course,  though  they  were  all  inter- 
esting and  profitable;  and  looking  back  to  that  over  an  interval  of 
almost  fifty  years,  it  seems  to  one  of  those  present,  as.  if  at  least  a 
partial  explanation  could  be  found  there  of  the  following  sentiment 
uttered  by  Dr.  Hopkins  long  afterward:  "but  I  too  am  a  mystic." 

During  the  first  five  years  of  this  man's  presidency,  that  is,  from 
1836  to  1841,  things'  slowly  settled  down  in  college  toward  fairly 
good  behavior  on  the  part  of  the  students,  and  more  than  fairly  good 


516  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

teaching  on  the  part  of  the  instructors  generally.  Professor  Hop- 
kins with  his  quiet  but  tentative  enthusiasm  was  getting  hold  of  his 
department  with  what  proved  to  be  a  steady  grip.  In  1834  he  had 
gone  to  Europe,  chiefly  at  his  own  expense,  to  procure  for  the  Col- 
lege some  philosophical  and  chemical  apparatus.  He  was  always 
fond  of  some  mystery  and  surprises  in  all  that  he  publicly  said  and 
did.  In  1835,  without  telling  them  exactly  what  he  was  purposing 
to  do,  he  asked  a  party  of  students  to  go  with  him  to  the  quartz ite 
ledges  on  East  Mountain.  With  crowbars  and  other  suitable  imple- 
ments, they  were  soon  prying  and  tumbling  down  and  piling  up  for 
transportation  blocks  of  stone,  which,  he  told  them,  were  to  be  used 
in  some  novel  building  on  college  ground,  —  exactly  what,  they 
would  ascertain  in  the  future.  There  were  stout  men  among  those 
students,  but  he  was  by  much  the  strongest  man  in  the  party,  the 
leader,  and  acting  in  the  whole  business  on  his  own  responsibility. 
Thus  originated  the  Hopkins  Astronomical  Observatory  of  1835. 
It  was  gradually  supplied  with  a  good  telescope  and  other  needful 
apparatus  for  original  work.  It  has  often  been  said  by  friends  of 
the  College,  in  good  faith,  that  this  was  the  first  building  erected  in 
connection  with  any  college  in  the  United  States  exclusively  used 
for  astronomical  purposes.  This  is  not  literally  and  strictly  true. 
The  University  of  North  Carolina  had  such  a  building,  small  indeed 
and  poor,  about  ten  years  prior  to  the  erection  of  this,  our  observa- 
tory, which  still  proudly  crowns  the  highest  ground  in  the  East  Col- 
lege yard.  This  undoubted  statement  of  priority  was  verbally  made 
to  the  writer  by  his  friend,  the  present  president  of  that  honored 
university. 

Associated  in  the  interval  of  time  just  indicated  with  these  two 
foremost  men  of  the  College,  were  Professors  Kellogg  and  Emmons 
and  Lasell,  and  Tutors  Griffin  and  Tatlock  and  Crawford  and  White 
and  Coffin.  Of  these  five  tutors  two  became  afterward  much 
respected  professors  here,  and  the  other  three  were  each  long  and 
intimately  associated  with  the  town  and  college  in  one  way  or 
another.  Kellogg,  a  graduate  of  Yale,  was  appointed  Professor  of 
Languages  in  1815,  and  continued,  with  slight  intermissions,  to 
perform  the  duties  till  1844.  He  remained  a  bachelor  for  eleven 
years,  and  lived  in  the  northeast  corner  room  of  West  College,  on 
the  second  floor,  whence  he  made  peregrinations  daily  to  all  the 
rooms  in  that  building,  to  see  if  the  students  were  in  their  rooms 
and  attending  to  their  studies.  He  was  nicknamed  by  the  students 
"P-K";  which,  they  explained,  according  to  the  exigencies  of  the 
inquiry,  either  as  short  for  Professor  Kellogg,  or  as  a  more  obvious 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL  THE  SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       517 

contraction  for  Peek.  He  was  small  in  person,  and  the  calibre  of 
his  mind  was  conformable  thereto.  He  was  a  schoolmaster  rather 
than  a  teacher.  He  gave  his  attention  almost  exclusively  to  details. 
There  was  little  or  nothing  about  him  that  was  inspiriting  or  broad- 
ening to  the  students.  Yet  he  had  some  excellent  qualities  as  a 
man,  and  as  a  college  officer  also;  he  effected  some  good  and  perma- 
nent results  both  in  the  town  and  the  College,  such  as,  for  example, 
originating  the  idea  of  the  college  garden,  the  ground  for  which  he 
purchased  and  gave  to  the  College ;  and  all  these  traits  and  acts  are 
kindly  and  candidly  brought  out  by  President  Hopkins  in  a  sermon 
preached  in  his  memory  in  the  village  church,  Oct.  11,  1846.  We 
quote  a  single  paragraph :  — 

He  was  one  of  those  men  who  have  strongly  marked  peculiarities,  which  yet 
do  not  go  to  such  a  length  as  to  become  weaknesses.  On  the  other  hand,  they 
were  such  only  as  are  required  by  the  variety,  the  harmony,  and  even  by  the 
wants  of  human  society.  While,  therefore,  we  should  not  wish  to  have  every 
one  to  be,  in  the  points  referred  to,  such  a  man,  we  should  yet  not  have  wished  to 
have  him  different.  Among  those  I  will  only  mention  here  that  peculiarity  of 
mind  which  led  him  to  notice  all  the  particulars  of  every  subject  in  which  he 
was  interested,  and  to  go  into  all  its  details.  No  one  can  have  been  long 
acquainted  with  Professor  Kellogg  without  noticing  this  trait.  It  showed  itself 
in  all  his  inquiries,  in  the  kind  of  knowledge  which  he  had  on  many  subjects,  in 
the  objections  he  would  start  to  any  plan  proposed,  and  in  the  thoroughness  and 
completeness  with  which  he  would  carry  out  those  things  which  he  undertook. 
A  striking  illustration  of  this,  showing  at  the  same  time  his  continued  interest 
in  the  college,  he  gave  in  a  plan  which  he  drew  up  not  long  before  his  death  for 
the  improvement  of  extempore  speaking  among  the  students,  by  the  institution, 
if  the  means  could  be  procured,  of  prizes  for  that  purpose.  The  plan  was  judi- 
cious, and  if  it  could  be  carried  into  effect,  would  do  much  good  ;  but  it  cov- 
ered two  or  three  sheets  of  paper,  and  every  possible  emergency  and  objection 
were  considered  and  provided  for.  This  habit  of  mind  would  naturally  beget 
caution,  and  accordingly,  he  well  understood,  and  in  its  spirit  commended  to 
others,  the  maxim  which  would  teach  us  to  "make  haste  slowly."  This  par- 
ticularity  and  caution  did  not,  however,  render  him  deficient  in  enterprise.  He 
often  originated  new  plans,  which  he  was  just  as  ready  to  scrutinize,  as  he  was 
to  check  the  ardor  of  others  in  those  proposed  by  them. 

Professor  Emmons,  as  he  was  always  called  upon  this  ground, 
although  he  never  held  a  strict  professorship  here,  a  graduate  of 
the  College  in  1818,  and  coming,  while  in  college,  under  the  stimu- 
lating impulses  of  Chester  Dewey  and  Amos  Eaton  in  natural  his- 
tory, was  appointed  Lecturer  in  Chemistry  in  1828.  At  that  time 
he  was  practising  medicine  in  Williamstown,  and  was  appointed  one 
of  the  deacons  of  the  church  in  that  year.  Ten  years  later  he  was 
appointed  Professor  of  Chemistry  in  the  Albany  Medical  College, 


518  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

and  took  up  his  residence  in  that  city,  but  he  retained  his  connec- 
tion with  the  College,  coming  here  annually,  in  the  summer,  to 
deliver  courses  on  geology  and  mineralogy  for  many  years.  The 
critical  turn  in  his  life  happened  in  1836,  when  Governor  Marcy  of 
New  York  appointed  him  one  of  the  four  surveyors  in  the  novel  and 
famous  geological  survey  of  that  State.  Amos  Eaton,  then  and  for 
long  the  head  of  the  Rensselaer  School  at  Troy,  had  been  most  influ- 
ential with  the  Legislature  and  the  governor  in  the  creation  of  this 
survey,  and  continued  to  wield  much  influence  over  its  execution, 
partly  because  he  had  already  reconnoitred,  in  his  geological  sur- 
vey of  the  country  adjoining  the  Erie  Canal,  the  central  portions  of 
the  great  State.  To  Emmons  was  assigned  the  second  or  northern 
district,  including  the  Taconic  and  Adirondack  region.  He  first 
made  the  public  acquainted  with  the  unexplored  Adirondack  coun- 
try, and  gave  their  names  to  the  principal  mountains  there.  He  had 
for  his  geological  assistant  during  his  first  year  of  service  James 
Hall. 

A  partial  readjustment  of  the  survey  and  its  leaders  for  the  next 
year,  1837,  made  at  the  instance  and  under  the  shaping  hand  of 
Amos  Eaton,  added  Jefferson  County  to  Emmons's  second  district, 
and  promoted  James  Hall  to  be  chief  geologist  of  the  fourth  or 
western  district.  Hall  says,  in  the  preface  of  his  final  report  upon 
this  district,  "  Having  been  appointed  by  the  late  governor,  the  Hon. 
William  L.  Marcy,  to  investigate  the  geology  of  the  fourth  district, 
my  duties  in  that  region  commenced  in  the  spring  of  1837."  But 
what  of  duties  in  the  Adirondack  region  in  1836?  Emmons's  reports 
are  searched  in  vain  for  any  reference  whatever  to  Hall  in  that 
primal  year  of  his  service,  which  must  have  given  to  somebody  — 
probably  to  Eaton  —  evidences  of  such  geological  ability  as  trans- 
ferred him  the  very  next  year  to  an  independent  position  in  the  sur- 
vey equal  to  that  of  Emmons  himself  and  such  as  kept  him  (without 
once  severing  his  connection  with  Albany)  for  sixty  years  of  dis- 
tinguished service  in  geology  and  paleontology,  1836-96. 

This  brings  to  notice  a  marked  fault  in  Emmons's  otherwise  stain- 
less career  as  a  distinguished  scientist.  He  did  not  always  give 
just  credit  to  others  in  publishing  the  results  of  joint  labors  and 
discoveries.  On  the  other  hand,  in  botany,  for  example,  he  called, 
and  allowed  others  to  call,  by  his  own  name,  plants  that  had  been 
previously  found  and  described  by  others.  H.  H.  Ballard,  Wil- 
liams College  1874,  in  his  paper  on  Amos  Eaton,  in  the  second 
volume  of  the  Berkshire  Book,  gives  flagrant  instances  of  this. 
Undoubtedly  this  propensity  prejudiced  many  of  his  scientific  con- 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE    TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       519 

temporaries  against  his  other  claims  to  originality,  and  led  them  to 
deny  or  belittle  what  was  unquestionably  his  own,  namely,  what  he 
called  the  "  Taconic  System  "  in  geology.  Precisely  when  or  where 
he  first  perceived  the  proofs  of  a  group  of  rocks  intermediate  between 
the  Potsdam  Sandstone,  which  is  the  lowest  of  the  sedimentary 
formations  of  New  York,  and  the  primitive  rocks  of  central  and 
western  Vermont,  constituting  a  distinct  system  by  themselves,  not 
recognized  in  the  ordinary  classification  as  it  was  then,  we  do  not 
know.  Observations  made  in  one  place  after  another  in  his  reor- 
ganized second  district  of  New  York,  at  length  brought  him  to  a 
firm  conviction  that  such  a  stratum  existed,  and  would  have  to  be 
recognized  by  the  geologists  sooner  or  later.  Meantime,  he  main- 
tained his  discovery  single-handed  amid  much  ridicule  and  odium, 
and  even  ostracism  on  the  part  of  his  fellow-geologists.  It  was  in 
his  formal  Eeport  of  1838,  that  he  first  publicly  announced  his 
discovery,  and  named  it  the  "Taconic  System." 

Professor  Albert  Hopkins  had  spent  his  summer  vacation  of  1836 
with  Emmons  and  Hall  in  northern  New  York,  amid  their  first  ex- 
plorations in  that  region.  It  is  not  likely  that  Emmons  had  then 
hit  on  any  evidence  of  his  Taconic  System;  but  it  is  a  curious  fact, 
that  Hopkins  was  present  under  peculiar  circumstances  when  Em- 
mons thought  he  found  a  confirmation  strong  as  Holy  Writ  of  what 
his  mind  had  already  concluded  upon  as  a  stubborn  fact  in  science. 
In  the  summer  vacation  of  1841,  Hopkins  started  from  Williams- 
town  on  a  journey  to  Maine,  to  be  married  to  Louisa  Payson,  the 
daughter  of  a  then  celebrated  pastor  in  Portland.  Portland  is  in 
the  east  country ;  and  it  is  an  illustration  of  the  obstacles  to  travel 
in  that  direction  then  afforded  by  the  Hoosac  Mountain,  under  which 
the  Hoosac  Tunnel  now  passes,  that  Hopkins  and  his  party  started 
directly  west,  in  order  to  begin  their  eastern  journey  from  Albany. 
The  party  to  Albany  was  made  up  of  his  brother,  who  was  to  per- 
form the  ceremony  in  Portland,  and  of  Professor  Emmons  and 
Joseph  White,  then  lately  a  tutor  in  the  College,  the  two  latter 
casually  occupying  the  stage  over  the  Taconics  with  the  two  broth- 
ers. At  a  little  pause  in  the  journey,  perhaps  to  rest  or  bait  the 
horses,  Emmons  dashed  off  into  a  gorge  or  cave  not  far  from  the 
road,  when  shortly  the  others  heard  him  exclaim  with  enthusiasm, 
"Here  it  is!  Pve  found  it!  Here  is  my  Taconic  System!" 

From  1846  to  1854,  Emmons  worked  steadily  and  officially  on  the 
geology  and  the  agriculture  of  New  York,  issuing  in  the  interval 
four  volumes  of  reports,  containing  elaborate  descriptions  and  fig- 
ures, and  illustrated  by  colored  plates  and  otherwise.  In  the  last- 


520  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

mentioned  year,  he  published  the  first  part  of  a  treatise  on  Ameri- 
can geology,  which  was  followed  by  a  brief  text-book  on  the  same 
subject.  Before  these  had  appeared,  Dr.  Emmons  had  been  ap- 
pointed by  the  governor  of  North  Carolina  to  the  charge  of  a  geo- 
logical survey  of  that  State.  To  this  he  devoted  the  last  nine  years 
of  his  life,  publishing  every  two  years  elaborate  reports  of  his 
labors,  which  were  interrupted  by  the  breaking  out  of  the  Civil 
War.  Anxieties  consequent  upon  the  war  and  upon  separation 
from  his  Northern  friends  and  his  family  probably  hastened  his 
death,  which  fell  at  Brunswick,  North  Carolina,  in  October,  1863. 
He  was  born  at  Middlefield,  Massachusetts,  in  May,  1799.  He  was 
a  plain  and  unpretending  man,  but  a  keen  observer  of  nature  and 
an  indefatigable  worker.  He  was  not  a  good  teacher  in  the  class- 
room, nor  had  he  power  to  gain  and  hold  the  attention  of  students 
anywhere,  who  were  not  specially  interested  in  the  subjects  he  was 
wont  to  teach.  He  appeared  the  best  in  the  field  or  on  the  moun- 
tain, surrounded  by  a  small  group  of  interested  students,  unfolding 
to  them  in  his  quiet  way  the  facts  of  botany  or  mineralogy  or 
geology.  This  mode  of  field-teaching  he  copied  from  his  own  more 
original  and  grip-holding  teacher,  Amos  Eaton.  In  the  summer  of 
1851,  in  place  of  a  lecture  in  the  classroom,  he  invited  the  Junior 
class  here  to  accompany  him  to  the  East  Mountain,  in  order  that  he 
might  explain  to  them  the  quartzite  rock  that  appears  to  good  ad- 
vantage upon  its  sides  and  summit.  The  name  "  Mount  Emmons  " 
has  since  been  applied  to  this  summit  by  one  of  his  pupils,  and  has 
been  accepted  as  appropriate  by  many  more.1  The  invited  class 
(which  was  the  writer's)  descended  Consumption  Hill  with  him  in 
force,  but  one-third  or  more  had  ravelled  out  before  they  reached 
what  is  now  called  Cole  Avenue,  and  half  of  the  rest  were  gone 
before  was  reached  the  bridge  over  the  Hoosac,  and  how  many  (if 
any)  reached  the  summit  with  their  leader  the  writer  dares  not  say, 
for  he  was  not  there  to  see ! 

In  his  younger  days  here  as  a  physician  and  a  college  teacher, 
and  before  he  got  entangled  in  the  great  controversy  of  his  life, 
Emmons  was  popular  both  in  the  town  and  the  College.  An  inci- 
dent illustrating  this,  and  also  illustrating  the  high  pressure  of  local 
politics  in  those  times,  is  well  authenticated.  The  town  was  pretty 
steadily  Democratic  during  the  first  third  of  the  century,  while  the 
Noble  and  Dewey  families  and  the  college  officials  generally  were 
of  the  party  of  the  other  part.  Sharp  practice  was  indulged  in  on 
both  sides.  Keyes  Dan  forth,  the  Democrat  leader,  a  natural  organ- 
1  See  Origins  in  Williamstown,  p.  11. 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       521 

izer  of  common  men,  and  always  a  shrewd  counsellor  in  times  of 
stress,  had  usually  a  ready  resource  for  voters  in  the  then  large 
colored  population  in  the  White  Oaks.  It  was  a  disputed  question 
whether  college  students  had  the  local  franchise.  The  Whigs  had 
planned  to  carry  the  election  by  covertly  putting  on  the  check-list 
the  names  of  thirty  or  forty  students,  supposing  of  course  that  they 
would  vote  for  their  candidate  for  the  Legislature.  So  they  naturally 
would.  But  Danforth,  getting  wind  of  what  was  going  on,  sounded 
one  or  two  of  the  newly  enfranchised,  "Will  you  fellows  go  for 
Dr.  Emmons,  if  our  party  will  nominate  him?"  "Every  man 
of  them  will!"  That  is  the  way  Dr.  Emmons  came  to  be  in  the 
Massachusetts  House  of  Eepresentatives  in  the  winter  of  1832- 
1833.  In  those  days  Williamstown  had  two  representatives  in. 
the  General  Court  each  year,  one  of  them  usually  chosen  from 
the  South  Part. 

Ebenezer  Emmons  has  gained  a  lasting  name  and  fame  in  geo- 
logic science,  in  which  he  was  one  of  the  pioneers,  independently 
of  the  question  whether  or  no  the  Taconic  System  be  ultimately 
accepted  as  such  by  the  geologists.  This  is  a  question  of  construc- 
tion and  classification,  and  not  at  all  of  a  correct  observation  and 
description  of  facts.  The  geologic  facts  as  he  descried  and  described 
them  are  admitted  by  all  observers.  In  the  sixty  years  during 
which  the  controversy  has  raged,  and  it  has  not  even  yet  been  defin- 
itively settled,  there  have  been  stout  defenders  both  in  this  country 
and  in  Europe  of  Emmons 's  contention  that  these  rocks,  admitted  on 
all  hands  to  be  extremely  difficult  of  classification,  were  really  a 
layer  by  themselves  originally,  although  now  curved  and  twisted 
and  mingled  with  the  limestone  and  the  quartzite;  while  the  later 
opinion,  particularly  that  of  the  United  States  Geological  Survey, 
seems  destined  to  prevail,  namely,  that  these  rocks,  estimated  to  be 
over  eighteen  thousand  feet  in  thickness,  are  not  strictly  a  "sys- 
tem "  by  themselves,  and  consequently,  that  the  distinctive  term 
"Taconic"  must  be  dropped.  Professor  Walcott  of  the  Smith- 
sonian Institute,  acting  under  the  direction  of  the  United  States 
Geological  Survey,  spent  the  two  seasons  of  1886  and  1887  in  the 
special  exploration  and  study  of  these  rocks ;  and  while  he  concedes 
that  there  is  no  proper  Taconic  system,  he  yet  pays  the  following 
generous  tribute  to  Emmons.  "There  is  no  doubt  that  Dr.  Em- 
mons was  correct  in  classifying  the  upper  Taconic  as  pre-Potsdam. 
He  deserves  great  credit  for  the  work  he  did.  Struggling  under 
adverse  circumstances,  he  accomplished  a  work  in  one  of  the  most 
complicated  regions  of  American  geology,  the  central  idea  of  which, 


522  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

—  that  a  great  series  of  Paleozoic  strata  of  pre-Potsdam  age  existed 
east  of  the  Hudson  River,  — we  now  know  was  correct." 

Aside  from  all  purely  scientific  questions,  it  is  a  matter  of  inter- 
est to  the  people  and  the  students  of  Williamstown,  that  one  of  their 
citizens  and  teachers  found  the  materials  of  a  most  interesting  dis- 
covery and  of  world-wide  controversy  lying  at  their  very  doors. 
Emmons  at  first,  in  1838,  located  his  Taconic  System  as  designating 
the  low  mountain  range  running  parallel  with  the  main  range  of  the 
Green  Mountains,  but  a  few  miles  to  the  west,  along  the  boundary 
line  between  Massachusetts  and  New  York.  In  1842,  in  his  regular 
"  Report  on  the  Second  District  of  New  York, "  and  later  in  his  large 
quarto  pamphlet  repeatedly  reissued,  entitled  "The  Taconic  Sys- 
tem," he  extended  its  area  so  as  to  include  a  breadth  of  territory 
stretching  through  the  whole  length  of  Vermont  and  into  Canada  as 
far  north  as  Quebec.  He  claimed  that  the  rocks  of  this  region 
differed  in  character  from  the  mountains  on  either  side  of  them  suf- 
ficiently to  be  distinguishable,  and  to  form  a  separate  and  distinct 
system  older  than  the  Potsdam,  but  younger  than  the  primitive 
rocks.  It  is  only  fair  to  state  that  his  associates  in  the  New  York 
survey,  Hall  and  Mather,  differed  with  him  from  the  first  in  this 
construction. 

Dr.  Emmons  added  much  to  his  already  large  reputation  by  his 
official  labors  and  discoveries  in  the  state  of  North  Carolina.  In 
paleontology,  in  particular,  his  studies  there  were  prolific.  He  dis- 
covered and  named  two  brand  new  species  of  fossils,  the  Dromathe- 
rium  sylvestre  and  the  Rutioden  carolinensis.  It  may  be  a  matter  of 
interest  to  some  persons  to  note  that  E.  V.  B.  Conklin,  Williams 
College  1835,  married  the  eldest  daughter  of  Professor  Emmons, 
Amanda,  and  both  spent  their  lives  in  Williamstown  on  the  estate 
now  known  as  Farm  B,  belonging  to  John  B.  Gale,  Williams 
College  1842. 

Matters  were  progressing  well  in  a  small  way  for  a  small  college 
under  the  tentative  but  growing  leadership  of  Mark  Hopkins,  and 
under  the  then  novel,  though  destined  to  become  powerful,  religious 
views  and  methods  of  Albert  Hopkins,  when  on  a  Sunday  afternoon 
in  October,  1841,  while  the  students  were  at  church  in  the  old  meet- 
ing-house on  the  square,  the  East  College  took  fire  and  burned  to 
the  ground.  It  was  without  insurance,  and  was  a  total  loss.  We 
have  already  learned,  upon  an  earlier  page  of  this  book,  that  the 
East  College  was  a  larger  and  finer  building  than  the  West  College, 
and  it  was  the  first  really  college  edifice  erected,  inasmuch  as  the 
other  was  built  for  the  uses  of  the  original  Free  School,  in  1790, 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       523 

without  a  thought  of  its  ever  becoming  an  appurtenance  of  a  college 
proper.  This  was  erected  in  1797  from  the  proceeds  of  two  town- 
ships of  land  in  Maine,  granted  to  the  College  by  the  General  Court 
in  January,  1796.  The  land  brought  $10,000.  The  building  cost 
$12,400.  It  was  of  brick,  four  stories  high,  with  a  bevel  roof  like 
the  West  College,  104  feet  long  and  48  feet  wide.  It  differed  from 
the  West  College  in  having  two  halls  through  it  east  and  west, 
instead  of  the  original  one  central  hall  of  the  other.  It  contained 
thirty-two  convenient  dormitory  rooms,  and  two  recitation  rooms 
for  Juniors  and  Seniors.  The  two  literary  societies  forming  the 


HOPKINS   OBSERVATORY. 

Adelphic  Union,  which  itself  had  been  instituted  two  years  before 
this  building  was  erected,  namely,  in  1795,  the  Philologian  and 
Philotechnian,  had  each  but  a  little  while  before  the  fire  fitted  up 
for  itself  a  room  on  the  third  floor  with  its  library  and  proper 
furniture.  There  was  a  small  theological  library  in  another  room 
of  the  building,  which  was  totally  destroyed.  All  the  rooms  were 
fitted  with  open  fireplaces  burning  wood;  and  there  had  been 
partial  burnings  within  the  building  before ;  but  this  conflagration 
left  the  entire  building  a  smouldering  ruin. 

The  fire  had  taken  in  the  southwest  corner  room  of  the  fourth  floor 


524  WILLIAMSTOWN   AXD    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

from  a  stick  of  wood  falling  from  the  fireplace  to  the  wooden  floor. 
It  took  but  a  little  while  to  bring  the  students  from  the  meeting- 
house to  the  burning,  and  they  did  all  that  mortal  man  could  do 
under  the  circumstances  to  save  their  own  property  and  that  of  the 
College.  An  eye-witness  once  related  to  the  writer,  how  Addison 
Ballard  of  the  Senior  class  persisted  till  the  last  possible  moment 
in  throwing  out  from  the  third-story  windows  the  books  from  one  of 
the  society  libraries;  how  William  Goodwin,  of  the  same  class, 
caught  while  engaged  in  similar  labors  by  the  advancing  flames, 
descended  to  the  ground  by  the  lightning-rod;  and  how,  while  the 
south  end  of  the  huge  pile  was  burning,  and  the  then  new  astro- 
nomical observatory  was  endangered,  it  was  saved  only  by  the  stu- 
dents covering  the  combustible  parts  with  wet  blankets.  Every 
room  in  the  building  was  occupied  at  the  time.  Most  of  their  pri- 
vate furniture  and  books  was  saved  by  the  students,  although  in  a 
damaged  condition,  except  those  in  the  rooms  in  the  vicinity  of  the 
place  where  the  fire  originated.  The  larger  part  of  the  libraries  and 
furniture  in  the  two  society  rooms  was  also  saved  by  such  heroic 
exertions  as  are  characteristic  of  college  students  at  a  fire  in  the 
country. 

The  immediate  question  precipitated  upon  the  College  as  the  sun 
went  down  on  that  Sabbath  afternoon  was,  Where  shall  the  more 
than  fifty  roomless  students  lodge  to-night?  Students  under  such 
circumstances  are  full  of  transient  resources.  The  West  College 
opened  its  rooms  with  hospitable  intent;  and  as  most  of  the  beds 
and  bedding  on  the  other  hill  had  been  saved  from  the  flames, 
couches  on  the  floors  sufficed  for  many,  the  president  and  professors 
provided  sleeping-places  for  some,  and  a  few  found  lodgment  in  the 
town.  The  next  day,  systematic  and  successful  efforts  were  made 
by  all  these  parties  to  secure  rooms  as  well  as  lodgings  for  all  who 
needed  them.  It  was  with  a  just  pride  that  Mark  Hopkins  wrote, 
forty-five  years  afterwards,  "  Every  room  had  been  occupied,  and  it 
was  feared  that  many  students  would  leave,  from  the  seeming  im- 
possibility of  finding  accommodations.  There  was,  however,  an 
enthusiasm  for  the  College,  and  not  a  man  left."  Amos  Eaton 
wrote  out  from  Troy,  that  they  would  take  in  at  the  Polytechnic 
Institute  temporarily  any  and  all  who  might  wish  to  come.  By 
Monday  night  all  the  homeless  were  fairly  provided  for.  Tuesday 
morning  the  regular  recitations  in  all  the  classes  were  resumed,  and 
continued  without  a  break  till  the  end  of  the  term. 

The  blow  of  this  fire-loss  fell  upon  the  young  president  and  his 
brother  with  almost  crushing  force.  For  more  than  ten  years,  in 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       525 

various  relations  and  positions,  these  two  men  had  borne  the  brunt 
of  the  burdens  of  the  College.  They  had  unselfishly  gained  the  con- 
fidence of  the  students,  and  had  a  moral  hold  on  their  hearts  and 
lives.  The  two  had  given  themselves  to  the  College  in  their  youth, 
and  they  were  not  the  men  to  hold  back  when  disaster  came. 
Neither  of  the  two  was  by  any  means  a  perfect  man,  either  then  or 
afterwards.  The  younger  said  of  the  elder,  that  "  he  doubtless  had 
something  more  of  worldly  ambition."  Perhaps  so.  Both  of  them 
had  worldly  ambition  enough,  though  in  different  directions.  But 
both  had  consecrated  themselves  to  the  true  interests  of  the  College 
in  diverse  ways,  and  both  continued  faithful  to  this  their  drift  so 
long  as  they  lived.  Upon  the  president  fell  the  anxieties  of  the 
new  public  and  pecuniary  situation.  Shortly  after  the  fire  he  called 
at  the  Whitmans,  more  for  general  counsel  and  comfort  than  to  ask 
for  money.  "Do  not  be  discouraged,"  said  Mrs.  Lucy  Whitman,  "I 
will  promise  to  give  you  one  thousand  dollars  to  help  rebuild  the 
College."  Very  often  in  after  life  did  Mark  Hopkins  refer  to  this 
opportune  promise  as  lifting  a  heavier  weight  from  his  mind  than 
any  other  college  gift  ever  received  by  him.  The  quick  giver  gives 
twice.  A  meeting  of  the  trustees  was  at  once  called,  and  active 
measures  to  secure  money  with  which  to  rebuild  were  set  in  motion, 
and  several  thousand  dollars  were  gathered  by  subscription  in  a 
comparatively  short  time ;  but  this  was  not  enough  to  warrant  action 
to  start  the  rebuilding.  The  times  were  hard.  The  total  disap- 
pointments following  the  election  and  speedy  death  of  President 
Harrison  in  that  year  weighed  on  all  industry  and  enterprise.  "  In 
this  emergency,"  wrote  Hopkins,  "after  some  vain  attempts  to  raise 
money  by  subscription,  it  was  determined  to  ask  aid  from  the  State. 
I  accordingly  went  to  Boston,  and  presented  a  petition.  That  peti- 
tion was  referred  to  a  committee,  a  member  of  which,  from  the 
eastern  part  of  the  State,  boarded  at  the  same  hotel  with  myself. 
On  his  return  from  the  State  House,  after  his  appointment,  he  came 
to  me  to  inquire  about  the  College.  'Williams  College,'  said  he, 
'let  me  see,  Williams  College  is  somewhere  on  the  North  River, 
isn't  it  ? ?  Of  course  there  was  little  chance  of  getting  money 
through  a  committee  composed  in  part  of  such  material."  At  any 
rate,  none  was  gotten. 

In  those  early  days  there  were  six  weeks7  vacation  in  midwinter, 
and  most  of  the  students  went  to  teach  school  for  a  term  of  twelve 
weeks,  and  some  for  even  more.  The  winter  term  of  instruction  and 
attendance  was  much  mutilated  in  those  days ;  but  as  spring  ap- 
proached, and  there  is  no  place  in  the  world  where  early  spring  is 


526  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

pleasanter  than  in  Williamstown  after  a  long  winter,  a  better  feel- 
ing about  the  new  building  began  to  prevail  in  the  town  and  among 
the  trustees  generally.  A  contract  was  made  by  the  treasurer, 
Daniel  X.  Dewey,  with  Robert  Noble,  a  citizen  of  the  village,  to 
clear  off  the  site  of  the  burned  building,  and  to  pile  up  to  one  side 
the  brick  that  were  fit  for  re-using,  preparatory  to  a  contract  for 
putting  up  two  new  dormitories  to  take  the  place  of  the  old  one. 
Four  stories  to  a  college  building  were  prejudiced  in  the  local  mind 
by  the  circumstances  of  the  fire,  which  caught  in  an  angle  of  the 
building,  and  at  an  inaccessible  height.  It  was  proposed,  accord- 
ingly, to  have  the  new  buildings  but  three  stories  high,  the  front  one 
to  be  still  called  "East  College,"  and  to  occupy  substantially  the 
site  of  the  old  one,  and  to  be  of  the  same  length  as  that,  with  two 
halls  running  through  it,  east  and  west,  as  before ;  the  second  one 
to  be  just  two-thirds  as  long  as  the  other,  to  stand  directly  south  of 
it,  with  four  feet  greater  breadth,  and  to  be  called  "  South  College," 
having  the  main  entrance  at  the  north  end  and  a  second  one  in  the 
middle  of  the  east  side. 

A  careful  contract  was  made  for  the  erection  of  these  buildings 
by  the  treasurer  with  Crandall  and  Curtis,  the  junior  member  of 
which  firm  of  carpenters  and  builders,  Harry  Curtis,  is  still  living 
in.  Williamstown  in  an  highly  honored  old  age.  He  practically 
superintended  the  erection  of  the  buildings  from  start  to  finish,  and 
his  memory  of  all  the  details  is,  now  fifty -five  years  after  the  time, 
clear  and  strong,  and  has  just  been  confirmed  by  measurements 
made  by  others.  The  foundations  of  the  old  building,  like  those  of 
West  College,  rested  on  the  limestone  rock  all  around;  and  the  con- 
tract called  for  similar  foundations  under  both  of  the  new  buildings. 
This  introduced  a  contingent  element  into  the  money  terms  of  the 
contract.  As  to  the  front  building  the  depth  of  the  rock  beneath 
the  surface  was  pretty  well  known,  though  its  exterior  lines  did  not 
follow  altogether  the  old  lines,  the  difference  in  the  width  of  the 
two  being  ten  feet;  but  as  to  the  South  College,  nobody  knew  the 
depth  of  the  digging  needful  to  reach  the  limestone;  so  the  contract 
was  made  flexible  in  this  respect,  an  extra  allowance  was  to  be  made 
to  the  builders  for  all  foundations  laid  deeper  than  four  feet  on  an 
average  beneath  the  surface  of  the  ground.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
deepest  digging  was  had  along  the  northwest  corner  of  the  south 
building,  which  accounts  for  the  odd  figures  of  its  cost  at  the  settle- 
ment, —  $5090.  The  East  College  cost  $7000.  As  the  payments 
were  not  to  be  made  until  the  work  was  completed,  the  trustees 
relied  for  the  more  moneys  needed  upon  a  second  passing  round  of 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL  THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       527 

the  hat  in  the  town  and  the  county  and  the  State,  and  upon  some 
hoped-for  collections  to  be  made  at  Commencement,  when  the  but 
partially  completed  buildings  would  make  a  silent  appeal  to  gradu- 
ates and  visitors.  Accordingly,  the  Commencement  dinner-table 
was  spread  in  the  open  air  on  the  East  College  campus  just  to  the 
east  of  the  buildings,  and  a  little  to  the  north  of  the  then  new  as- 
tronomical observatory.  The  weather  was  fine.  The  attendance 
was  large.  The  spirit  was  excellent.  The  president,  as  he  always 
did  upon  those  occasions,  made  a  hopeful  and  admirable  speech,  in 
the  course  of  which  he  heartfully  thanked  the  Senior  class,  then 
having  just  eaten  their  first  alumni  dinner,  for  standing  by  the 
College  to  a  man  at  the  time  of  the  disaster  the  autumn  before.  It 
is  safe  to  say,  that  no  men  felt  better  at  the  alumni  dinner  of  1842, 
or  remembered  that  dinner  longer,  or  were  thereafter  drawn  to  the 
College  more  firmly,  than  the  thirty-five  men  constituting  the  class 
of  1842.  An  unusually  large  proportion  of  this  class  was  attracted 
and  attached  to  the  town  and  the  College  in  one  relation  or  another, 
and  exerted,  in  one  way  or  another,  an  influence  in  their  behalf  both 
at  home  and  abroad.  A  list  of  these  men  will  enrich  the  present 
pages. 

Thomas  S.  Bacon  John  B.  Gale  Henry  Osborn 

Addison  Ballard  William  Goodwin  Job  Pierson 

Elisha  B.  Bassett  Enos  J.  Halstead  George  W.  Pleasants 

James  Brewer  William  A.  Hawley  Henry  W.  Porter 

George  P.  Briggs  Horace  I.  Hodges  Andrew  G.  Riley 

Thomas  Colt  Eli  A.  Hubbard  John  H.  Sage 

Theodore  Cooke  Charles  S.  Jordan  Oliver  M.  Sears 

William  H.  Edwards  John  H.  Kellom  John  B.  Skinner 

George  R.  Enbler  Jonathan  Le  Fevre  Josiah  T.  Smith 

Leland  Fairbanks  Horace  Lyman  Lewis  M.  Strong 

Henry  A.  Ford  Dwight  W.  Marsh  Edward  Taylor 
Oliver  Warner                           Lyman  F.  Wilcox 

The  chief  speaker  at  this  alumni  dinner  of  1842  was  Nicholas 
Murray,  of  the  class  of  1826.  He  was  an  Irishman,  born  and  bred 
in  the  tenets  of  the  Catholic  faith.  A  boy's  disgust  at  some  con- 
duct of  a  Romish  priest  at  home  led  him  to  question  the  claims  of 
that  church,  and  led  him  to  surrender  at  sixteen  to  an  elder  brother 
all  rights  to  any  portion  of  their  deceased  father's  property,  in  con- 
sideration of  money  enough  to  take  him  to  New  York.  In  July, 
1818,  he  arrived  there  friendless  and  almost  penniless.  Obtaining 
work  in  the  publishing  house  of  Harper  &  Brothers,  his  capacity  and 
fidelity  gained  him  the  lifelong  friendship  of  those  gentlemen,  and 
the  young  sceptic  was  brought  under  the  preaching  and  influence  of 


528  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

Kev.  Dr.  John  M.  Mason,  and  afterward  became  a  member  of  Dr. 
Spring's  Brick  Presbyterian  church.  He  showed  such  fine  natural 
abilities  and  such  an  earnest  spirit,  that  he  was  advised  to  prepare 
himself  for  the  ministry,  and  was  sent  to  Williams  in  1822.  He 
was  not  half  fitted  for  college  so  far  as  the  studies  were  concerned, 
but  he  was  full  of  life  and  insight,  of  humor  and  wit,  and  became  a 
favorite  and  leader  in  his  class,  holding  such  men  as  John  Morgan 
(another  Irishman)  and  Albert  Hopkins  and  William  Hyde  and 
Samuel  Bridges  and  Jonathan  Noble  and  the  two  Fuller  brothers. 

Murray  gradually  became  one  of  the  most  eloquent  preachers  of 
his  time,  and  a  successful  pastor  in  Elizabeth,  New  Jersey,  which 
post  he  did  not  leave,  under  never  so  urgent  solicitations,  until  his 
death,  in  1861.  He  became  also  a  very  famous  writer,  under  his 
own  name  and  that  of  KIRWAN,  especially  in  controversy  with 
Bishop  Hughes  and  other  standard-bearers  of  the  Romish  faith. 
His  spirits  were  exuberant,  his  fund  of  anecdote  inexhaustible,  his 
repartee  keen  and  sometimes  scathing,  and  he  was  a  delightful  com- 
panion as  well  as  a  powerful  champion.  At  this  after-dinner  table 
on  the  college  campus,  right  at  the  flank  of  the  new  buildings, 
already  covered  in,  but  not  yet  finished,  Nicholas  Murray  gave  his 
reminiscences  and  made  his  appeals  in  behalf  of  the  Old  Lady,  as 
he  called  her,  the  Alma  Mater,  who  had  been  despoiled  by  fire  of  a 
part  of  her  wardrobe,  and  must  now  receive,  at  the  hands  of  her 
children,  a  new  dress,  in  which  she  may  properly  receive  at  the 
opening  of  the  new  college  year  a  large  accession  to  her  family,  and 
be  ready  to  receive  back  next  year  at  this  time,  at  her  semi-centen- 
nial, well-robed  and  without  a  debt,  at  the  old  hearth  and  board,  all 
the  now  scattered  members  of  her  old  family. 

A  new  subscription  paper  was  circulated  around  the  table,  and 
many  who  had  subscribed  before  put  down  their  names  for  an  addi- 
tional and,  in  some  cases,  an  equal  sum,  and  young  graduates  and 
country  ministers  made  their  necessarily  small  contributions;  and 
there  was  good  feeling  all  around,  and,  morally  speaking,  the  College 
was  strengthened  by  an  apparent  misfortune. 

One  of  the  old  ledgers  in  the  treasurer's  office  exhibits  the  follow- 
ing title  and  sequel,  the  names  of  the  twice  contributors  appearing 
here  but  once  with  the  aggregate  sums: 

"Subscriptions  to  rebuild  the  East  College,  which  was  burnt  Oct.  17,  1841r 
amounting  in  all  to  the  sum  of  $8949.00." 

Mrs.  Lucy  and  Seymour  Whit-  Isaac  Vanderpoel  $50 

man  $1500        Ebenezer  Learned  15 

Daniel  N.  Dewey  500        John  Hotchkiss  25 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL  THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       529 


Albert  Hopkins 
Asahel  Foot 
Charles  A.  Dewey 
Persons  in  Pittsfield 
Persons  in  New  York 
W.  M.  Halsted 
Ebenezer  Kellogg 
Charles  Sedgwick 
Erastus  C.  Benedict 
Thomas  Eggleston 
David  Buel 
M.  O.  Halsted 
Thomas  Allen 
Mrs.  Laura  Whitman 

sell 

Mark  Hopkins 
Henry  L.  Sabin 
John  Mills 
Lyman  Hubbell 
Boston  Collections 
H.  W.  Brunsmade 
John  Tatlock 
Benj.  F.  Mather 
Jane  Sedgwick 
Samuel  Shepard 
William  A.  Hallock 
Vail 


$300  S.  F.  B.  Morse 

100  C.  Alger 

100  W.  S.  Tucker 

400  Persons  in  Chesterfield 

208  Persons  in  Becket 

100  Joseph  Alden 

100  Nicholas  Murray 

85  D.  0.  Kellogg 

50  William  Porter 

50  Emory  Washburn 

75  Homer  Bartlett 

50  Russell  C.  Cook 

10  S.  E.  Morse 

E.  La-  Ruth  Benjamin 

1000  H.  Byington 

600  D.  R.  Williams 

300  Persons  in  Peru 

100  E.  V.  B.  Conklin 

100  Collections  in  Lenox 

1700  Joseph  Hyde 

100  Jona.  Bixby 

100  Williston 

50  Oliver  B.  Morris 

40  James  H.  Coffin 

42  Gerard  Hallock 

50  John  C.  Brigham 

25  Abel  West 


$50 
25 
10 
20 
30 
50 
20 
40 
50 
20 
30 
25 
25 
30 
25 
10 
48 
10 
70 
50 
10 

200 
20 
30 
50 
20 
10 


Well  worth  the  noting  are  a  few  points  in  relation  to  this 
subscription  paper.  (1)  The  relatively  large  sum  contributed  by 
the  residents  of  Williamstown.  Fifty-four  per  cent  of  the  whole, 
that  is,  $4880,  came  from  this  source.  The  president  and  five  other 
members  of  the  faculty,  all  young  men,  gave  in  the  aggregate  $1180. 
The  president's  salary  was  then  $1100  per  annum,  and  the  profes- 
sors received  $700.  James  H.  Coffin,  the  only  tutor  at  that  time, 
whose  salary  was  $400,  and  who  became  afterward  a  distinguished 
professor  at  Lafayette  College,  subscribed  $30.  The  Whitman 
family,  merchants,  the  only  family  in  town  then  denominated  rich, 
gave  liberally,  considering  their  means.  The  people  of  the  village 
and,  indeed,  the  people  of  the  entire  town,  had  declined  in  pecuniary 
means  during  each  decade  of  the  new  century.  The  Sloans  were  all 
gone  in  1842;  the  Nobles  were  all  gone;  and  the  Deweys  were  all 
gone  except  the  treasurer,  who  was  then  relatively  a  poor  man, 
though  he  gave  $500  toward  the  rebuilding.  Emigration  had 
already  carried  away  to  the  westward  a  considerable  part  of  the 
enterprise  and  of  the  property  in  Williamstown.  When  the  pres- 

2M 


530  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

ent  writer  entered  college,  in  1848,  the  village  had  rather  a  decayed 
look  from  one  end  of  it  to  the  other.  There  were  only  three  private 
houses  in  it  that  were  out  of  the  ordinary. 

(2)  The  reader  may  have  been  struck  by  the  amount,  $1700, 
under  the  head  of  "Boston  collections."  This  money  was  gathered 
and  largely  contributed  by  a  mercantile  firm  there,  whose  style  was 
"Edwards  and  Stoddard."  The  families  bearing  these  names  were 
very  closely  related  by  intermarriage  and  otherwise,  in  Northampton 
and  New  Haven  and  Boston  and  elsewhere.  Solomon  Stoddard, 
pastor  of  the  church  in  Northampton,  1672-1729,  was  a  maternal 
grandfather  of  Jonathan  Edwards,  his  successor  in  that  church, 
1729-50.  The  two  were  colleague  pastors  there  1727-29.  The 
Boston  merchant,  Charles  Stoddard,  was  born  in  Northampton  in 
1802,  became  established  in  business  in  Boston  about  the  time  of 
his  majority,  and  continued  in  its  active  management  for  fifty  years. 
As  he  was  a  large  importer  of  foreign  goods,  and,  consequently, 
became  an  experienced  buyer  of  foreign  "exchange,"  he  came,  as  a 
member  of  the  prudential  committee  of  the  American  Board,  to  be  the 
buyer  in  behalf  of  that  body,  having  constantly  large  remittances  to 
make  for  the  support  of  their  missions,  of  the  "  exchange  "  needful 
for  that  purpose ;  and  is  said  in  times  of  stress  to  have  repeatedly 
loaned  his  own  personal  credit  to  the  Board  in  that  way  in  order  that 
the  missionaries  might  not  suffer  in  their  work.  It  has  already  been 
noticed  elsewhere,  that  in  1832  Charles  Stoddard  married  here  Mary 
Noble  Porter,  the  widow  of  Professor  William  A.  Porter,  and  was 
thus  drawn  into  intimate  relations  both  to  the  town  and  the  College, 
which  were  never  afterward  intermitted  till  his  death.  In  1839  he 
was  chosen  a  trustee  of  the  College ;  and  when  the  fire  came,  two 
years  later,  he  exerted  himself  to  the  utmost  to  repair  the  loss. 

(3)  The  miscellaneous  signatures  in  this  subscription  list  are  not 
without  significant  and  even  historical  interest.  But  three  ladies7 
names  appear;  and,  oddly  enough,  they  are  the  names  of  three  sis- 
ters, born  Seymour,  in  Hartford,  Connecticut.  Lucy  and  Laura 
Seymour  married  the  Whitman  brothers,  and  Ruth  Seymour  married 
a  Mr.  Benjamin,  and  signs  her  subscription  of  fifty  dollars,  "  Ruth 
Benjamin."  All  three  were  long-time  residents  of  Williamstown. 
The  names  of  the  brothers,  S.  F.  B.  Morse  and  Sidney  E.  Morse,  are 
both  on  this  paper;  the  former  as  the  practical  inventor  of  the  elec- 
tric telegraph  and  likely  to  be  always  remembered  as  such,  is  the 
most  distinguished  name  on  this  list,  and  the  latter,  only  less  dis- 
tinguished, was  the  founder  of  successful  religious  journalism  in 
this  country.  "In  1815  he  established  the  Boston  Recorder,  a 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE    TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.        531 

weekly  religious  newspaper,  of  which  for  fifteen  years  he  was  sole 
proprietor  and  editor.  In  May,  1823',  with  his  younger  brother, 
E.  C.  Morse,  he  established  the  New  York  Observer,  the  oldest 
religious  newspaper  in  New  York  State."  (Drake's  "Diet.  Am. 
Biog.")  S.  E.  Morse,  like  his  older  brother,  was  an  inventor  of 
great  merit  both  in  connection  with  him  and  others  too.  Also  on 
the  subscription  list  appear  the  names  of  two  brothers,  contempo- 
rary with  the  Morses  and  often  associated  with  them,  but  who, 
unlike  them,  were  both  graduates  of  Williams  in  1819.  These 
were  Gerard  and  William  A.  Hallock,  sons  of  Rev.  Moses  Hallock 
of  Plainfield,  who  fitted  for  college  in  his  own  house  there  perhaps 
one-half  of  all  the  graduates  of  Williams  during  the  first  quarter 
of  this  century.  Gerard  Hallock  and  David  Hale  were  the  joint 
founders  and  proprietors  of  the  New  York  Journal  of  Commerce,  in 
1828,  to  expedite  the  receipt  of  news  for  which  they  fitted  out  a  fast 
schooner  to  cruise  off  Sandy  Hook  to  intercept  European  vessels  for 
foreign  news,  which  was  taken  off  by  means  of  ingenious  signals. 
A  little  later  they  established  the  "pony  express"  from  Philadel- 
phia to  New  York,  by  which  they  were  enabled  to  publish  Congres- 
sional news  a  day  in  advance  of  their  contemporaries.  This  made 
the  Journal  of  Commerce  the  newspaper  of  New  York,  and  of  course 
enriched  its  proprietors.  William  A.  Hallock,  who  took  the  vale- 
dictory here  in  1819,  became  the  founder,  in  1825,  of  the  American 
Tract  Society,  with  which  he  was  completely  identified  for  more 
than  fifty  years.  Other  uncommonly  interesting  signers  of  this 
subscription  paper,  of  whom  it  would  be  a  pleasure  to  say  some- 
thing in  this  place,  were  it  otherwise  proper  and  relevant,  were 
George  N.  Briggs  and  Nicholas  Murray  and  Charles  Sedgwick  and 
John  C.  Brigham  and  David  Buel  and  William  Hyde  and  Oliver 
B.  Morris  and  Emory  Washburn  and  Homer  Bartlett. 

(4)  It  is  noticeable,  in  the  last  place,  that  the  chief  procurers  and 
most  of  the  contributors  of  this  college  money  were  what  would  be 
called  nowadays  extra  orthodox  people.  Why  the  College  in  distress 
should  make  its  appeal  almost  exclusively  to  such,  and  how  the  Col- 
lege at  any  time  came  to  be  looked  upon  as  a  sort  of  champion  of  a 
special  style  in  theology,  it  is  not  easy  to  see,  and  consequently  diffi- 
cult to  explain.  It  has  been  noted  in  its  place,  that  the  trustees 
threw  out  by  a  formal  vote  the  Hopkinsian  system  of  divinity  from 
the  studies  of  the  Senior  class,  and  substituted  for  it  the  milder 
series  of  views  of  the  amiable  Dr.  Isaac  Watts.  It  is  not  known 
that  the  trustees  as  such  ever  took  any  action  on  the  Unitarian  con- 
troversy in  Massachusetts,  which  may  be  said  to  have  begun  in 


532  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

1815,  under  the  powerful  leadership  of  Rev.  Dr.  Channing,  and  to 
have  been  consummated  some  time  before  his  death,  in  1842.  The 
Unitarians  carried  their  point  before  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  State, 
that  "  a  church  "  is  not  a  legal  body  entitled  to  hold  real  estate,  but 
only  "a  parish"  can  do  this;  consequently,  a  large  number  of 
"meeting-houses  "  in  the  eastern  part  of  the  State  passed  under  the 
control  and  worship  of  the  Unitarians,  because  the  majority  of  the 
members  of  a  parish  so  voted.  Harvard  College  also  came  into 
their  control  for  a  generation,  but  it  is  now  neutral  in  its  attitude 
towards  all  Christian  sects.  It  is  true  that  Presidents  Moore  and 
Griffin  were  strenuous  Calvinists,  and  that  Amherst  College,  under 
the  presidency  of  the  former,  was  expressly  founded  on  those  prin- 
ciples, and  that  the  latter  deemed  himself,  and  was  considered  by 
many  others,  as  a  great  champion  of  orthodoxy ;  but  all  this  had  no 
special  bearing  on  the  status  of  the  College  as  such.  Mark  Hop- 
kins was  so  little  of  a  theologian,  —  having  never  been  trained  nor 
trained  himself  in  the  tenets  of  the  schools,  —  that  Griffin,  in  1833, 
was  for  withholding  from  him  an  ordinary  license  to  preach.  Later 
in  life  he  had  neither  leisure  nor  inclination  to  look  into  these  tech- 
nicalities, and  in  his  old  age  he  volunteered  the  statement,  "/  too 
am  a  mystic"  Notwithstanding  all  this,  in  1842,  when  these  sub- 
scriptions were  put  down,  and  long  afterward  also,  the  College  was 
looked  upon  in  many  quarters  as  a  specialized  institution  of  ortho- 
doxy. Charles  Stoddard,  as  a  member  and  deacon  of  the  old  South 
Church  in  Boston,  and  bearing  a  brunt  in  the  contest  there  on  the 
orthodox  side,  which  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  won,  so  far  as  that 
city  was  concerned,  became  more  or  less  embittered  towards  those 
who  did  not  pronounce  their  shibboleth  as  he  did.  In  other  words, 
he  became  an  orthodox  bigot;  and  on  several  occasions  exerted  a 
distinctly  sinister  influence  over  Dr.  Hopkins  himself,  as  may  here- 
after appear,  as  well  as  over  the  course  of  the  American  Board. 
The  Morse  brothers  also  were  strongly  orthodox,  doubtless  largely 
because  their  father,  Rev.  Jedidiah,  D.D.,  "was  much  occupied 
in  religious  controversy,  in  upholding  the  orthodox  faith  in  the 
New  England  churches  against  the  assaults  of  Unitarianism,  an 
undertaking  which  seriously  affected  his  health."  (Drake.)  Sub- 
stantially the  same  may  be  said  of  the  Hallock  brothers,  and  of 
many  more  of  the  signers. 

When  the  new  East  and  South  Colleges  were  finished  in  the 
autumn,  and  Treasurer  Dewey  came  to  settle  up  with  and  pay  off 
the  contractors,  Crandall  and  Curtis,  it  was  found  that  these  had 
honestly  and  fairly  made  two  thousand  dollars  apiece  under  their 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE    TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       533 

contract.     This  sum  included  of  course  the  wages  of  superintendence 
as  well  as  net  profits.     The  contractors  had  sublet  the  mason  work, 


including  foundation  and  bricklaying  and   plastering,   to  Samuel 
Keyes  of  Bennington.     Keyes  was  satisfied  with  the  outcome  of  his 


534  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

contract.  The  carpenter's  contract  did  not  include  the  floors  to  be 
laid  in  the  two  buildings.  These  came  under  a  special  contract 
made  by  Treasurer  Dewey  with  a  then  prominent  citizen  of  the 
town,  named  Liberty  Bartlett.  Both  were  Whigs,  extreme  parti- 
zans,  and  political  manipulators.  Bartlett's  figure  stands  out  even 
now  in  generally  picturesque  and  sometimes  grotesque  outlines. 
His  father  was  a  tanner  here  and  also  in  North  Adams,  and  was 
commonly  called  Squire  Bartlett.  The  tannery  was  on  Green  River 
just  where  it  turns  snarply  to  the  east  on  Water  Street.  Near  it 
was  the  old  sawmill  and  gristmill,  almost  coeval  with  the  town 
itself ;  every  trace  of  all  three  on  the  spot  vanished  long  ago,  and  all 
three  operated  from  the  first  milldam  built  in  Williamstown.  Lib- 
erty Bartlett  was  proprietor  now  of  tannery  and  sawmill.  He  went 
into  wholesale  shoemaking  in  the  long  building  above  his  tan  vats. 
He  employed  many  men.  The  town  went  a-booming  in  the  Har- 
rison campaign,  —  "Tippecanoe  and  Tyler  too."  Before  the  inevi- 
table failure  and  collapse  came  round,  Dewey  reached  a  hand  to 
Bartlett  in  the  contract  for  the  floors.  The  boards  when  put  down 
were  of  different  widths  and  full  of  knots,  and  made  by  far  the 
worst  job  in  the  buildings.  Dewey  would  hardly  have  accepted  it 
from  a  contractor  of  a  different  faith  and  practice.  But  Bartlett 
was  content  with  the  returns  he  received  according  to  the  terms  of 
the  bargain.  After  his  first  failure,  he  got  on  his  feet  again  as  a 
merchant,  and  built  the  house  so  long  owned  and  occupied  by  Har- 
vey T.  Cole.  Man  and  measures  boomed  again  for  a  while,  and  then 
came  the  second  moral  as  well  as  commercial  wreckage.  Bartlett 
turned  up  years  after  in  Little  Eock,  Arkansas,  where  he  became  a 
judge,  and  lived  to  extreme  old  age. 

The  explanation  of  the  fair  profits  in  all  these  cases  is  found  in 
the  "hard  times,"  so-called,  of  1842.  Artisans  were  glad  of  work 
at  almost  any  price,  and  came  in  from  the  surrounding  towns  to 
offer  themselves.  Curtis  paid  his  ordinary  carpenters  sixteen  or 
eighteen  dollars  a  month.  They  worked  from  sunrise  so  long  as 
they  could  see  in  the  evening  twilight,  —  averaging  about  fourteen 
hours.  The  most  that  was  paid  to  the  best  carpenter  was  one  dollar 
per  day.  This  was  to  a  graduate  of  the  College  of  the  year  before, 
of  the  name  of  Pierson,  who  had  learned  the  cabinet-maker's  trade 
before  he  came  to  college.  He  aimed  to  become,  and  did  become, 
a  minister,  but  not  having  means  to  prosecute  his  further  studies, 
he  offered  his  services  to  Crandall  and  Curtis  as  a  carpenter,  with 
promise  of  pay  contingent  on  his  efficiency.  He  proved  the  best 
man  on  the  job  in  every  respect,  and  was  settled  with  at  twenty-six 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE    TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       535 

dollars  per  month.  It  is  a  pleasure  to  write  of  this  man  in  this 
connection,  for  he  was  a  type  of  many  of  the  early  graduates  of  the 
College.  Many  students  came  hither  after  their  majority,  having 
already  learned  trades ;  and  most  of  the  rest  knew  how  to  do  all 
sorts  of  farm-work.  Pierson  was  twenty-seven  years  old  when  he 
was  graduated,  a  then  not  very  unusual  age.  A  wrong  idea  indeed 
prevailed  in  New  England  in  those  days  to  the  effect  that  if  a  young 
man  were  converted  by  the  time  of  his  majority,  it  was  his  duty,  at 
all  hazards,  to  seek  to  enter  the  ministry,  no  matter  how  much  his 
education  might  have  been  neglected  up  to  that  time.  The  preva- 
lence of  this  notion  tended  to  fill  the  colleges  with  young  men  excel- 
lent in  character  and  persistence,  but  who  could  not  really  take  a 
college  education ;  and  it  tended  also  to  fill  the  pulpits  with  minis- 
ters who  could  not  sustain  themselves  for  any  length  of  time  in  one 
place  as  public  Christian  teachers.  The  countervailing  considera- 
tion was,  and  remains,  that  so  many  new  pulpits  in  new  fields  were 
calling  for  supplies  that,  had  not  this  class  of  men  come  forward  as 
they  did,  these  pulpits  must  have  gone  altogether  vacant.  Rev.  N. 
E.  Pierson  belonged  to  this  class  of  men.  He  served  many  small 
churches,  mostly  in  the  state  of  New  York,  and  during  the  Civil 
War  went  to  the  field  as  chaplain  of  the  89th  New  York  Volunteers. 
He  died  in  Michigan  in  1872.  Williamstown  has  an  interest  in  his 
memory,  because  he  married,  in  1844,  Roxana  Bixby,  a  beautiful 
daughter  of  Jonathan  Bixby,  himself  one  of  the  subscribers  of  1842 
The  Bixbys  lived  at  that  time  on  Northwest  Hill  directly  opposite 
the  farm  of  Colonel  Samuel  Tyler,  whose  son  Samuel's  family  moved 
down  into  Charityville  about  the  time  that  the  Bixbys  moved  thither 
also.  The  two  families  thus  became  neighbors  again  in  the  north- 
western part  of  the  village. 

The  year  1843  will  ever  be  memorable  in  the  history  of  Williams 
College.  It  was  the  semi-centennial  year.  It  was  memorable  for 
what  preceded  it,  memorable  for  what  accompanied  it,  and  memo- 
rable for  what  followed  it.  Both  town  and  college  had  had  a  mili- 
tary origin.  The  topography  of  the  valley  and  its  surroundings, 
which  made  it  the  scene  for  centuries  of  warlike  expeditions  back 
and  forth,  which  made  it  the  site  of  two  considerable  forts  and 
garrisons  in  tfee  two  last  French  and  Indian  wars,  1745-59,  and 
which  made  it  the  best  passageway  later  by  which  to  strike  from 
the  east  Burgoyne's  flank  at  Bennington  and  Saratoga,  caused  it, 
when  permanent  peace  came,  to  be  quiet  and  obscure  because  rela- 
tively inaccessible.  The  State  fathered  the  College  in  something 
the  same  spirit  in  which  it  had  built  Fort  Massachusetts.  The 


536  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

College  was  small  and  had  but  small  resources.  There  is  no  evi- 
dence from  its  first  half-century  that  any  of  its  promoters  and  offi- 
cials had  any  expectations  of  its  ever  becoming  what  it  did  become 
in  its  second  half -century.  The  establishment  of  Amherst  College 
was  one  ground  of  great  discouragement  at  the  time  and  afterward 
to  those  who  had  in  charge  the  feeble  institution  behind  the  moun- 
tains. Notwithstanding  all  these  and  many  discouragements  more 
of  other  kinds,  the  College  did  fairly  good  work  for  its  students 
throughout  its  first  fifty  years.  Its  best  work  by  much  was  done 
in  the  circle  of  studies  that  constituted  then  the  sphere  of  natural 
history.  Chester  Dewey  and  Amos  Eaton  and  Ebenezer  Emmons 
put  their  branches  into  the  forefront,  and  kept  them  there  (speak- 
ing generally)  till  the  semi-centennial.  The  town  exerted  its  fas- 
cination then  over  the  students,  as  well  as  the  simple  and  honest 
ways  of  the  College.  Many  of  those  who  came  up  to  keep  the  feast 
with  zeal  and  enthusiasm  were  natives  of  the  town,  and  they  had 
no  occasion  to  try  to  discriminate  in  their  reminiscences  between 
what  was  merely  local  and  what  was  merely  collegiate.  Many  more 
had  married  their  wives  from  the  valley  and  its  hillsides,  and  they 
came  of  course  with  joy,  bringing  their  sheaves  with  them.  Many 
of  the  returning  alumni  had  never  before  seen  Professor  Hopkins's 
astronomical  and  magnetic  observatories,  and  the  new  East  and 
South  Colleges,  though  lower,  made  a  more  cheerful  impression  than 
the  grim  fortress  of  1797,  although  there  were  some  there  who 
mourned  over  the  loss  in  the  landscape  of  the  familiar  home  of  their 
college  days.  On  the  whole,  the  returning  pilgrims  brought  more 
joy  and  hope  with  them  than  they  found  entertained  upon  the 
ground  itself. 

It  is  difficult,  or  rather  impossible,  for  us  moderns  to  comprehend 
the  degree  of  discouragement  that  the  burning  of  East  College  had 
brought  to  those  having  the  College  in  hand.  The  new  buildings 
were  indeed  erected  and  finished,  but  there  was  a  debt  on  them  of 
several  thousand  dollars.  Treasurer  Dewey  always  put  his  new 
college  buildings  (he  built  five  of  them)  down  upon  the  solid  lime- 
stone, where  he  wished  them  to  stand  firm,  and  where  they  do  stand 
firm  to-day ;  he  did  not  like  debts  resting  upon  himself  as  treasurer, 
or  upon  his  buildings  so  soundly  based  otherwise;  he  was  brother- 
in-law  to  the  president,  and  undoubtedly  communicated  to  him 
something  of  his  own  impatience  and  discomfort  from  this  source ; 
and  it  was  agreed  beforehand  to  renew  at  the  semi-centennial  the 
effort  of  the  year  before  on  a  broader  scale.  A  few  months  before 
the  anniversary  the  treasurer  wrote :  "  We  have  as  yet  obtained  only 


TOWN    AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       537 

eight  or  nine  thousand  dollars.  We  must  raise  it  to  fifteen  thousand 
dollars  to  put  us  in  as  good  condition  as  before  the  fire.  This  sum 
we  cannot  get  along  without."  The  alumni  passed  a  resolution  re- 
questing "  the  trustees  to  make  an  appeal  to  the  public  to  contribute 
to  relieve  the  College  from  its  present  debt."  The  case  was  indeed 
hard  and  dispiriting.  The  total  amount  of  productive  funds  on  that 
anniversary  day  fell  below  $30,000.  The  interest  account  for  the 
year  then  ended  scarcely  reached  $1800.  The  combined  salaries 
paid  that  year  to  the  president  and  six  professors  and  the  tutor 
amounted  to  but  $5150,  — an  average  of  $645  each.  The  president 
had  $1100;  a  full  professor,  that  is,  one  employed  all  the  year  round, 
had  $700.  Two  of  the  professors  were  not  employed  all  the  year 
round. 

But  the  summons  for  the  gathering  of  the  clans  had  gone  out  in 
cheerful  tones  from  the  Society  of  the  Alumni,  that  body  which, 
from  1821,  had  been  the  outer  voice  of  the  College,  its  main  and 
constant  stay  and  support.  The  organized  alumni  took  the  initia- 
tive, took  the  direction,  and  controlled  the  spirit  of  the  semi-cen- 
tennial. They  did  not  send  delegates  to  this  festival,  they  came  up 
themselves.  Forty-eight  classes  had  then  been  graduated,  1039 
alumni  in  the  aggregate,  an  average  of  nearly  22  in  each  class.  Of 
this  aggregate  217  were  then  known  to  have  died,  leaving  822  sup- 
posed to  be  living.  Of  these,  five  certainly,  namely,  Jonas  King 
and  William  Richards  and  Henry  E.  Hoisington  and  Simeon  H. 
Calhoun  and  Dwight  W.  Marsh,  were  then  living  missionaries  in 
foreign  lands ;  and  five,  namely,  Mills,  Rice,  Hall,  James  Richards, 
and  William  Hervey  were  of  the  dead.  The  last  three  had  died 
missionaries  in  India.  Very  much  scattered  over  the  country  were 
the  mass  of  the  living  alumni  in  1843,  and  Williamstown  was  then 
very  inaccessible.  Nevertheless,  it  is  certain  that  fully  one-third 
of  these  came  up  to  the  feast.  They  came  because  they  wanted  to 
come.  They  came  because  they  felt  they  had  been  dealt  with  fairly 
and  openly  and  kindly  by  the  college  and  by  the  town.  The  society 
procured  a  book,  in  which  the  alumni  present  inscribed  their  names 
by  classes,  with  the  express  stipulation  that  the  book  be  preserved 
and  presented  at  the  centennial  in  1893.  This  book  disappeared 
long  before  the  destined  time  of  future  presentment,  but  the  signers 
under  the  first  eighteen  classes  are  known.  Only  1795  and  1797 
and  1809  were  without  a  present  witness  in  1843.  Thomas  Robbins, 
who  made  one  of  the  two  formal  addresses,  represented  1796;  Wil- 
liam P.  Walker,  1798;  Samuel  Fisher  and  William  Patrick,  1799; 
Jared  Curtis  and  Caleb  Knight  and  John  Dickinson,  1800;  Oliver 


538  W1LLIAMSTOWK    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

B.  Morris,  1801;  Henry  H.  Childs  and  James  W.  Eobbins,  1802; 
David  Buttolph  and  J.  W.  Canning  and  Phineas  Cooke  and  Jacob 
Ten  Eyck,  1803;  Barnabas  King,  1804;  David  Buel,  1805;  Samuel 
E.  Betts  and  Chester  Dewey  and  Thomas  A.  Gold,  1806;  John  Nel- 
son and  James  Stebbins,  1807 ;  Joseph  Boies  and  Noah  Ely  and  F. 
L.  Eobbins,  1808;  Justin  Edwards  and  Daniel  Kellogg,  1810; 
Charles  A.  Dewey  and  Eben  L.  Clark,  1811.  Calvin  Durfee,  of 
the  class  of  1825,  who  was  present  at  this  anniversary,  says  of  it : 
"  This  occasion  brought  together  a  great  number  of  graduates  (prob- 
ably not  far  from  three  hundred),  and  with  them  a  large  crowd  of 
interested  spectators." 

It  so  chanced  that  the  state  of  political  feeling  in  Massachusetts 
in  1843  helped  to  make  more  hilarious  the  exercises  of  the  semi- 
centennial. Marcus  Morton  was  then  the  governor  of  the  State,  a 
graduate  of  Brown  in  1804,  a  man  of  high  character  and  of  strict 
adhesion  to  his  political  principles,  which  were  those  of  a  liberty- 
loving  Democrat  of  Jefferson's  school.  He  was  a  distinguished 
lawyer  and  pleader,  had  been  for  two  terms  a  member  of  Congress, 
1817-21,  for  fourteen  years  a  judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Massa- 
chusetts, 1825-39,  and  was  elected  governor  of  the  State  in  1840 
over  Edward  Everett  by  one  vote  in  the  famously  vivacious  Har- 
rison campaign  of  that  year.  The  universal  disappointments  follow- 
ing that  national  election,  the  hard  times  ensuing,  the  inevitable 
and  demonstrated  inability  of  so-called  "  protective  "  tariff -taxes  to 
relieve  the  industrial  condition  of  the  people  (as  these  were  set  up 
again  in  the  tariff  of  1842),  caused  such  a  reaction  against  the 
Whig  party  in  Massachusetts,  that  Morton  was  elected  governor 
again  the  next  year  by  a  handsome  majority.  He  felt  well  over  it. 
The  people  of  Berkshire  County  felt  well  over  it.  Henry  H.  Childs 
of  Pittsrield,  Williams  College  1802,  was  chosen  lieutenant-governor 
on  the  same  ticket.  The  governor  of  the  State  had  not  then  been 
accustomed  to  attend  the  Commencements  at  Williams  town,  and 
there  was  a  great  local  curiosity  to  see  and  hear  him.  Coming  up 
by  way  of  Pittsfield  he  was  publicly  welcomed  there;  and,  joined 
by  Lieutenant-Governor  Childs  and  other  distinguished  gentlemen, 
the  party  proceeded  to  North  Adams;  and  thence  was  escorted  to 
Williamstown  by  a  band  of  music,  a  cavalcade  of  gentlemen  on 
horseback,  and  a  long  train  of  carriages.  Never  had  the  like  been 
seen  in  northern  Berkshire,  and  nothing  like  it  has  been  witnessed 
since.  It  was  no  privileged  few  honoring  and  being  honored,  it 
was  a  popular  demonstration  in  the  best  and  heartiest  sense  of  that 
phrase.  Governor  Morton  was  entertained  by  the  president  at  the 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL    THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.        539 

president's  house.  Every  college  building,  and  every  house  in  the 
village,  both  public  and  private,  were  crowded  to  excess. 

Agreeably  to  public  notice  widely  circulated,  although  no  dele- 
gates from  other  colleges  and  no  non-graduates  had  been  specially 
invited,  on  Wednesday  morning,  August  16,  the  alumni  gathered  in 
the  Griffin  Chapel  at  8  o'clock  to  celebrate  their  own  semi-centen- 
nial. "I  remember,"  said  an  eye-witness  fifty  years  afterward, 
"as  the  alumni  were  gathering  on  Wednesday  morning,  Hon.  Daniel 
Kellogg  was  walking  up,  when  a  friend  accosted  him,  'Why,  Kel- 
logg, did  you  graduate  here? '  'That  I  did,  sir,'  he  replied,  with  an 
emphatic  thump  of  the  cane  and  a  kindling  of  the  eyes  that  even 
now  flashes  on  my  memory.  My  dim  reminiscences  can  give  no  im- 
pression of  the  joyous  enthusiasm  with  which  the  alumni  recounted 
the  history  and  looked  forward  to  the  future  of  the  College."  David 
A.  Wells,  who  was  probably  present  as  an  entering  Freshman,  and 
at  any  rate  was  graduated  in  1847,  wrote  as  follows  of  this  gathering 
in  his  Senior  year:  "Here  were  assembled  men  of  every  profession, 
—  judges  and  magistrates,  pastors  and  teachers,  —  some  whose  locks 
were  white  with  the  frosts  of  many  winters,  and  others  in  the  full 
strength  of  manhood;  some  of  whom  had  not  pressed  the  hands  of 
their  classmates  or  revisited  the  scenes  of  their  youth  since  the 
parting  of  the  class  on  Commencement  day.  Curious,  painful,  and 
interesting  was  the  recognition  of  venerable  men,  who,  when  life  was 
bright  before  them,  had  left  this  pleasant  valley,  to  return  after  the 
lapse  of  years,  when  the  visions  of  youth  had  departed,  and  the  sober 
realities  of  old  age  had  gathered  around  them.  Delightful  were  the 
congratulations;  a  hurried  review  was  taken  of  the  past;  new  pledges 
of  friendship  were  given  and  received,  while  a  spontaneous  and 
universal,  though  silent  prayer,  went  up  to  Heaven  for  the  long- 
continued  prosperity  and  usefulness  of  their  Alma  Mater." 

The  inscription  of  their  names  by  classes  in  the  book  already 
referred  to,  which  was  the  first  matter  attended  to  in  the  meeting 
after  it  was  called  to  order  by  Judge  0.  B.  Morris,  of  the  class  of 
1801,  the  current  president  of  the  association,  gave  opportunity  for 
these  informal  greetings  and  reunions.  While  this  was  going  on, 
the  president  read  aloud  the  names  as  they  were  inscribed,  and  thus 
all  were  informed  of  the  presence  or  absence  of  any.  The  society 
then  proceeded  to  elect  their  officers  for  the  year.  Judge  S.  E. 
Betts,  of  the  class  of  1806,  was  unanimously  elected  president  for 
the  year  ensuing.  A  vote  was  then  passed  electing  his  Excellency 
Governor  Morton  an  honorary  member  of  the  society;  and  Lieu- 
tenant-Governor  Childs  and  Judge  Betts  were  chosen  a  committee 


540  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

to  repair  to  the  president's  house  (where  he  was  entertained),  and 
inform  his  Excellency  of  his  election,  and  invite  him  to  attend  and 
take  a  seat  on  the  stage.  In  a  few  moments  he  was  escorted  to  the 
platform  amid  vast  applause  and  waving  of  handkerchiefs,  and  took 
his  seat  by  the  side  of  Judge  Morris,  who  had  not  yet  vacated  the 
chair.  Just  at  this  time,  Jared  Curtis,  of  the  class  of  1800,  came 
up  to  the  stage  to  write  his  name  in  the  book.  Curtis  was  a  native 
of  Stockbridge,  own  uncle  of  the  Hopkins  brothers,  two  years  a  tutor 
in  the  College,  and,  subsequently,  for  more  than  thirty  years  a  chap- 
lain in  the  state  prisons,  first,  for  a  brief  time,  in  Auburn,  and  then 
in  Charlestown  for  a  long  time.  He  was  the  first  state  prison 
chaplain  employed  in  this  country,  and  was  extremely  useful  in  his 
self-denying  labors  in  behalf  of  prisoners.  At  this  time  he  was 
sixty-six  years  old,  venerable  and  benignant  in  his  appearance. 
Morris  and  he  had  been  in  college  together  one  year  apart,  and  had 
known  each  other  intimately  afterward.  As  Curtis  was  writing 
his  name,  Morris  gravely  remarked  to  the  audience:  "The  indi- 
vidual who  is  now  writing  his  name  is  Jared  Curtis,  a  native  of 
Stockbridge,  and  belonged  to  the  class  of  1800.  He  is  a  clergy- 
man, and  the  only  alumnus  of  our  College  who  hails  from  the  state 
prison.  And,  inasmuch  as  his  Excellency  the  Governor  is  now 
with  us,  I  would  suggest  whether  this  would  not  be  a  favorable  time 
to  present  a  petition  for  an  unconditional  pardon."  Instantly  rose 
the  Governor  with  these  words  on  his  lips,  "A  pardon  is  impossible 
for  him,  so  long  as  he  continues  his  present  course  of  conduct ! " 
Marcus  Morton,  though  a  Democrat,  conquered  the  alumni  com- 
pletely by  this  single  felicitous  stroke,  and  made  easy  for  himself 
another  sweeping  victory  in  the  afternoon  by  his  facetious  and 
admirable  talk. 

On  the  adjournment  of  the  society  to  the  meeting-house,  a  proces- 
sion was  formed  in  front  of  the  chapel  in  the  following  order: 
graduates  of  this  and  other  colleges  in  the  order  of  their  graduation ; 
trustees  and  faculty  of  the  College ;  strangers  and  undergraduates, 
—  and  all  marched  to  the  meeting-house,  which  was  filled  to  over- 
flowing. Here  two  memorable  public  addresses  were  given,  the 
first  by  Mark  Hopkins,  of  the  class  of  1824,  and  the  other  by  Thomas 
Robbins,  of  the  class  of  1796.  Hopkins  was  then  forty-one  years 
old,  in  the  full  vigor  of  his  early  prime.  An  eye-  and  ear-witness 
long  afterward  spoke  of  his  "  bald  forehead  and  scholarly  stoop  "  as 
giving  "him  an  older  look."  The  surroundings  were  beyond  meas- 
ure inspiring,  his  own  sense  of  rightful  responsibility  and  of  being 
master  of  the  situation  was  contagious,  and  he  spoke  with  unprece- 


TOWN    AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       541 

dented  energy  and  feeling.  This  is  the  testimony  of  all  who  heard 
him;  and  it  is  the  testimony  of  some  well-qualified  judges,  who 
heard  all  of  his  later  masterly  efforts,  which  alone  could  come  into 
competition  with  this,  namely,  some  two  or  three  of  the  baccala,u- 
reate  sermons,  that  even  these  did  not  surpass  that  in  beauty  of 
expression  and  eloquence  of  utterance  and  sustained  power  of  argu- 
mentation. Professor  Spring,  a  competent  and  elegant  critic,  wrote 
in  1893 :  "  Some  of  the  baccalaureates  may  surpass  the  semi-centen- 
nial address  in  weight  and  originality  of  thought,  in  reach  and 
thoroughness  of  discussion,  but  none  of  them  excel  it  and  few  equal 
it,  in  felicity  and  nobility  of  utterance,  in  vital  sympathy  between 
speaker  and  subject." 

The  writer  feels  it  incumbent  on  him,  as  a  historian  of  the  town 
and  the  college,  to  put  into  the  pages  of  the  present  book,  which  he 
hopes  may  survive  to  the  second  centennial,  a  few  paragraphs  from 
the  introduction,  body,  and  peroration  of  this  semi-centennial 
address  of  1843. 

BRETHREN  ALUMNI  : 

It  is  my  first,  and  most  pleasing  duty,  to  bid  you  welcome  to  this  spot.  I  do 
it  with  a  full  heart.  I  do  it  personally,  as  an  Alumnus  of  this  institution  to  his 
brethren  Alumni.  I  do  it  feelingly,  as  holding  a  position  in  which  I  need  your 
sympathy  and  approbation ;  in  which,  aside  from  those  high  moral  considera- 
tions which,  I  trust,  will  always  be  paramount,  I  find  in  that  sympathy  my  best 
encouragement  to  labor ;  in  that  approbation,  my  highest  reward.  I  do  it  as 
gladdened  and  strengthened  by  your  presence  ;  for  few  as  have  been  the  difficul- 
ties I  have  been  called  to  encounter,  they  have  yet  been  enough  to  make  one  feel 
how  like  the  sunshine  after  clouds  is  the  presence  of  so  many  here  to-day,  come 
up  to  manifest  their  continued  attachment  to  the  cause  of  sound  learning,  their 
interest  in  each  other,  and  in  the  prosperity  of  this  Institution.  Men  of  earlier 
times,  to  whom  I  have  been  accustomed  to  look  up  with  reverence ;  men  in 
active  life,  who  have  left  your  business  and  your  cares  to  join  in  these  glad 
scenes  ;  and  you,  younger  men,  who  have  gone  out  with  my  own  instructions 
and  parting  blessing,  it  is  with  emotions  which  I  cannot  express  that  I  welcome 
you  all. 

But  it  is  not  in  my  name  only,  or  chiefly,  that  I  bid  you  welcome.  It  is  in 
the  name  of  our  venerable  Alma  Mater.  With  her  you  have  sympathized  in  her 
prosperity,  and  in  her  adversity.  When  she  has  been  in  poverty  and  distress, 
when  she  has  been  opposed  and  misrepresented  by  ignorance  and  prejudice  and 
faction,  when  flames  have  swept  over  her,  she  has  still  heard  your  voice  of  en- 
couragement, and  has  been  sustained  by  your  generous  aid.  In  your  hearts, 
far  rather  than  in  buildings  and  in  apparatus,  she  has  hitherto  had,  and  still  has, 
her  best  and  her  highest  life.  In  her  name,  then,  I  bid  you  welcome  to  her 
quiet  seats,  to  this  green  spot  in  the  memory  of  the  past,  to  these  familiar 
scenes,  these  remembered  walks,  to  the  sound  of  that  bell,  not  unwelcome 
now,  to  these  circling  and  unchanged  mountains,  to  this  scenery  unsurpassed. 


542  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

Especially  do  I  bid  you  welcome  to  the  fellowship  of  this  literary  festival,  where, 
with  our  congratulations  in  view  of  the  progress  and  success  of  fifty  years,  we 
may  mingle  our  hopes  of  a  brighter  future. 

Fifty  years !  What  changes  do  these  words  suggest !  Some  of  them  occurring 
in  those  ordinary  and  ever-repeated  movements  of  nature  which  return  upon 
themselves,  and  some  in  that  onward  march  of  things  which  is  made  known  only 
as  the  scroll  of  Divine  Providence  is  unrolled.  Fifty  years  !  So  many  times  has 
the  verdure  of  spring  been  seen  to  brighten  this  valley,  and  to  creep  up  the  sides 
of  these  mountains  ;  and  so  many  times  have  their  tops  slept  in  the  sunlight  of 
the  summer  noon  ;  so  many  times  have  they  put  on  the  gorgeous  robes  of  autumn, 
and  been  swept  bare  and  rested  in  the  embrace  of  winter.  These  changes  have 
passed  upon  them,  but  they  are  still  the  same.  Not  so  those  who  have  looked 
upon  them.  Of  those  who  were  in  active  life  at  the  commencement  of  this  period, 
few,  if  any,  remain.  He  that  was  then  an  infant  clinging  to  his  mother's  bosom, 
is  now  a  man  with  gray  hairs  upon  him,  and  with  his  children  grown  up  around 
him.  In  the  meantime,  with  the  regularity  of  the  seasons,  there  has  come  the 
Senior  Examinations,  and  then  the  Commencement,  with  its  greetings,  and  part- 
ings, and  wide  dispersion  ;  with  its  gathered  crowd,  that  has  come  in  like  the 
rush  of  the  brook  after  a  shower,  and  has  again  dispersed,  leaving  these  streets 
solitary  and  quiet.  During  this  time  more  than  a  thousand  young  men  have 
received  the  honors  of  this  Institution.  Here  they  have  been  agitated  with  the 
hopes  and  fears,' and  have  shared  the  pleasures  and  perils,  of  this  miniature  world. 
From  this  retreat  they  have  looked  out  upon  the  ocean  they  were  to  sail,  and 
have  gathered  strength  and  skill  for  the  voyage.  Ah  !  who  can  tell  how  many 
anxious  thoughts,  how  many  hopes  and  fears  of  parents,  how  many  fervent 
prayers  have  clustered  round  and  ascended  for  all  these  !  During  this  time,  too, 
the  heads  of  the  three  venerable  men  who  have  presided  over  the  institution 
have  been  laid  low.  Fitch,  and  Moore,  and  Griffin,  whose  voices  have  so  often 
been  heard  in  this  place,  and  were  once  so  familiar  to  many  of  you,  where  are 
they! 

Such  have  been  the  changes  in  this  valley.  Need  I  refer  to  those  that  have 
passed  upon  the  great  theatre  of  the  world  ?  It  was  often  said  by  Dr.  Griffin, 
that  this  college  came  into  being  at  the  commencement  of  a  new  era.  It  was 
just  then  that  the  smoke  and  the  lava  of  the  French  Revolution  began  to  be 
thrown  up,  and  that  the  shocks  of  that  great  moral  earthquake  began  to  be  felt 
among  the  nations.  Infidelity,  having  gained  the  ascendancy  in  France,  was 
then  mustering  and  concentrating  her  forces,  and  was  sending  out  her  emissaries 
to  convert  the  nations,  and  Anarchy  and  Bloodshed  were  following  in  her  train. 
These  events  alone  have  marked  the  period  as  an  era  among  historians,  and  have 
caused  it  to  be  regarded  by  the  interpreters  of  prophecy  as  the  opening  of  a  new 
seal.  But  besides  these,  it  was  the  same  year  that  Carey  and  his  associates  were 
ordained  to  the  great  work  of  modern  missions,  and  that  the  angel  having  the 
everlasting  gospel  to  preach  among  the  benighted  nations  of  the  East,  began  his 
flight.  This  was  the  commencement  of  a  movement  far  more  important  than 
the  French  Revolution.  It  was  as  the  invention  of  the  art  of  printing  to  the 
effects  of  a  battle.  It  was  a  moral  movement,  embracing  in  itself  not  only 
moral,  but  political  revolutions,  which  are  to  be  accomplished,  not  by  blood,  but 
by  the  noiseless  and  irresistible  progress  of  truth  and  love.  In  the  same  year, 
too,  commenced  that  series  of  revivals  of  religion  in  this  country,  which  has 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE    TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       543 

never  since  entirely  ceased,  in  connection  with  which  this  college  has  been  so 
largely  blessed,  and  in  consequence  of  which  alone,  it  has  been  sustained. 

Coming  into  being  at  such  an  era,  its  first  half  century  could  not  but  be  event- 
ful in  the  history  of  the  race.  Perhaps  no  fifty  years  since  the  world  began  has 
been  more  so.  And  in  connection  with  the  great  events  that  have  taken  place, 
the  human  mind  has  been  thoroughly  agitated  and  aroused.  Every  institution 
has  been  scrutinized,  every  opinion  has  been  tested,  and  certain  great  truths, 
with  reference  to  civil  and  religious  liberty,  have,  as  we  trust,  become  so  firmly 
established  that  they  cannot  be  shaken.  It  has  been  the  era  of  the  application 
of  science  to  the  arts,  and  of  the  extension  of  the  dominion  of  man  over  physical 
nature.  If  man  had  been  endowed  with  the  strength  of  a  giant,  and  with  the 
wings  of  an  eagle,  the  gift  would  hardly  have  been  greater.  It  has  been  the  era 
of  the  extension  of  liberty,  and  of  the  diffusion  of  knowledge  among  the  masses 
—  not  merely  an  era  of  change,  but  also  decidedly  an  era  of  progress. 

And  this  leads  me  to  the  topic  to  which  I  propose  to  call  your  attention  on  the 
present  occasion.  I  propose  to  make  some  remarks  and  inquiries  respecting  what 
has  been  called  the  law  of  progress  of  the  race,  and  then  to  say  something  of  the 
connection  of  this  college  with  that  progress. 

Probably  the  alumni  of  no  college  in  the  Union  are  more  scattered  than  ours, 
composed,  as  they  have  so  largely  been,  of  those  who  have  had  their  own  way  to 
make  in  life.  As  I  have  already  said,  more  than  one  thousand  young  men  have 
completed  their  course  of  study  here,  and  of  these  more  than  one-third  have 
been  or  will  be  ministers  of  the  gospel.  Many  of  these,  too,  would  never  have 
been  educated  —  I  have  no  reason  to  suppose  I  should  myself  have  been  —  if  it 
had  not  been  for  Williams  College.  Embosomed  among  these  mountains,  it  has 
exerted  a  suggestive  power,  and  called  out  many  such  men  as  become  most  use- 
ful when  educated.  They  have  come  from  the  yeomanry  of  the  country,  from 
the  plough  and  the  workshop,  with  clear  heads,  and  firm  nerves,  and  industrious 
habits,  and  unperverted  tastes  —  in  need,  it  may  be,  of  polish,  but  susceptible  of 
the  highest.  They  have  come  because  they  felt  high  impulses  struggling  within 
them,  and  they  have  made  their  own  way.  Such  men  we  welcome.  They 
become,  intellectually,  the  working-men  of  the  land  —  energetic  practical  men, 
whose  influence  has  been  and  is  extensively  felt  in  the  benevolent  operations  of 
the  day.  It  is  probably  by  bringing  forward  such  men,  as  teachers,  as  minis- 
ters, as  practical  men  in  all  the  professions,  and  diffusing  in  society  the  leaven 
of  their  influence,  indispensable  in  institutions  like  ours,  that  this  college  has 
done  most  good. 

But  if  our  number  had  been  smaller,  and  we  had  done  less  by  that  general 
influence  that  belongs  to  all  literary  institutions,  it  might  still  be  presumptuous 
to  speak  of  what  we  had  done  on  so  broad  a  field.  In  some  respects  the  progress 
of  knowledge  and  improvement  is  like  the  gradual  accumulation  of  a  pile  to 
which  every  scholar  may  be  expected  to  add  something,  —  as  every  Indian  is 
said  to  have  laid  a  stone  upon  the  pile  at  the  foot  of  Monument  Mountain,  — 
but  in  other  respects  it  is  more  like  the  progress  of  fire  which  is  set  at  certain 
points,  and  spreads  on  every  side.  Luther,  and  Bacon,  and  Newton,  and  Carey, 
and  Samuel  J.  Mills,  set  fires,  and  he  who  does  this  to  any  extent  does  some- 
thing for  the  race,  even  though  that  which  kindled  the  blaze  was  but  a  spark, 
and  was  lost  in  the  brightness  and  glow  of  the  succeeding  conflagration.  The 


544  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

brightest  history  of  an  institution  is  to  be  found  in  what  it  has  done  in  setting 
such  fires. 

And  here  I  cannot  fail  to  be  reminded  by  the  position  in  which  I  stand,  sur- 
rounded by  its  genial  light  and  warmth,  of  one  such  fire.  So  far  as  I  know,  the 
Society  of  the  Alumni  of  Williams  College  was  the  first  association  of  the  kind  in 
this  country,  certainly  the  first  which  acted  efficiently,  and  called  forth  literary 
addresses.  It  was  formed  September  5th,  1821,  and  the  preamble  to  the  con- 
stitution then  adopted  was  as  follows:  "For  the  promotion  of  literature  and 
good-fellowship  among  ourselves,  and  the  better  to  advance  the  reputation  and 
interests  of  our  Alma  Mater,  we,  the  subscribers,  graduates  of  Williams  College, 
form  ourselves  into  a  Society."  The  first  president  was  Dr.  Asa  Burbank. 
The  first  orator  elected  was  the  Hon.  Elijah  Hunt  Mills,  a  distinguished  Senator 
of  the  United  States.  That  appointment  was  not  fulfilled.  The  first  oration 
was  deliver  in  1823,  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Woodbridge,  now  of  Hadley,  and  was  well 
worthy  of  the  occasion  ;  and  since  that  time  the  annual  oration  before  the  Alumni 
has  seldom  failed.  In  1832  a  measure  was  adopted  by  this  Society  of  great  impor- 
tance to  the  college.  It  is  scarcely  credible  how  meagre  the  philosophical  and 
chemical  apparatus  then  was,  and  it  was  voted  that  this  Society  would  attempt 
to  raise  for  the  benefit  of  those  departments  the  sum  of  $4000,  by  subscriptions 
of  the  Alumni  and  other  friends  of  the  college.  The  effect  of  this,  faithfully 
applied  as  it  was  to  the  direct  means  of  instruction,  has,  I  know,  been  felt  from 
that  time  to  this,  in  every  beating  pulse  of  the  institution.  Since  this  Society 
was  formed,  the  example  has  been  followed  in  other  institutions,  and  bids  fair  to 
extend  to  them  all.  Last  year,  for  the  first  time,  the  voice  of  an  Alumnus  orator 
was  heard  at  Harvard  and  at  Yale  ;  and  one  of  these  associations,  I  know,  sprang 
directly  from  ours.  It  is  but  three  years  since  a  venerable  man  attended  the 
meeting  of  our  Alumni,  one  of  those  that  have  been  so  full  of  interest,  and  he 
said  he  should  go  directly  home  and  have  such  an  association  formed  at  the 
commencement  of  his  Alma  Mater,  then  about  to  occur.  He  did  so.  That  asso- 
ciation was  formed,  and  the  last  year  the  voice  of  one  of  the  first  scholars  and 
jurists  of  the  nation  was  heard  before  them.  The  present  year  the  Alumni  of 
Dartmouth  were  addressed  for  the  first  time,  and  the  doctrine  of  Progress  was 
illustrated  by  the  distinguished  speaker  in  more  senses  than  one.1  Who  can  tell 
how  great  the  influence  of  such  associations  may  become  in  cherishing  kind  feel- 
ings, in  fostering  literature,  in  calling  out  talent,  in  leading  men  to  act,  not  sel- 
fishly, but  more  efficiently,  for  the  general  cause  through  particular  institutions  ? 

Another  important  idea  originated  here  is  that  embodied  in  the  Horticultural 
and  Landscape  Gardening  Association,  the  results  of  which  are  seen  in  the  col- 
lege garden,  and  in  the  garden  around  the  observatory.  With  slight  exceptions, 
the  whole  labor  bestowed  upon  these,  from  the  first,  and  its  amount  is  greater 
than  most  would  suppose,  has  been  done  by  the  students.  The  object  has  not 
been  profit,  but  the  promotion  of  health  and  of  a  taste  for  the  beautiful,  and  the 
effect  has  been  most  happy  upon  health  and  cheerfulness,  and  upon  the  emotive 
nature.  Perhaps  it  does  as  much  as  can  be  done  in  remedying  that  evil  of  col- 
lege life,  the  want  of  a  domestic  and  home  influence.  It  shows  that  students 
can  make  of  college  just  what  they  choose  —  that  they  can  make  it  a  home  of 
peace,  and  connect  with  it  associations  of  beauty  and  moral  purity,  a  place  full 

1Hon.  Levi  Woodbury,  whose  subject  was  "Progress." 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       545 

of  unspeakable  interest  to  parents  and  friends,  and  to  those  who  have  the  over- 
sight of  it.  When  standing  in  the  midst  of  beauty  thus  created,  my  mind  has 
often  been  led  on  to  the  conception  of  a  higher  beauty  than  that  of  flowers  and 
mountains,  and  I  have  had  a  vision  of  what  a  college  might  be.  I  do  not  know 
that  our  example  in  this  respect  has  been  followed  by  other  colleges  —  in  some 
it  could  not  be  —  but  I  know  of  several  academies  which  are  now  surrounded  by 
tasteful  grounds  in  consequence  of  what  has  been  done  here.  I  hardly  know  of 
an  idea  with  which  the  young  people  of  this  land  more  need  to  be  imbued,  than 
that  which  lies  at  the  basis  of  this  association. 

Another  thing  which  I  may  properly  notice  here,  is  the  fact  that  to  this  col- 
lege belongs  the  honor  of  having  erected  the  first  Astronomical  Observatory  on 
this  continent.  This  was  commenced  at  a  period  of  great  apathy  on  the  subject, 
but  since  then  the  interest  has  become  extensive  and  intense.  Nor  was  this 
building  erected  as  a  single  isolated  undertaking.  It  was  one  mode  of  realizing 
an  idea  that  had  been  adopted  in  regard  to  all  education  respecting  sensible 
objects,  which  is  that  we  are  not  so  much  to  talk  about  a  thing,  as  to  show 
it.  You  may  tell  me  that  the  stone  you  hold  in  your  hand  is  petrified  wood,  and 
I  may  believe  it ;  but  let  me  see,  by  a  microscope,  the  porous  structure  and  the 
layers  still  remaining,  and  I  have  an  impression  that  I  could  have  got  in  no 
other  way.  You  may  tell  me  of  the  magnitude  and  motion  of  the  planets  ;  but 
let  me  see  them  hanging  in  space,  and  passing  rapidly  through  the  field  of  a  large 
telescope,  or  let  me  turn  that  same  telescope  upon  one  of  the  nebulae,  or  into  the 
depths  of  infinite  space,  and  it  is  quite  another  thing  to  me.  The  idea  is 'that 
the  teacher  is  to  make  nature  the  principal,  and,  as  far  as  possible,  is  to  let  her 
do  her  own  teaching.  In  pursuance  of  this  idea,  the  Magnetic  Observatory  has 
been  built,  very  efficient  Meteorological  and  Natural  History  Associations  have 
been  formed,  and  scientific  expeditions  and  pedestrian  tours  have  been  several 
times  undertaken.  The  direct  object  was  not  so  much  the  extension  of  science, 
as  to  convey  a  more  accurate  impression  of  the  universe  as  now  known,  and  to 
promote  habits  of  observation.  Have  the  means  and  apparatus  to  do  this  fully, 
and  your  course  loses  the  character  of  mere  book-learning.  The  student  is  led 
to  direct  communion  with  nature,  and  with  nature's  God,  and  though  you  do 
not  advance  science  immediately,  yet  you  kindle  fires.  You  incorporate  your 
course  into  the  very  being.  You  awake  thoughts  and  feelings  "  that  shall  perish 
never."  Such  is  the  idea  which  we  have  attempted  to  realize  in  the  teaching  of 
physical  science,  which  we  have  realized  as  far  as  our  means  would  permit,  and 
of  which  the  Observatory  was  but  a  single  result.  And  here  I  cannot  omit  to 
mention,  as  connected  with  our  facilities  in  this  department,  the  donation  dur- 
ing the  past  season  by  Prof.  Emmons,  of  a  complete  suit  of  the  New  York  min- 
erals and  rocks,  a  gift  of  great  importance,  connected  as  those  rocks  are  with  the 
general  science,  and  one  worthy  of  the  munificence  of  a  State. 

I  will  mention  one  idea  more,  indigenous  here,  as  it  must  have  been  else- 
where, which  we  have  of  late  attempted  to  realize.  It  is  that  of  making  the 
college  studies  have  the  impression  and  effect  of  a  system  on  the  mind  of  the 
student.  Laying  the  power  of  expression,  whether  by  writing  or  speaking,  out 
of  the  question,  we  divide  our  course  into  the  Languages,  Mathematics,  Physi- 
cal Science,  and  Man,  as  he  is  in  himself,  and  in  his  relations  to  his  fellow- 
creatures,  and  to  God.  Pursuing  Mathematics  and  the  Languages  in  the  usual 
way,  and  Physical  Science  in  the  manner  just  spoken  of,  we  take  up  first  the 


546  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

physical  man,  and  endeavor  to  give,  as  by  the  aid  of  the  valuable  preparation  of 
Auzoux l  we  are  able  to  do,  an  idea  of  every  organ  and  tissue  of  the  body.  We 
then  take  the  intellectual  man,  and  investigate  first  and  classify  his  several 
faculties ;  then  the  grounds  of  belief  and  the  processes  of  the  mind  in  the  pur- 
suit of  truth,  with  an  explanation  of  the  inductive  and  the  deductive  logic  ; 
then  the  moral  nature,  together  with  individual  and  political  morality,  com- 
prising a  knowledge  of  constitutional  history  and  of  the  rights  and  duties  of 
American  citizens  ;  then  the  emotive  nature,  as  taste  and  the  principles  of  the 
fine  arts  ;  then  natural  theology  and  the  analogy  of  the  natural  to  the  moral 
government  of  God.  Perhaps  other  and  better  systems  have  been  adopted  else- 
where ;  but  I  know  that  formerly  here,  the  studies  were  pursued  as  separate  and 
isolated,  and  there  is  reason  to  suppose  that  the  idea  of  the  system,  of  the  com- 
munication of  one  grand  organized  body  of  knowledge,  answering  in  unity  as 
well  as  in  diversity  to  the  universe  of  God,  is  too  little  regarded. 

And  now,  as  half  a  century  has  rolled  away,  and  this  college,  notwithstanding 
its  struggles,  has  accomplished  so  much,  we  cannot  help  anticipating  for  it  a  high 
career  of  usefulness  for  the  half  century  to  come.  We  cannot  but  hope  that 
those  who  shall  be  gathered  here  fifty  years  hence,  shall  have  far  higher  occa- 
sion to  rejoice  in  what  this  Institution  has  done  for  the  good  of  the  church  and 
of  the  world.  Why  should  it  not  be  ?  The  great  difficulty  of  former  times,  a 
want  of  facility  of  access,  is  now  removed.  Probably  a  greater  proximity  of 
railroads  would  not  benefit  the  college.  We  are  removed,  comparatively,  from 
temptation.  We  are  not  only  in  a  beautiful,  but  healthy  region.  I  think  it  is 
remarkable,  and  I  mention  it  with  gratitude,  that  since  I  have  been  at  the  head 
of  the  college,  not  a  student  has  sickened  and  died  on  this  ground,  and  with  the 
exception  of  a  single  case  of  consumption,  there  has  been  no  instance  of  the 
death  of  any  one  connected  with  us.  We  are  indeed  still  embarrassed  from 
the  loss  of  that  building  where  so  many  of  us  have  roomed  and  studied.  But 
ample  accommodations  have  risen  in  its  place.  And  here  I  will  say,  that  severe 
as  was  that  loss,  dark  as  was  that  hour,  yet  the  college  never  gave  indications  of 
a  higher  vitality  than  when  those  ruins  were  yet  smoking.  And  when  I  saw  a 
full  and  prompt  meeting  of  the  Board  of  Trustees,  when  I  saw  every  student, 
without  exception,  standing  by  the  college,  often  at  great  inconvenience,  when 
I  saw  the  spirit  of  accommodation  among  this  people,  when  I  heard  an  excellent 
woman,  who  has  done  more  good  than  the  world  knows  of,  tell  me  not  to  be 
discouraged,  at  the  same  time  subscribing  a  thousand  dollars,  I  knew  the  cloud 
would  pass  over.  It  will  pass  over.  To  this  place  now  as  a  site  for  a  college, 
I  know  of  but  one  objection,  and  that  perhaps  necessarily  connected  with  the 
peculiar  retirement  and  quiet  it  enjoys.  From  its  position  in  the  county  and  in 
the  State  it  can  have  but  little  local  sympathy,  and  it  is  remote  from  the  obser- 
vations and  sympathies  of  men  of  wealth,  who  often  take  a  pleasure  and  a  pride 
in  doing  something  for  our  institutions  of  learning.  Accordingly,  no  halls  have 
risen  here  by  private  munificence,  no  professorships  have  been  endowed.  Hence, 
with  the  exception  of  the  Woodbridge  Little  Fund,  amounting  to  something  over 

1  The  reference  is  to  the  manikin,  which  was  purchased  by  Hopkins  to  illustrate 
his  college  lectures  on  anatomy,  and  which  was  paid  for  by  means  of  public  lec- 
tures given  by  him  in  the  chief  towns  of  the  county,  using  the  model  in  the  way  of 
illustration. 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       547 

$5,000,  and  two  bequests  of  $1,000  each,  the  whole  income  of  all  which  goes  to 
pay  tuition,  the  college  has  never  received  anything  by  legacy  or  private  gift, 
except  what  has  been  solicited  by  subscription  for  special  purposes.  Hence,  we 
have  often  struggled  for  years,  and  labored  under  great  disadvantages  for  the 
want  of  that  which,  if  they  had  known  it,  I  am  sure  it  would  have  given  hun- 
dreds pleasure  to  supply.  Hence,  while  it  was  found  impossible  in  a  case  of 
great  emergency  and  destruction  by  fire,  to  raise  $2,000  for  this  college,  in  a  city 
justly  celebrated  for  its  liberality,  another  institution  more  favorably  situated 
found  no  difficulty  in  raising  at  the  same  time  fifteen  or  twenty  thousand  dol- 
lars, to  increase  its  already  large  library  ;  and  while  only  $300  could  be  raised 
from  such  sources  when  an  observatory  was  contemplated  here,  there  is  no  diffi- 
culty in  other  quarters  of  obtaining  $20,000  for  the  instruments  of  one.  I  do 
not  say  this  in  the  way  of  complaint.  It  is  natural  it  should  be  so,  and  we  are 
only  the  more  grateful  to  our  friends  for  the  indispensable  aid  they  have  ren- 
dered. Possibly,  as  wealth  increases,  and  the  means  of  communication  are 
greater,  there  may  be  some  change  in  this  respect.  It  may  perhaps  occur  to 
some  one  of  the  many  who  wish  to  do  something  for  the  progress  of  the  human 
mind,  that  such  things,  coming  to  those  who  need  them,  are  far  more  highly 
prized,  and  that  the  name  of  the  benefactor  that  stands  comparatively  alone,  is 
oftener  repeated,  and  more  fondly  remembered.  But  however  this  may  be,  we 
have  no  wish  to  be  rich.  But  we  do  wish  the  means  to  keep  pace  with  the 
times,  in  cabinets,  and  books  and  apparatus,  and  in  the  introduction  of  new 
branches  of  study.  These  means,  by  the  blessing  of  God,  we  hope  to  have. 
Let  the  college  have  these,  and  who  can  estimate  the  good  it  shall  do  in  the 
coining  fifty  years  ?  Who  can  tell  the  gratulations  of  those  who  shall  gather 
here  at  the  end  of  that  time,  and  look  back  upon  its  bright  career? 

Brethren  Alumni,  you  have  come  up  at  the  call  of  your  committee  to  cele- 
brate this  semi-centennial  anniversary.  You  have  come,  but  our  number  is  not 
all  here.  Many,  whose  hearts  are  with  us,  are  detained  by  business,  or  pre- 
vented by  distance ;  but  many,  too,  are  where  no  call  of  ours  could  reach  them. 
Some  rest  beneath  the  soil  of  their  own  New  England  ;  some  beneath  the  prai- 
ries of  the  far  West ;  some  are  with  Mills  in  his  ocean-bed,  and  some  slumber 
with  Hall  and  Richards,  and  my  own  class-mate  and  associate  tutor,  the 
beloved  Hervey,  "on  India's  coral  strand." 

Along  the  earlier  years  of  our  catalogue  the  stars  have  gathered  thickly.  In 
all,  217  are  known  to  have  terminated  their  earthly  career.  And  those  stars 
will  continue  thus  to  gather,  as,  one  by  one,  we  too  go  down  to  the  tomb.  When 
another  half  century  is  past,  and  the  call  shall  go  forth  for  the  Centennial  gath- 
ering, we  shall  not  hear  it.  Possibly,  indeed,  as  we  now  venerate  the  age,  and 
are  to  be  instructed  by  the  wisdom  of  one  who  was  within  one  year  of  the  very 
earliest  of  the  Alumni,  so  those  who  shall  be  gathered  then  may  hear  the  voice 
of  one  whose  words  shall  fall  with  weight,  as  from  the  height  of  these  earlier 
times  —  possibly  they  may  listen  to  one  who  now  hears  me.  But,  long  before 
that  time,  the  most  of  us  will  have  done  what  we  have  to  do  for  the  weal  or  the 
woe  of  man.  The  impressions  which  we  choose  to  make  in  the  yielding  mate- 
rials of  time,  will,  before  that,  have  been  made,  and  have  become  set  in  the 
eternal  adamant  of  the  past.  What  then  remains  to  us,  in  this  period  of  the 
birth-throes  of  coming  wonders,  but  to  meet  our  responsibilities  as  patriots,  as 
scholars,  as  Christians,  as  the  Alumni  of  an  institution  where  the  fire  of  a 


548  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

benevolence  practically  embracing  the  world  was  first  kindled  in  this  country, 
and  upon  whose  altars  that  fire  has  never  gone  out  ?  Let  us  then  throw  our- 
selves upon  the  tide  of  this  great  movement  —  the  advancing  tide  of  Christian 
progress,  which  we  trust  is  to  rise,  and  swell,  and  flow  over  the  earth.  We  are 
here  to-day  to  build  up  no  merely  local  or  sectional  interest.  We  have,  indeed, 
our  personal  feelings,  we  have  associations  dear  to  us,  connected  with  this  spot. 
But  there  are  higher  considerations  than  these,  and  we  would  do  nothing,  and 
ask  nothing  for  this  institution,  except  as  it  may  be,  and  ought  to  be,  in  its 
place,  one  of  the  grand  instrumentalities  through  which  we  can  labor  most 
effectually  for  the  highest  good  of  man.  As  such,  we  cherish  it.  As  such,  we 
commit  it  to  the  guardian  care  of  Him  who  has  hitherto  watched  over  it.  As 
such,  we  hope  to  see  its  influence  expanding  as  a  seat  of  all  liberal  culture,  but 
especially  as  connected  with  the  great  cause  of  Christian  benevolence,  till  those 
plans  and  movements  which  originated  here  shall  be  consummated,  and  they 
shall  not  teach  any  longer  every  man  his  neighbor,  and  every  man  his  brother, 
saying,  Know  the  Lord :  for  all  shall  know  Him,  from  the  least  to  the  greatest. 

Prodigious  according  to  the  measure  of  those  times  was  the  effect 
of  this  semi-centennial  oration  on  those  who  heard  it,  and  also  on 
those  who  read  it  shortly  after  its  delivery.  It  was  sixteen  years 
after  the  delivery  and  printing  of  the  master's  oration  on  "Mys- 
tery," in  1827,  which  proved  to  be  the  first  strong  stroke  as  toward 
the  young  man's  steady  reputation.  Professor  Silliman  happened 
to  be  present  at  that  Commencement,  and  heard  the  oration  on 
"Mystery,"  and  asked  for  a  copy  to  be  printed  in  his  then  widely 
circulated  Journal;  and  it  first  appeared  there  the  next  spring. 
Ten  occasional  discourses,  including  the  inaugural  discourse  of 
1836,  had  been  separately  printed  before  1843,  and  as  many  occa- 
sional sermons  before  1847,  to  all  which  Hopkins  him  elf  makes 
reference  in  the  following  terms  on  their  republication  in  the  latter 
year,  "  They  are  all  either  discourses  or  lectures  prepared  for  spe- 
cific occasions,  and  not  originally  intended  for  the  press;  and  the 
author  would  not  himself  have  so  far  presumed  on  their  permanent 
interest  as  to  hazard  their  republication."  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
none  of  these  delivered  and  printed  in  the  interval  of  time  referred 
to  made  any  special  impression  on  the  public.  They  were  whole- 
some and  luminous  discussions  of  topics  relevant  to  their  respective 
-occasions.  That  was  all. 

But  this  semi-centennial  oration  was  a  sustained  peal  of  thunder. 
It  was  reverberant  and  it  was  powerful.  It  never  could  have  been 
written  but  for  the  discipline  of  the  fire.  It  never  would  have  been 
written  but  for  the  only  half-smothered  indignation  over  the  appar- 
ent indifference  of  the  State  and  of  Boston  and  Cambridge  to  the 
crying  needs  of  a  Massachusetts  college,  which  had  done  its  work 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE    TILL   THE    SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       549 

well  for  fifty  years.  Looked  at  indeed  under  the  light  of  all  the 
facts  and  circumstances,  there  are  phrases  in  the  oration  that  now 
seem  perhaps  unjust  to  the  State.  The  State  had  always  before 
responded  to  every  call  for  money,  in  moderate  sums  to  be  sure, 
but  it  had  responded  and  responded  promptly.  The  money  value  of 
its  gifts  had  amounted  at  that  time  to  over  fifty-three  thousand 
dollars  in  all.  The  aggregate  looks  small,  but  then  the  College  was 
small.  As  compared  with  Cambridge,  which  had  been  sending  out 
its  college  classes  regularly  ever  after  1642,  Williams  seemed  very 
new  indeed.  Four  semi-centennials  down  there  to  only  one  up  here. 
Cambridge  was  close  by,  Williams  was  very  far  off  "  on  the  North 
River  !  "  The  appearance  in  the  lobby  of  the  Legislature  of  a  com- 
mittee of  the  trustees  twenty  years  before  to  enforce  the  petition  of 
that  body  for  leave  to  move  the  College  to  Northampton,  had  made 
a  bad  impression  in  Boston  and  Cambridge,  which  had  only  slowly 
worn  off.  As  Hopkins  admitted,  their  present  indifference  was 
"only  natural."  But  the  courage  and  grit  of  his  peroration,  what 
was  scarcely  less  than  a  note  of  defiance,  had  a  striking  effect  all 
over  the  State,  and  secured  even  in  Boston  and  Cambridge  (as  we 
shall  see  in  the  next  chapter)  a  new  and  stronger  recognition  of  the 
College  and  of  its  present  head  as  now  no  longer  "  borrowing  leave 
to  be." 

Of  a  far  different  character,  on  a  much  lower  plane,  with  more  of 
complaint  in  it  than  of  encouragement,  was  the  oration  on  the  same 
semi-centennial  occasion  of  Thomas  Robbins,  of  the  class  of  1796. 
"Oh!  what  a  falling  off  was  there."  Yet  in  himself  was  Bobbins  a 
distinct  and  interesting  personality.  Representing  the  second  class 
of  the  Williams  graduates,  he  brought  the  word  over  from  the  pre- 
ceding century.  He  brought  over  also  in  his  dress  the  small  clothes 
and  buckles  of  the  Revolutionary  period.  He  was  small  in  person, 
with  a  weazen  face.  He  had  pursued  most  of  his  college  course  at 
Yale,  and  was  regularly  graduated  there  just  one  week  after  he  was 
regularly  graduated  here.  His  name  is  on  both  triennial  catalogues 
alike.  As  was  the  custom  in  those  days  with  candidates  for  the 
ministry,  he  studied  his  profession  with  pastors  in  active  work,  with 
Ephraim  Judson  at  Sheffield  and  Stephen  West  at  Stockbridge  in 
succession.  His  home  was  at  Norfolk  in  Connecticut.  As  a  home 
missionary  in  the  new  towns  of  Vermont  and  New  York  and  Ohio, 
and  in  transiently  supplying  pulpits  in  Massachusetts  and  Connect- 
icut, he  passed  his  time  till  1808,  when  he  settled  down  to  steady 
preaching  for  nineteen  years,  at  what  is  now  South  Windsor,  Con- 
necticut, whose  first  minister  was  Timothy  Edwards,  father  of 


550  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

Jonathan  Edwards.  Here  he  commenced  what  was  really  the  great 
enterprise  of  his  life,  namely,  the  collecting  of  a  private  library, 
which  was  destined  to  become  one  of  the  largest  and  best  of  his 
generation.  The  Connecticut  Historical  Society  exhibits  at  its 
rooms  in  Hartford  what  can  be  accomplished  in  this  way  by  an 
unmarried  country  minister,  without  inherited  property,  and  with 
only  the  ordinary  salary  of  such  men  in  New  England  in  his 
time. 

But  why  was  he  unmarried?  What  can  be  gleaned  from  his  diary 
and  other  sources  about  the  futile  love-affair  with  Miss  Skinner  in 
Williamstown  in  1796,  has  been  related  in  place  on  some  of  the 
earlier  pages  of  this  book.  It  has  been  said  by  another,  "  When  Dr. 
Robbins  commenced  his  professional  life,  the  question  came  dis- 
tinctly before  him,  whether  he  should  surround  himself  with  a 
family  or  a  good  library;  and  he  deliberately  chose  the  library." 
However,  he  may  be  remembered  longer  from  his  diary  than  from 
the  library,  which  is  to  be  kept  intact  and  separate  by  the  Historical 
Society  that  now  owns  it.  The  diary  was  begun  in  Williamstown, 
Jan.  1,  1796,  and  was  continued,  with  very  slight  intermissions 
on  account  of  sickness,  until  the  last  entry,  made  March  6,  1854,  — 
a  period  of  over  fifty-eight  years.  Eobbins  Battell  of  Norfolk, 
a  nephew  of  the  diarist,  and  his  sister  Anna  were  at  the  munificent 
expense  of  printing  in  1886,  in  two  large  and  elegant  volumes,  this 
diary  entire,  edited  and  annotated  with  extraordinary  industry  and 
intelligence  by  Increase  N.  Tarbox.  The  entries  in  the  diary  in 
relation  to  the  semi-centennial  exercises  here  in  1843  are  as 
follows :  — 

Aug.  15.  Took  the  cars  [at  Boston]  and  rode  to  Pittsfield.  Dined  at  Spring- 
field. Got  acquainted  with  Bishop  Onderdonk.  The  scenery  and  the  work  of 
the  railroad  between  Westfield  and  Pittsfield  are  astonishing.  Took  a  stage 
and  rode  to  Williamstown.  Very  kindly  entertained  at  President  Hopkins's. 
Had  a  pleasant  day. 

Aug.  16.  Attended  an  interesting  meeting  of  the  Alumni.  I  am  the  senior 
present.  Attended  the  public  services.  The  president  delivered  a  very  good 
address  respecting  the  college.  I  delivered  mine.  Too  long  —  an  hour  and 
forty-five  minutes  —  but  kindly  heard.  The  Alumni  had  a  long  public  dinner. 
A  very  numerous  and  highly  respectable  collection.  Gov.  Morton  is  present. 
At  evening  attended  the  speaking  of  undergraduates.  Not  greatly  fatigued. 

Aug.  17.  Met  with  the  corporation  [he  was  a  trustee  from  1842  to  1853]. 
We  voted  two  divinity  doctorates.  Attended  the  Commencement  exercises: 
good,  but  want  of  variety.  It  is  said  that  there  has  never  been  so  great  a  col- 
lection of  people  on  a  like  occasion.  See  many  former  acquaintance.  Feel  a 
want  of  rest.  The  Alumni  voted  to  publish  the  president's  address  and  mine. 
Left  Williamstown  towards  evening.  Tarried  at  a  private  house  in  Hancock. 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       551 

It  is  due  to  the  memory  of  this  good  and  painstaking,  but  in 
no  sense  great  man,  that  a  couple  of  paragraphs  from  his  semi- 
centennial oration  be  appended.  The  first  is  taken  almost  at 
random  from  the  body  of  the  address,  and  the  second  is  the  brief 
peroration. 

One  of  the  best  species  of  genius  that  we  know  of  is  a  disposition  for  applica- 
tion. The  eminent  Dr.  [Noah]  Webster,  lately  deceased,  has  seldom  been 
spoken  of  as  distinguished  for  genius.  Public  sentiment,  in  this  respect,  has 
rather  been  against  him.  Because  he  was  known,  principally,  by  his  Spelling- 
book,  a  work,  by  the  way,  of  no  ordinary  intellect,  he  has  not  been  generally 
ranked  among  the  men  of  genius  and  talent  in  our  own  country.  Yet  he  attained 
to  the  rank,  in  the  opinion  of  good  judges,  of  the  first  philologist  of  the  age.  It 
may  be  safely  said,  that  in  this  important  department  of  literature,  he  was 
not  surpassed.  And  in  his  large  Dictionary  he  has  left  the  richest  legacy  to  his 
countrj^men  that  has  ever  been  left  by  any  literary  man.  It  is,  undoubtedly, 
the  best  dictionary  in  the  English  language.  "  And  while  a  nook  remains  where 
English  minds  and  manners  can  be  found,"  it  will  be  resorted  to  as  an  authority. 
No  American  author  has  realized  as  much  pecuniary  profit  by  his  works  as  Dr. 
Webster.  He  has  always  been  a  man  of  excellent  character,  of  public  spirit  and 
a  good  citizen.  The  class  at  Yale  College  of  1778,  to  which  he  belonged  has 
long  been  considered  as  one  of  the  most  distinguished  from  that  institution. 
Their  tutor  was  the  Rev.  Dr.  Buckminster,  of  Portsmouth.  The  class  con- 
tained Oliver  Wolcott,  Joel  Barlow,  Uriah  Tracy,  Josiah  Meigs,  Zephaniah 
Swift,  Asher  Miller,  Noah  Smith,  Stephen  Jacob,  and  other  distinguished  men, 
and  no  one  has  been  more  useful  in  life,  or  left  a  higher  reputation  at  his  death, 
than  Dr.  Webster.  — And  now  my  young  brethren  Alumni,  graduates  and  under- 
graduates, behold  a  model  of  character,  presented  to  the  literary  young  men  of 
the  United  States;  —  Who  can  say  that  such  an  eminence  is  unattainable?  I 
heard  a  gentleman  say  in  New  Haven,  many  years  ago,  he  little  thought  that 
Mr.  Webster,  when  in  college,  would  ever  be  employed  in  correcting  and  improv- 
ing our  language.  How  has  all  this  been  effected  ?  By  a  correct  course  of  life, 
and  a  steady,  persevering  industry.  This  is  the  whole  secret ;  means  within 
the  reach  of  all.  A  name  of  respect  and  esteem  to  endure  for  ages. 

The  machinery  of  Divine  Providence  is  rolling  on ;  the  heralds  of  the  Cross 
will  follow  the  Navigator  and  the  Warrior ;  the  lights  of  science  will  explore  the 
recesses  of  the  Mausoleum,  the  Harem,  and  the  Convent ;  all  true  history  will 
be  confirmed,  the  universal  brotherhood  of  man  is  established,  the  impostures  of 
Mecca  and  of  Rome  are  unveiled ;  the  peaceful  sceptre  of  the  Man  of  Calvary 
unites  a  joyful  race  in  thanksgiving  and  praise.  "Go,  ye  swift  messengers,  to 
nations  scattered  and  peeled,  to  a  people  terrible  from  their  beginning  hitherto, 
to  nations  meted  out  and  trodden  down,  whose  lands  rivers  have  spoiled,  and 
bring  them,  a  present,  unto  the  place  of  the  name  of  the  Lord  of  hosts,  the 
mount  Zion." 

The  crowning  scene  of  the  semi-centennial  week  in  point  of  inter- 
est and  enthusiasm  was  undoubtedly  the  alumni  dinner  spread  on 


552  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

the  East  College  campus  just  to  the  east  of  the  then  completed  East 
College.  The  afternoon  was  fine,  as  it  was  the  year  before,  when 
the  feast  was  spread  in  the  same  place,  but  under  widely  different 
circumstances.  "The  alumni  had  a  long  public  dinner,"  wrote 
Bobbins  at  the  time.  Indeed,  the  prandial  and  post-prandial  per- 
formances continued  until  the  shades  of  evening  began  to  draw  on. 
Bobbins  described  the  diners  as  "  a  very  numerous  and  highly  re- 
spectable collection."  With  a  single  exception,  in  the  case  of  the 
speech  of  Charles  A.  Dewey  (1811),  scarcely  anything  has  been 
preserved  to  us  but  the  names  of  the  speakers  and  the  general  order 
in  which  they  spoke.  Samuel  R.  Betts  (1806),  as  president  of  the 
alumni,  opened  the  ball,  and  then  called  on  Governor  Morton 
(Brown  1804),  who  was  responded  to  with  the  liveliest  applause. 
Chester  Dewey  (1806),  Henry  H.  Childs  (1802),  John  Nelson 
(1807),  Jared  Curtis  (1800),  Justin  Edwards  (1810),  Emory  Wash- 
burn  (1817),  John  C.  Brigham  (1819),  Erastus  C.  Benedict  (1821), 
Joshua  N.  Danforth  (1818),  followed.  And  so  ended  this  memorable 
day  for  the  College  and  its  alumni. 

A  few  points  in  conclusion  may  be  enumerated  respecting  this 
semi-centennial  gathering,  in  comparison  and  perhaps  in  contrast 
with  the  centennial  in  1893.  (1)  The  spontaneity  of  everything 
connected  with  it.  Nothing  was  cut  and  dried  from  beginning  to 
end.  Very  few,  if  any,  special  invitations  were  issued.  It  is  not 
certain  that  even  Governor  Morton  was  specially  invited  either  by 
the  College  or  by  the  alumni.  The  probability  lies  in  the  other  direc- 
tion. Henry  H.  Childs  of  Pittsfield,  an  enthusiastic  alumnus  and 
Berkshire  man,  and  then  Lieutenant-Governor,  is  more  likely  to  have 
invited  the  Governor  into  the  county,  at  the  time  of  these  novel  exer- 
cises at  Williamstown,  so  that  the  people  might  see  him.  The  semi- 
political  character  of  his  welcome  at  Pittsfield  and  at  North  Adams, 
and  on  the  way  over  to  Williamstown,  rather  confirms  this  view. 
It  is  certain  that  no  Governor  of  the  State  while  in  office  had  there- 
tofore attended  a  Commencement  here.  His  commission  requires 
him  to  attend  the  Commencements  at  Cambridge.  Often  before  and 
since  1843  the  festival  at  the  two  places  has  fallen  on  the  same  day. 
It  is  believed  to  be  the  uniform  custom  of  late  years  to  send  an 
official  invitation  to  the  Governor  to  be  present.  Occasionally  he 
comes  accompanied  by  his  staff.  But  however  all  this  may  have 
been  in  1843,  so  far  as  the  Governor  was  concerned,  all  the  exercises 
of  the  semi-centennial  seem  to  have  gone  on  of  themselves.  The 
Dutch  took  Holland.  There  was  nothing  stiff  or  stilted  at  any 
time.  The  speaking  came  out  of  the  hearts  of  the  speakers.  Every- 


TOWN  AND   COLLEGE  TILL  THE   SEMI-CENTENNIAL.       553 

thing  was  in  fusion  and  solution.     No  cliques.     No   self-seeking. 
No  authorities.     Alma  Mater  and  her  children. 

(2)  The  entire  emphasis  lay  on  the  Society  of  the  Alumni.     Even 
the  president  of  the  College,  except  in  the  meeting-house,  took,  as 
it  were,  a  back  seat.     President  Bliss  of  the  alumni  engineered  their 
morning  meeting  with  roistering  success,  and  President  Betts  the 
afternoon  gathering  upon  the  campus.     Emory  Washburn,  1817,  the 
originator  of  the  society  in  1821,  was  present  to  witness  its  growth 
and  the  influential  position  it  had  gained  in  the  years  intermediate. 
He  was  always  a  faithful  and  favorite  son  of  the  College  in  storm 
and  shine.     Governor  of  the  State  in  1854,  he  was  here  to  receive 
the  degree  of  LL.D.,  his  brethren,  the  alumni,  applauding.     After- 
ward, so  long  as  his  honored  life  continued  on  the  earth,  he  was 
frequently  a  guest  at  the  Commencement  time,  recalled  doubtless 
in  part  by  the  memory  of  the  beautiful  Williamstown  maiden  that 
he  had  loved  in  his  youth,  but  did  not  win.     He  was  the  father  of 
the  Society  of  the  Alumni,  was  proud  of  it,  and  the  members  were 
proud  of  him  till  the  last.     The  just  and  useful  prominence,  not  to 
say  preeminence,  of  the  Society  of  the  Alumni,  first  fully  manifested 
in  1843,  continued  unabated  for  forty  years  longer,  when  it  began  to 
wane  under  the  covert,  but  persistent,  assaults  of  one  who  falsely 
fancied  that  his  own  eminence  was  being  overshadowed  by  their  own, 
as  will  be  later  told  in  detail. 

(3)  The  ancient  harmony  and  unity  of  the  town  and  college  ap- 
peared in  pleasing  and  undimmed  lines  in  all  the  ongoings  of  the 
semi-centennial.      Town  and  college  really  began  together,  let  us 
say,   in  1765,  ten  years  after  Colonel  Williams's  death  'at  Lake 
George,  when  the  town  was  incorporated  by  the  Commonwealth 
under  his  name,  and  his  executors  were  nourishing  the  small  and 
scattered  sums  he  left  by  will  to  found  a  free  school  for  the  use  of 
the  citizens.     There  had  been,  indeed,  from  time  to  time  transient 
disputes  and  some  ill  blood,  but  on  the  whole  the  town  had  gathered 
sturdily  around  the  College,  and  the  College  had  rested  upon  the 
bosom  of  the  town.     This  harmony  and  union  strikingly  appeared 
in  many  phases  of  the  half-centenary.     Never  before  and  never 
after  did  so  many  citizens  crowd  within  and  around  the  meeting- 
house as  on  that  Commencement  day;  and  there  was  a  broad  and 
eager  fringe  of  local  men  and  women  around  all  the  tables  on  the 
campus  the  day  before,  watching  the  faces  of  the  individual  alumni 
and  listening  to  their  speaking  till  the  sun  went  down.     There  was 
scarcely  a  house  in  the  whole  valley  that  did  not  entertain  at  least 
one  college  man,  and  that  did  not  enter  thoroughly  into  the  fervor 


554  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

of  the  recollections  and  inspirations  of  the  time.  Even  Thomas 
Bobbins,  who  had  been  away  from  the  town  for  forty-seven  years, 
enters  in  his  diary,  "See  many  former  acquaintance."  There  is  not 
good  evidence  that  the  earlier  graduates  saw  and  appreciated  so 
much  of  natural  beauty  and  grandeur  in  the  town  and  its  region  as 
the  later  ones  have  done;  and  yet  there  must  have  been  some  of 
them  so  familiar  with  the  earlier  (uniformly  the  better)  poetry  of 
Wordsworth,  as  to  be  reminded  even  in  relation  to  the  externals 
here,  of  those  inimitable  lines  written  a  little  above  "  Tintern  Abbey," 
in  1798. 

These  beauteous  forms. 
Through  a  long  absence,  have  not  been  to  me 
As  is  a  landscape  to  a  blind  man's  eye  : 
But  oft,  in  lonely  rooms,  and  mid  the  din 
Of  towns  and  cities,  I  have  owed  to  them 
In  hours  of  weariness,  sensations  sweet, 
Felt  in  the  blood,  and  felt  along  the  heart ; 
And  passing  even  into  my  purer  mind, 
With  tranquil  restoration  :  —  feelings  too 
Of  unremembered  pleasure :  such,  perhaps, 
As  have  no  slight  or  trivial  influence 
On  that  best  portion  of  a  good  man's  life, 
His  little,  nameless,  unremembered,  acts 
Of  kindness  and  of  love.     Nor  less,  I  trust, 
To  them  I  may  have  owed  another  gift, 
Of  aspect  more  sublime  ;  that  blessed  mood, 
In  which  the  burthen  of  the  mystery, 
In  which  the  heavy  and  the  weary  weight 
Of  all  this  unintelligible  world, 
Is  lightened :  —  that  serene  and  blessed  mood, 
In  which  the  affections  gently  lead  us  on,  — 
Until,  the  breath  of  this  corporeal  frame 
And  even  the  motion  of  our  human  blood 
Almost  suspended,  we  are  laid  asleep 
In  body,  and  become  a  living  soul : 
While  with  an  eye  made  quiet  by  the  power 
Of  harmony,  and  the  deep  power  of  joy, 
We  see  into  the  life  of  things. 

If  this 

Be  but  a  vain  belief,  yet,  oh  !  how  oft  — 
In  darkness  and  amid  the  many  shapes 
Of  joyless  daylight ;  when  the  fretful  stir 
Unprofitable,  and  the  fever  of  the  world, 
Have  hung  upon  the  beatings  of  my  heart  — 
How  oft,  in  spirit,  have  I  turned  to  thee, 
O  sylvan  Wye  !  thou  wanderer  through  the  woods, 
How  often  has  my  spirit  turned  to  thee  ! 


CHAPTER   IV. 

TOWN  AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL. 

As  the  insect  from  the  rock 

Takes  the  color  of  its  wing ; 
As  the  boulder  from  the  shock 

Of  the  ocean's  rhythmic  swing 
Makes  itself  a  perfect  form, 

Learns  a  calmer  front  to  raise  ; 
As  the  shell,  enamelled  warm 

With  the  prism's  mystic  rays, 
Praises  wind  and  wave  that  make 

All  its  chambers  fair  and  strong ; 
As  the  mighty  poets  take 

Grief  and  pain  to  build  their  song : 
Even  so  for  every  soul, 

Whatsoe'er  its  lot  may  be,  — 
Building,  as  the  heavens  roll, 

Something  large  and  strong  and  free,  — 
Things  that  hurt  and  things  that  mar 

Shape  the  man  for  perfect  praise  ; 
Shock  and  strain  and  ruin  are 

Friendlier  than  the  smiling  days. 

—  J.  W.  CHADWICK. 

PROFESSOR  ALBERT  HOPKINS  had  his  study  and  lodging-room,  and 
his  recitation-room  also,  for  many  years  in  the  old  East  College, 
which  was  burned  to  the  ground  on  a  Sunday  in  October,  1841.  He 
had  very  properly  and  necessarily  assumed  the  leadership  of  reli- 
gious matters  in  College,  at  the  same  time  and  under  much  the  same 
circumstances  as  required  his  elder  brother  to  assume  the  teaching 
and  control  of  the  Senior  classes,  some  two  or  three  years  before 
the  departure  of  President  Griffin.  He  began  his  stated,  and  there- 
after uninterrupted,  services  to  the  College  in  1827  as  a  tutor,  his 
brother  ceased  a  two-years'  tutorship  at  the  same  time,  and  assumed 
uninterrupted  service  as  a  professor  in  1830.  From  this  time  on 
for  forty  years  they  stood  together  in  efficient  and  harmonious, 
though  very  diverse  service.  The  four  years  from  1827  to  1831 

555 


556  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

were  what  Albert  Hopkins  was  accustomed  to  call  "  the  turbulent 
period  in  College."  President  Griffin  was  breaking  down,  both 
physically  and  mentally,  and  there  were  not  yet  any  firm  hands  on 
the  rudder.  As  he  carefully  set  down  afterward :  — 

Since  the  year  1831  there  has  been  a  general  improvement  in  the  order  of 
college,  petty  annoyances  have  become  less  frequent,  and  cases  of  discipline 
have  become  rare.  Except  one  or  two  4th  of  July  occasions,  there  has  been  next 
to  nothing  of  an  outbreaking  character.  I  have  lived  in  all  these  years  in  the 
East  College  building,  and  could  not  wish  in  general  for  a  more  quiet  habitation. 
This  statement  can  not  be  made,  with  equal  truth,  in  reference  to  the  West 
College,  occupied  by  the  two  lower  classes.  The  order  there,  however,  has 
been  generally  good. 

The  Junior  recitation-room,  in  which  Professor  Hopkins  did  his 
work  until  the  fire,  was  in  the  south  end  of  that  building,  and  the 
Senior  room  in  the  north  end;  and  the  classes,  so  far  as  their 
lodging-rooms  were  concerned,  grouped  themselves  generally  in  the 
same  way.  At  the  rebuilding,  the  Junior  room  was  located  at  the 
south  end  of  South  College,  first  floor,  and  there  Professor  Hopkins 
continued  to  teach  so  long  as-  he  taught  at  all ;  so  that  the  new  East 
College  held  no  recitation-rooms,  the  Seniors  having  migrated  some 
years  before  this  over  to  the  new  room  made  expressly  for  them  in 
the  new  chapel,  now  called  Griffin  Hall. 

Professor  Hopkins  himself  left  on  record  a  remarkable  account  of 
the  origin  and  continuance  of  the  noon  prayer-meeting,  so  called, 
which  met  uniformly  (until  the  fire)  in  the  Junior  room  of  East  Col- 
lege at  one  o'clock  on  Mondays  and  Tuesdays  and  Thursdays  and 
Fridays  of  term-time,  and  thereafter  uniformly  in  the  Junior  room 
in  South  College,  until  at  length  the  meeting  died  out,  in  1867,  — 
thirty -five  years  in  all.  The  present  writer  is  desirous  of  helping 
his  readers  make  the  thorough  acquaintance  of  the  mind  and  man- 
ners of  Professor  Hopkins;  and  this  end  can  best  be  reached  by 
giving  them,  whenever  possible,  his  own  language  in  relation  to  the 
critical  passages  of  his  career.  It  is  indeed  history  and  not  biogra- 
phy, that  is  attempted  in  this  book;  and  it  is  because  Hopkins  was 
a  chief  actor  along  some  lines  of  college  progress  and  upbuilding, 
that  so  much  pains  is  taken  to  furnish  in  outline  a  just  picture  of 
the  man  as  he  was.  The  noon  prayer-meeting  was  his  conception 
and  his  achievement.  It  was  his  most  distinctive  contribution  to 
the  ongoing  of  things  here  in  his  active  day.  It  was  novel.  It  was 
influential.  It  was  lasting.  All  are  likely,  accordingly,  to  be  inter- 
ested in  his  own  account  of  it. 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE    TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  557 

I  am  now  going  to  explain  in  what  way  I  think  the  revival  of  1832  contributed 
to  a  more  permanent  religious  order.  It  did  so,  I  think,  by  exercising  the  prin- 
ciple of  personal  exertion  and  self-sacrifice,  till  it  became  habitual,  and  led  on 
to  a  system  which  I  shall  presently  give  some  account  of.  The  principle  of 
persevering,  steady  devotedness  has  been  firmly  established  in  individual  minds, 
in  all  ages.  But  too  little  has  been  done  to  perpetuate  this  sentiment.  One  and 
another  has  cut  his  way  through  the  solid  rock,  and,  as  it  were,  filled  up  the 
space  behind  him,  so  that  others  have  been  little  benefited,  except  as  they  have 
seen  them  safe  out,  and  therefore  gathered  hope,  on  the  ground  that  such  a 
thing  was  possible.  Peter  says,  to  be  sure,  "The  God  of  all  grace,  after  that 
ye  have  suffered  awhile,  stablish  you."  But  we  are  not  to  infer  from  this  that 
direct  means  are  of  no  use  toward  the  confirmation  of  piety.  There  is,  no 
doubt,  in  respect  to  means,  such  a  thing  as  a  millennial  order  (using  the  term 
millennial  generically  here),  and  it  was  towards  this  that  numbers  among  us 
were  led  at  this  time  to  look.  Having  become  inured  to  a  pretty  steady  course 
of  religious  action,  anxious  to  persevere  in  this  without  faltering,  sensible  at  the 
same  time  of  the  sluggishness  of  nature,  and  warned  by  the  experience  of  the. 
past,  the  inquiry  came  up,  What  corrective  can  be  thrown  in,  what  stimulus 
to  excite  us  forward  in  an  unwavering  onward  course  of  Christian  action  ?  It 
was  in  the  way  of  righteousness,  "doing  his  will,"  that  light  was  thrown  on  this 
subject,  —  the  doctrine  of  means.  It  was  resolved  by  the  Christians  of  that 
period  that  they  would  meet  together  at  noon.  This,  it  was  thought,  would 
furnish  a  strong  antidote  against  a  tendency,  so  prevalent  everywhere,  but  per- 
haps especially  in  college,  to  fall  in  with  the  tide  of  worldliness.  By  setting  up, 
as  it  were,  a  dam  at  midday,  it  was  thought  possible  to  check  the  current,  and 
thus  to  prevent  our  Christianity  from  being  overflown,  and  everything  relapsing 
again  into  a  stagnant  and  dead  state,  as  had  been  the  case  after  most  previous 
revivals.  I  must  be  permitted  to  say,  that  I  think  the  idea  of  a  perfect  Christi- 
anity, that  is,  of  living  in  perfect  conformity  to  the  injunctions  of  Christ,  with- 
out regard  to  seasons  or  circumstances,  and  without  references  to  the  feelings  or 
practices  of  others,  had  to  do  with  the  institution  of  this  system  of  means.  A 
very  good  opportunity  was  approaching  to  test  it,  or  at  least  to  test  the  strength 
of  the  resolution  which  determined  on  its  adoption,  namely,  the  approach  of  the 
summer  term,  when  there  is  uncommon  temptation  to  laxness,  and  a  letting 
down  of  the  Christian  watch.  The  result  proved  that  the  idea  was  a  very 
practicable  one,  and  veiy  salutary  in  the  operation  of  it.  A  few,  from  five  to 
seven,  from  the  two  College  buildings,  met  in  rainy  as  well  as  sunshiny  weather, 
during  the  term,  and  felt  improved  by  it.  This  meeting,  somewhat  modified  in 
its  character,  has  continued  to  the  present  time,  and  has  more  than  answered 
the  anticipations  of  those  who  originated  it.  It  has  served  as  a  balance-wheel, 
to  check  the  irregular  movements  of  individual  action,  to  temper  well-meaning 
but  injudicious  zeal.  I  am  just  now  in  from  one  of  these  meetings,  consisting  of 
from  forty  to  fifty  students.  The  average  sometimes  ranges  considerably  higher 
than  this,  in  times  of  awakening,  and  sometimes  falls  short  of  it. 

The  general  order  of  these  meetings  continued  the  same  from  first 
to  last.  They  began  by  singing  a  stanza  or  two  of  some  familiar 
hymn,  indicated  by  number  in  the  hymn-book,  and  also  often  by  the 


558  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

leader's  repeating  the  first  line,  which  he  could  always  start  in  tune 
if  necessary,  but  preferred  that  some  student  present  should  start 
it.  Then  the  professor  always  repeated  with  great  solemnity  a  brief 
text  of  Scripture,  and  the  recitation  of  such  texts  then  passed  round 
the  room  in  order  whether  five  or  fifty  were  present.  If  any  stu- 
dent verbally  slipped  in  repeating  his  passage,  from  whatever  part 
of  the  Bible  it  had  been  brought,  it  was  invariably  corrected  by  the 
leader,  either  instantaneously  or  else  as  soon  as  the  word  had  passed 
round  the  circle.  His  verbal  familiarity  with  the  Scriptures  was  so 
great,  and  his  memory  so  retentive,  that  he  could  give  the  entire 
verse  or  sentence  out  of  which  a  member  had  been  culled.  Usually 
two  or  three  short  prayers,  offered  by  students,  preceded  any  word 
of  exposition  or  exhortation  given  by  him.  He  always  had  some 
strong  or  weird  word  in  the  course  of  the  meeting,  sometimes  drawn 
'from  the  text  he  had  repeated,  but  more  often  from  one  repeated 
by  another.  He  himself  rarely  offered  prayer  in  these  meetings, 
and  students  spoke  but  rarely;  but  it  was  seldom  the  half -hour  was 
out  before  he  had  gained  full  possession  of  the  meeting  on  some 
thought  or  duty,  and  when  he  rose  to  his  feet  to  conclude  with  the 
single  stanza  of  a  hymn,  all  rose  with  him  simultaneously,  and  he 
had  the  power  to  hold  with  his  eye  (which  was  deep-set  and  extraor- 
dinarily bright)  every  person  present  so  long  as  he  pleased  at  the 
close  of  the  song.  Not  a  foot  stirred  till  he  dropped  his  lids,  whether 
it  were  one  minute  or  less  or  more.  This  was  a  subtle  and  spiritual 
power,  and  he  was  fond  (not  to  say  proud)  of  exercising  it.  Any 
person  who  possesses  a  genuine  and  unusual  power  like  that,  is  not 
only  fully  conscious  of  it,  but  is  also  glad  to  employ  it  on  occasion. 
To  the  writer,  who  was  long  a  pleased  attendant  on  these  meetings, 
both  during  and  after  his  student  life,  the  professor  spoke  once  or 
twice  familiarly  of  this  gift  of  keeping  a  religious  gathering  in  per- 
fect stillness  at  will  after  the  last  word  was  said  or  sung.  It  was 
not  something  he  had  ever  aimed  at  or  thought  of  till  he  found  he 
had  it,  and  then  he  sometimes  used  it  with  great  solemnity  and 
effect.  It  was  a  silent,  but  most  expressive  testimony  on  the  part 
of  the  participators  that  the  meeting  was  his  meeting, — to  come 
and  stay  and  go. 

But  there  was  also  uttered  testimony  a  plenty,  on  the  part  of 
hundreds  of  students,  to  the  spiritual  benefit  to  themselves  of  these 
noon  meetings,  and  to  their  observed  benefits  upon  others.  Thomas 
K.  Fessenden,  of  the  class  of  1833,  wrote  long  afterward :  — 

It  was  during  the  summer  of  1832  that  he  commenced  the  daily  noon  prayer 
meetings  ;  which  for  years  afterward  became  a  most  valuable  means  of  grace 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL  THE   CENTENNIAL.  559 

to  a  little  circle  of  ten  to  twenty  attendants.  I  can  never  forget  how  earnestly 
and  forcibly  Professor  Hopkins  then  and  there  enforced  upon  us  the  exceeding 
breadth  and  purity  of  God's  law,  and  the  duty  of  Christians  to  rise  above  the 
ordinary  standard  of  Christian  character. 

Professor  Phillips,  of  the  class  of  1847,  wrote :  — 

It  furnished  a  sort  of  spiritual  exchange,  where  Christians  from  the  different 
classes  met  and  exchanged  views  upon  religious  experience  and  religious  work, 
mingled  their  prayers  and  praises,  and  girded  themselves  for  the  common  con- 
flict. It  was  a  place,  too,  where  any  impenitent  person  who  was  beginning  to 
be  anxious  about  his  salvation  might  come,  or  be  brought  by  a  friend,  and  be 
welcomed  and  guided  and  helped  on  his  way  to  Christ.  It  was  alike  a  training- 
place  and  a  recruiting-station  for  the  band  of  Christians  in  college.  It  was  the 
true  prayer-gauge  also.  It  showed,  as  the  mercury  the  pressure  of  the  air,  the 
intensity  of  religious  fervor  in  the  college.  The  exercises  invariably  began  by 
each  attendant  repeating,  in  his  turn,  a  verse  of  Scripture,  — the  Professor  cor- 
recting all  errors  in  quotation.  His  remarkable  familiarity  with  the  Scriptures 
was  the  result  of  daily  reading  and  study,  helped  by  a  naturally  retentive 
memory. 

Professor  Bascom,  of  the  class  of  1849,  let  slip  from  his  pen  in  a 
single  sentence,  a  compendium  of  the  good  results  of  the  noon 
prayer-meeting:  — 

It  was  the  most  firm,  persistent,  and  steadily  influential  means  of  religious 
life,  that  I  have  ever  had  occasion  to  observe. 

William  D.  Porter,  of  the  class  of  1850,  once  instituted  a  com- 
parison by  way  of  illustrating  one  feature  of  what  he  called  "  the 
blessed  noon  prayer-meeting  " :  — 

Across  the  Menai  Straits  in  England  is  built  the  Britannic  Tubular  Iron 
Bridge.  Just  under  the  very  centre  of  the  structure,  where  one  would  naturally 
feel  the  most  insecurity,  there  peeps  above  the  water  a  small  island.  On  this  a 
pier  has  been  erected,  reaching  up  to  and  supporting  the  bridge.  The  noon 
prayer-meeting  was  to  the  College  day  what  this  pier  is  to  the  Britannic  Bridge. 

The  keen  eye  of  Professor  Hopkins  perceived  at  the  outset,  and 
numbers  of  students  had  opportunity  to  observe  ever  after,  that  all 
the  good  of  the  noon  meeting  was  not  confined  to  those  who  attended 
it.  There  was  an  incidental  good.  Speaking  of  the  first  of  these 
meetings  about  thirty  years  afterward,  the  professor  said :  "  A  few, 
perhaps  six  in  number,  assembled  accordingly  at  that  hour.  This 
was  in  the  year  1832,  on  a  pleasant  day  in  June,  which  will  no 
doubt  be  vividly  remembered  by  those  who  were  present,  and  who 
yet  survive.  Numbers  were  on  the  college  green,  and  under  the  shade 
of  the  maples,  as  these  brethren,  with  hymn-books  in  hand,  passed 


560  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

through  on  their  way  to  the  conference -room.  By  some  professors  of 
religion  the  movement  was  looked  on  with  disfavor ;  most  supposed, 
no  doubt,  that  it  would  be  ephemeral.  But  not  so.  God  was  evi- 
dently in  it.  Little  was  said,  but  the  meeting  by  degrees  increased. 
From  that  time  it  has  not  been  intermitted,  but  has  been,  on  the 
whole,  a  growing  power  till  now."  The  persons  gathering  to  the 
meeting  went  quietly  over  the  campus  and  through  the  halls,  and 
were  mostly  unnoticed  by  others;  but  when,  two  or  three  minutes 
later,  the  song  burst  forth,  sometimes,  according  to  the  numbers  and 
the  state  of  feeling  within,  with  swelling  and  reverberating  volume, 
it  was  heard  all  over  the  building  and  all  around  it,  and  an  impres- 
sion was  made  on  the  careless  and  irreligious  that  something  was 
going  on  in  college  that  they  knew  nothing  about.  What  is  it? 
Song  perhaps  called  more  from  this  class  into  the  meeting  than  invi- 
tation or  curiosity.  In  certain  states  of  feeling  within  and  without 
a  favorite  stanza  in  closing  began  with  the  words,  "  Oh !  there  will 
be  mourning  at  the  judgment-seat  of  Christ.7'  What  transpired  in 
the  room  was  usually  a  benefit  to  those  within;  the  fact  that  such  a 
meeting  was  known  to  be  held  was  sometimes  a  benefit  to  those 
without.  Not  that  the  meeting  was  always  fervid  in  tone.  Some- 
times it  was  dull.  Occasionally  it  was  cold.  But  it  was  always 
genuine.  There  was  no  pretence  about  it,  and  no  machinery  in  it. 
The  next  noon  after  the  burning  of  the  East  College  there  was  a  scene 
near  by  and  a  sequel,  which  Professor  Hopkins  described  long  after- 
ward as  follows :  "  This  building  had  witnessed  many  scenes  of  deep 
religious  interest.  Many  of  its  private  rooms  had  been  bethels,  and 
here,  especially,  the  daily  meetings  had  long  been  attended  in  the 
Junior  recitation-room.  The  day  after  the  fire  we  rallied  around 
the  spot.  It  was  a  desolate  place,  but  the  feelings  of  those  who  had 
been  wont  to  gather  there  seemed  rather  quickened  than  depressed. 

Those  ruins  shall  be  built  again, 
And  all  that  dust  shall  rise, 

were  words  which  seemed  to  have  a  spiritual  significance.  It  was 
determined  not  to  abandon  the  meeting,  but  to  adjourn  to  the 
Sophomore  recitation- room.  We  accordingly  went  over,  and  the 
step  had  a  good  effect.  The  lower  classes  were  encouraged  by  seeing 
so  many,  and  not  a  few  zealous  Christians  coming  to  their  support." 
The  professor  merely  noticed  fact,  when  he  said  above,  "By 
some  professors  of  religion  the  movement  was  looked  on  with  dis- 
favor " ;  he  did  not  state  the  grounds  of  that  fact,  and  probably  he 
never  fully  knew  them.  Without  doubt  there  were  valid  grounds 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  561 

why  many  excellent  Christian  students  did  not  favor,  and  could  not 
attend,  the  noon  meetings.  It  is  not  worth  while  at  the  present  time 
to  dwell  with  any  fulness  on  the  nature  of  these  objections  felt  and 
sometimes  expressed.  The  phase  of  Christian  feeling  and  striving 
so  strikingly  exemplified  in  Albert  Hopkins  has  passed  away,  no 
more  to  return  to  college  or  town.  Indeed,  it  had  practically  passed 
away  a  decade  or  more  previous  to  his  death,  in  1872.  He  himself 
did  not  understand  why  his  wand,  which  had  been  so  potent,  seemed 
slowly  to  lose  its  power  to  bring  the  spirits  from  the  vasty  deep. 
The  reasons  lay  partly  in  himself,  in  his  own  theological  beliefs, 
and  in  his  practical  construction  of  a  living  Christianity.  He  had 
been  the  accepted  religious  leader  so  long,  and  the  work  of  the  Lord 
had  so  evidently  prospered  in  his  hand,  that  he  came  to  feel  that  his 
way  was  the  only  right  way ;  that  the  modes  of  the  noon  meeting, 
with  its  heart-searchings  and  sin-confessings  and  subjective  reveal- 
ings,  were  the  true  means  of  spiritual  progress,  both  individual  and 
social;  and  he  came  unconsciously  to  look  with  some  distrust  upon 
those  Christians  in  college  and  in  town,  who  felt  that  for  them- 
selves there  was  another  and  better  way  of  following  alongside  the 
footsteps  of  the  Master.  A  single  illustration  of  what  came  to  be 
a  more  or  less  mutually  repellent  attitude  between  him  and  them, 
may  be  seen  in  his  bearing  toward  a  small  circle  of  Episcopalian 
brethren,  of  whom  William  Tatlock,  of  the  class  of  1857,  was  the 
leader  in  college,  and  Thomas  Mole  in  town.  These  subsequently 
became  the  founders  of  the  now  flourishing  St.  John's  Church.  Tat- 
lock, with  a  couple  of  these  students,  came  into  the  noon  meeting 
one  day  undoubtedly  with  the  best  of  motives,  but  rather  for  spir- 
itual observation  than  for  fraternal  communications.  The  writer 
was  present  as  usual,  and  noticed  that  the  leader  did  not  have  his 
usual  freedom;  the  meeting  lagged,  and  when,  after  giving  the 
visitors  conspicuous  opportunity  and  invitation  to  speak,  they 
naturally  remained  silent,  the  leader  rebuked  them  in  sharp  tones 
for  having  nothing  to  utter  by  way  of  testimony  to  the  Gospel !  Not 
far  from  the  same  time  Mr.  Mole  had  occasion  to  ask  Professor  Hop- 
kins, who  was  then  supplying  the  village  pulpit,  to  read  a  notice 
from  the  desk  of  the  time  and  place  (in  a  private  house)  of  a  meet- 
ing for  church  purposes  of  this  little  handful  of  brethren.  He  not 
only  refused,  but,  handing  back  the  paper,  remarked  also,  that  there 
was  little  difference  between  Episcopals  and  Koman  Catholics! 
Mole  and  Hopkins  had  then  been  for  a  long  time  near  neighbors  and 
fellow-citizens  and  brother  Christians.  These  facts  were  excep- 
tional in  the  life  of  an  extraordinarily  good  man;  but  they  mark  a 
2o 


562  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

narrowness,   a   self-sufficiency,   an   assumption   of  judgment,   that 
could  not  but  clip  the  wings  even  of  an  eagle. 

The  excellent  and  intelligent  family  in  Stockbridge,  in  which 
Albert  Hopkins  was  brought  up  as  the  youngest  child,  was  not  dis- 
tinctively a  religious  one.  He  lacked  consequently  an  early  theo- 
logical training  at  home,  such  as  perhaps  most  boys  of  his  time  in 
New  England  received,  crude  indeed,  but  current,  and  effective  as 
against  special  peculiarities  and  idiosyncracies  of  belief.  His 
religious  life  began  early  and  in  a  strangely  isolated  way,  and  he 
did  not  make  a  profession  of  religion  until  after  his  graduation,  in 
1826 ;  and  when  his  mind  fully  turned  to  the  adoption  of  theological 
tenets,  he  reached  and  long  maintained  certain  beliefs  quite  diver- 
gent from  the  prevailing  ones.  In  December,  1832,  about  six 
months  after  the  establishment  of  the  noon  prayer-meeting,  which 
itself,  as  he  tells  us  elsewhere,  was  instituted  under  the  pressure 
of  the  same  belief,  he  makes  the  following  entry  in  his  journal, 
which  is  a  cardinal  passage  for  the  right  understanding  of  his  career. 
"  For  a  year  and  a  half  I  have  regarded  entire  sanctification  as  a 
duty;  but  now  I  have  come  to  regard  it  as  attainable.  This  change 
has  been  wrought  by  entering,  under  a  sense  of  duty,  upon  what  I 
considered  a  course  of  godly  living.  While  in  this  way  I  fell  in 
with  one  who  supposed  himself  entirely  sanctified.  This  led  me  to 
search  the  Scriptures  with  prayer,  endeavoring  to  lay  my  heart  all 
open  to  conviction,  throwing  off  entirely  the  shackles  of  sect,  and 
here  I  found  the  doctrine  as  I  supposed  clearly  stated.  The  Scrip- 
tures now  appeared  a  new  book;  nearly  as  much  so  as  when  I 
experienced  justification.  And  now  I  am  expecting  when  God  shall 
take  up  His  abode  in  me,  and  walk  in  me."  This  view  of  complete 
sanctification,  whatever  that  phrase  may  really  mean,  colored  the 
course  of  the  noon  meetings  from  first  to  last,  not  obtrusively,  not 
in  a  way  to  excite  friction  in  minds  doubtful  or  hesitating,  but  in 
the  way  of  a  tacit  and  quiet,  and  yet  pervasive  and  insistent  leader- 
ship. It  was  in  him  and  of  him  and  went  out  from  him.  Here 
came  in  one  of  the  weaknesses  and,  consequently,  one  of  the  sources 
of  decay  of  the  noon  prayer-meetings.  One  could  not  be  in  regular 
attendance  upon  them,  even  for  one's  brief  college  course,  without 
insensibly  coming  to  feel  that  he  must,  in  order  to  be  a  good  Chris- 
tian, think  as  the  leader  thought,  pray  and  strive  as  he  did,  and  so 
in  an  unnatural,  and  therefore  unwholesome  way,  become  an  imi- 
tator of  a  fellow-Christian.  Such  imitation  is  always  weak  and 
futile.  Thomas  a  Kempis,  on  the  other  hand,  gave  the  pitch  to  the 
true  Christian  song  the  world  over  in  his  "Imitation  of  Christ." 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE    TILL   TEE   CENTENNIAL.  563 

It  would  be  wrong  to  imply  that  the  decay  of  the  noon  prayer- 
meeting  was  wholly  owing  to  any  decay  in  the  professor's  powers 
in  his  old  age,  or  any  lessening  on  the  whole  of  his  activities  and 
influence.  He  became  a  changed  man  amid  the  changes  that  were 
taking  place  around  him,  but  never  a  listless  or  unenterprising  one. 
He  said  little  or  nothing  in  his  later  years  about  sanctification  as 
attainable  in  the  present  life.  His  subjective  experiences,  some- 
times racking  and  sometimes  rapturous,  of  which  his  journal  is  full 
to  a  surfeit,  slowly  gave  way  to  objective  schemes  and  efforts  for 
the  amelioration  of  mankind.  The  battle-field  of  faith  and  righteous- 
ness shifted  from  the  region  of  an  exaggerated  self -consciousness  to 
the  more  palpable  region  of  the  wants  and  woes  of  his  fellow-man. 
He  became  an  outspoken  antislavery  man.  He  and  the  good  Deacon 
James  Smedley  carried  their  sentiments  on  this  topic  to  the  ballot- 
box  together  for  several  years  before  any  other  of  the  citizens  of 
Williamstown  accompanied  them  thither.  When  the  Civil  War 
broke  out,  in  1861,  he  gave  up  to  the  service  and  to  an  early  death 
in  battle  the  only  child  he  ever  had.  When  the  war  was  over,  and 
he  had  personally  recovered  his  dead,  and  buried  the  remains  by 
the  side  of  the  long-time  invalid  wife  and  mother  in  the  college 
cemetery,  he  seemed  to  have  nothing  else  to  do  or  care  for,  but  to 
spend  the  remaining  years  in  the  building  up  religiously  of  the  long- 
neglected  waste  places  of  the  White  Oaks.  There  he  bought  and 
cultivated  a  small  and  poor  farm,  for  the  purpose  of  showing  what 
were  then  a  mostly  shiftless  people  what  industry  and  thrift  are. 
There  he  built  a  chapel,  mostly  from  his  own  resources,  in  which 
he  preached  and  prayed  so  long  as  he  lived.  There  he  formed  a 
church,  which  he  named  "The  Church  of  Christ  in  White  Oaks." 
The  present  writing  is  just  twenty-five  years  since  the  gifted  pastor's 
death.  Church  services  and  the  Sunday-school  have  not  been  inter- 
mitted since.  The  chapel  has  been  rebuilt  and  enlarged,  the  grounds 
around  it  greatly  beautified,  and  the  whole  neighboring  population 
uplifted,  during  this  interval  of  time.  Dr.  L.  D.  Woodbridge  and 
his  wife,  from  this  side  of  the  river,  and  from  unusually  busy  pro- 
fessional and  family  cares,  have  been  the  main  support  of  the  Sun- 
day-school. Able  and  faithful  young  ministers  mostly  in  a  course 
of  preparation  for  pulpit  labors  on  wider  fields,  have  kept  up  in 
growing  power  the  weekly  services  in  the  chapel;  so  that  now  the 
entire  work  in  that  region  is  stronger  and  steadier  than  ever  before, 
—  all  a  beautiful  and  useful  fruitage  of  Professor  Hopkins's  own 
planting. 

It  is  probable  that  no  other  man  connected  with  the  College  clur- 


564  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

ing  the  first  century  of  its  work,  had  an  influence  so  varied  in  its 
direction  and  so  far-reaching  in  its  continuance,  as  that  of  Albert 
Hopkins.  He  was  not  equally  successful  in  each  of  his  manifold 
activities;  no  man  of  such  activities  ever  is,  or  can  be,  on  account 
of  the  invincible  limitations  of  human  nature :  the  remarkable  thing 
about  him  is,  that  success  did  not  fall  to  him  in  the  line  of  his  ear- 
lier efforts  and  greater  promise.  His  department  was  the  natural 
sciences.  He  went  to  Europe  in  1834  to  procure  some  apparatus  for 
his  class-room,  and  to  confer  more  or  less  as  to  matter  and  method 
with  the  men  of  science  abroad.  In  1835  he  built  his  astronomical 
observatory,  and  a  year  or  two  later  the  magnetic  observatory. 
The  auspices  seemed  to  point  strongly  toward  an  eminent  teacher 
of  these  and  the  kindred  sciences,  —  toward  a  man  who  should  add 
to  the  sum  of  current  scientific  knowledge.  His  department  at  first 
included  mathematics;  but  he  was  not  a  good  mathematician,  and 
this  branch  was  passed  over  to  John  Tatlock  in  1838,  and  the  depart- 
ment thereafter  called  Natural  Philosophy  and  Astronomy.  But  he 
did  not  prove  to  be  a  good  teacher  in  any  of  these  branches.  His 
heart  was  not  in  them.  His  manner  of  teaching  was  not  adapted  to 
enlist  the  interest  of  any  pupils,  except  those  who  had  a  strong  bent 
to  that  class  of  studies,  and  some  of  these  are  said  to  have  soon  sur- 
passed him  in  their  acquirements.  Others  of  these  easily  made 
perfect  recitations  in  class,  but  gained  nothing  new  from  him.  John 
Basconi  was  one  of  these,  and  has  been  heard  to  say,  that  he  could 
not  recall  a  single  new  idea  in  science  or  a  single  impulse  to  per- 
sonal research  in  any  scientific  direction,  derived  from  his  lecture- 
room.  He  did  not  encourage  questions  from  his  students  while 
even  his  experimental  lectures  were  going  forward.  It  would  be 
nearer  the  truth  to  say  that  such  questions  were  so  wholly  unex- 
pected that  they  were  not  even  allowed.  The  writer  remembers  to 
have  asked  a  question  once  in  his  eagerness  to  understand  a  compli- 
cated point  which  the  professor  was  unfolding.  It  is  hard  to  say 
whether  the  class  or  the  professor  were  more  astounded  at  the  inter- 
ruption. The  latter  stopped,  answered  the  question  courteously, 
but  not  clearly,  and  was  evidently  disturbed  by  it.  That  was  the 
first  and  last  question  ever  put  by  the  men  of  1852  to  Professor 
Hopkins  in  the  class-room. 

In  the  street,  on  a  walk,  at  his  own  study,  he  was  genial  enough 
with  the  students,  often  jocose,  always  communicative.  John  C. 
Goodrich,  of  the  class  of  1863,  a  harum-scarum  and  devil-niay-care 
student  of  good  character  and  innocent  purposes,  relates  an  expe- 
rience of  his  own,  as  follows :  — 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE    TILL   THE    CENTENNIAL.  565 

I  envy  you  the  hearing  of  Professor  Bascom's  paper  on  Professor  Hopkins  ; 
and  did  not  other  matters  render  it  impossible  I  would  go  to  hear  it.  I  had  the 
greatest  affection  for  Professor  Hopkins.  We  became  friends  through  some  law 
of  opposites.  I  recall  now  how  that  comparison  was  once  expressed,  —  one  of 
the  students  made  a  remark  and  it  passed  current. 

One  day  I  ventured  to  tell  it  to  "Prof.  Al."  I  said,  as  we  were  walking  in 
town  after  a  mountain  trip,  "Professor,  do  you  know  what  the  boys  say  when 
they  see  us  together."  He  said  he  did  not.  "  Well,"  I  said,  "  they  say,  '  There 
goes  the  Apostle  Paul  and  Captain  Kidd.'  "  "  Do  they  ?  "  said  he,  with  scarcely 
a  motion  on  that  grave  face. 

What  imp  of  darkness  possessed  me,  what  state  of  depravity  came  over  me, 
I  know  not,  but  I  next  broke  the  silence  with  the  remark,  "I  wonder  if  they 
think  I  am  the  apostle." 

The  good  old  saint's  face  was  then  smooth-shaven,  and  I  shall  never  forget 
the  expressions  that  came  over  it.  It  commenced  with  a  certain  smack  of  the 
lips  and  ended  with  a  peculiar  twinkle  of  his  eye  that  we  rarely  saw.  The  sub- 
ject was  dropped,  and  I  knew  I  was  forgiven,  but  I  have  always  thought  it  a 
miracle  that  I  was  not  eaten  by  bears,  or  had  some  of  the  sudden  punishments 
dropped  upon  me,  such  as  in  old  times  were  meted  out  to  those  who  reviled  the 
prophets. 

No  one  anticipated  or  could  have  anticipated  from  his  apparent 
interest  and  zeal  in  scientific  pursuits  at  the  outset,  that  his  teach- 
ing in  these  would  become  so  formal  in  the  class-room,  so  cold  and 
dead,  as  it  unfortunately  did  become  in  following  years.  On  the 
contrary,  the  index-finger  pointed  the  other  way.  During  the 
summer  vacation  of  1835  he  organized  and  conducted  a  natural  his- 
tory expedition,  which  is  believed  to  be  the  first  one  in  this  country, 
to  Nova  Scotia.  Dr.  Ebenezer  Emmons  and  Tutor  S.  H.  Calhoun 
were  associated  with  the  leader  in  the  conduct  of  the  expedition. 
President  Chadbourne,  in  his  sermon  at  the  funeral  of  Professor 
Hopkins,  in  1872,  makes  the  following  reference  to  this:  "Such 
expeditions  are  comparatively  common  now,  when  travel  is  easy 
and  the  necessity  of  field  work  in  natural  history  is  well  understood. 
But  that  such  an  expedition  should  have  been  planned  in  a  college 
among  the  Berkshire  hills,  and  successfully  carried  out  nearly  forty 
years  ago,  when  as  yet  it  was  necessary  to  travel  a  hundred  miles 
to  reach  the  railroad,  shows  that  the  organizer  of  the  expedition  was 
one  of  those  minds  that  see  in  advance  the  demands  of  science,  and 
have  wisdom  and  energy  enough  to  adapt  the  most  efficient  means 
for  its  advancement." 

Professor  Hopkins  himself  in  an  account  of  the  college  revival  of 
1835,  written  about  1860,  developed  a  connection  between  the  revival 
and  this  expedition  as  follows:  "It  deserves, 'perhaps,  to  be  men- 
tioned here,  as  evidencing  the  fact  that  Nature  and  the  Christian 


566  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

religion  are  not  unfriendly,  that  the  day  after  the  close  of  the  term, 
an  expedition  started  under  the  auspices  of  the  Natural  History 
Society,  consisting  of  about  twenty  individuals,  most  of  whom  had 
been  affected  more  or  less  by  the  awakening.  Indeed,  had  it  not 
been  for  the  awakening,  I  question  whether  the  expedition  would 
have  moved  at  this  time.  There  was  a  disposition  to  blow  the  Gos- 
pel trumpet  about  the  land,  and  as  the  news  of  what  the  Lord  had 
been  doing  for  us  had  gone  before,  it  seemed  to  be  taken  for  granted 
that  we  would  hold  meetings  as  we  travelled;  which  we  did,  much 
to  our  own  gratification,  and  we  have  reason  to  believe,  in  some 
instances,  not  without  special  benefit  to  others." 

After  an  absence  of  about  four  weeks  on  shipboard  and  among  the 
Blue  Noses  of  the  northeast,  the  expedition  returned  safely-;  and 
Professor  Hopkins  wrote  out  a  full  account  of  it  for  the  American 
Traveller,  in  three  numbers.  The  Traveller  was  then  edited  by  a 
graduate  of  the  College,  and  we  are  now  going  to  give  our  readers, 
at  this  late  day,  the  pleasure  and  benefit  of.  reading  about  half  the 
first  number  in  the  professor's  own  words. 

SCIENTIFIC   EXPEDITION 

Of  Students  of  Williams  College,  from  Boston  along  the  Eastern  Coast  to  St. 
Johns,  N.  B.  and  Halifax  and  Windsor,  N.  S. 

WILLIAMS  COLLEGE,  Oct.  19th,  1835. 

MR.  PORTER  :  —  A  few  weeks  before  the  close  of  our  summer  term,  the  idea 
was  started  here,  of  an  expedition  to  Nova  Scotia,  during  the  September  vaca- 
tion. The  interesting  account  of  the  Mineralogy  and  Geology  of  that  section  of 
the  country,  recently  published  by  Messrs.  Alger  and  Jackson  —  the  fame  of  the 
high  tides  and  romantic  scenery  of  the  Bay  of  Fundy,  aided,  perhaps,  a  little  by 
that  love  of  adventure  which  is  so  natural  to  young  men  —  gave  the  idea  an 
unexpected  degree  of  popularity.  In  a  few  days  it  became  evident  that  several, 
especially,  those  connected  with  the  Lyceum  of  Natural  History,  would  be  satis- 
fied with  nothing  short  of  an  excursion.  It  was  accordingly  agreed  upon,  and 
a  vessel  was  forthwith  chartered  for  the  purpose.  As  you  have  appeared,  sir,  to 
take  an  interest  in  our  movements,  prompted  either  by  your  professional  sym- 
pathy with  all  the  travelling  community,  or  as  we  would  more  readily  believe  by 
the  feelings  of  an  Alumnus,  and  have  requested  some  brief  sketch  of  our  adven- 
tures, we  readily  comply ;  assuring  you,  however,  that  our  object  in  the  tour 
has  been  rather  to  benefit  ourselves,  than  to  enlighten  the  public. 

Our  party  consisted  of  twenty,  mostly  undergraduates  —  three  who  were 
instructors  in  the  College  —  some  few  old  College  friends,  and  one  or  two  young 
men  of  liberal  curiosity  who  were  anxious  to  join  us.  Having  laid  in  the  requisite 
stores,  we  left  Boston  harbor  in  the  sloop  Flight,  (a  Yarmouth  packet)  Capt.  Hal- 
lett,  on  the  Monday  evening  ensuing  our  Commencement.  The  sun  was  setting 
as  we  got  under  weigh,  leaving  us  less  time  than  we  could  have  wished  to  enjoy 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL    THE   CENTENNIAL.  567 

a  view,  more  rich  in  interest  to  a  child  of  the  Pilgrims  than  any  other,  and 
scarcely  yielding  to  any  in  intrinsic  beauty.  The  Capitol  with  its  imposing 
dome,  the  old  South  Church,  noted  in  revolutionary  annals,  Bunker  Hill,  and 
Dorchester —  standing  watch- words  for  the  last  half  century,  wherever  the  cause 
of  human  rights  has  been  at  issue  —  came  successively  before  us.  Under  the 
lengthening  shadows  of  these  imposing  objects,  associated  with  our  earliest  ideas 
of  valor  and  patriotism,  we  would  willingly  have  lingered,  but  a  favorable  gale 
bore  us  rapidly  away.  In  a  short  half  hour,  nothing  could  be  made  out  of  the 
dim  outline  of  the  distant  Capitol,  which  itself  in  turn  disappeared.  —  The  night 
was  now  closing  fast  upon  us  ;  and  as  there  seemed  to  be  a  desire  to  give  utter- 
ance to  some  united  expression  both  of  our  grateful  remembrances  and  hopes 
for  the  time  to  come,  we  did  so  in  the  lines 

"  With  grateful  hearts  the  past  we  own, 
The  future  —  all  to  us  unknown,"  &c. 

The  sentiments  of  these  noble  stanzas  chimed  in  with  our  feelings  as  we 
committed  ourselves,  most  of  us,  for  the  first  time  to  the  Ocean,  on  a  voyage 
which,  though  short,  is  fraught,  probably,  with  more  danger  than  one  across  the 
Atlantic. 

A  fine  sail  of  about  40  hours,  with  a  uniform  rate  of  nearly  six  knots,  brought 
us  in  with  the  west  Quoddy  Light.  The  heavy  bell  of  the  Light  House  was  toll- 
ing with  a  quick  startling  toll,  as  is  the  custom  in  these  seas  in  foggy  weather,  to 
warn  the  mariner  of  rocks  which  lie  near  by.  A  steep  and  isolated  one  was 
pointed  out  to  us  by  our  Pilot,  on  which,  not  long  since,  a  vessel  foundered  in 
the  night.  In  the  morning,  none  of  the  crew  were  to  be  found,  but  one  poor 
woman  with  an  infant  child  in  her  arms,  who  had  been  washed  up  by  the  surf 
upon  the  pointed  rock.  She  was  rescued  in  safety. 

We  gazed  with  more  than  ordinary  interest  upon  the  point  where  the  Light 
House  stands,  as  it  is  the  most  easterly  in  the  territories  of  the  United  States ; 
lying  in  Lon.  66  deg.  15  min.,  and  in  Lat.  44  deg.  50  min.  Less  than  an  hour's 
sail  from  the  light  brought  us  to  anchor  in  the  harbor  of  Lubec.  This  is  a  busy, 
commercial  village,  the  most  eastern  on  the  main  land.  Eastport,  which  lies 
about  4  miles  due  north,  or  a  little  east  of  north,  is  on  an  island.  The  collector 
of  the  port  boarded  us  in  a  few  moments,  to  whom  we  had  letters,  and  who  had 
for  several  days  been  waiting  our  arrival.  He  is  a  gentleman  partial  to  science, 
and  maintaining  a  taste  for  it,  even  amidst  the  active  engagements  of  the  Legal 
profession.  It  is  perhaps  not  surprising,  certainly  it  is  a  fact,  so  far  as  our 
observation  extends,  that  very  few,  next  to  none  in  this  profession,  give  time  to 
scientific  pursuits.  The  physician  you  shall  find,  with  his  cabinet  carefully  col- 
lected, often,  and  tastefully  arranged.  He  whose  office  it  is,  "to  vindicate  the 
claims  of  Providence  and  justify  the  ways  of  God  to  man,"  occasionally  finds 
room  for  a  few  specimens  of  his  works,  among  shelves  richly  laden  with  the 
spoils  of  vanquished  sects,  and  the  massive  weapons  of  polemic  theology.  But 
beside  the  pandects  of  Justinian  or  the  commentaries  of  Blackstone,  we  have 
rarely  seen  a  mineral  or  a  plant.  The  first  object  which  struck  our  attention,  on 
entering  the  office  of  Mr.  Thayer,  was  a  telescope,  which  we  immediately  recog- 
nized as  the  workmanship  of  Mr.  Holcomb.  We  were  not  a  little  surprised,  that 
the  instruments  of  our  worthy  friend,  should  have  found  their  way  so  soon  into 
the  remotest  village  in  the  Union.  We  think  they  may  yet  get  across  the  Atlan- 
tic and  be  picked  up,  perhaps,  by  some  of  our  learned  professors  who  are  rang- 


568  W1LLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

ing  the  British  Isles  and  the  continent  in  search  of  similar  objects  :  this  was  one 
of  Mr.  Holcomb's  $100  instruments,  and  yet  Mr.  Thayer  informed  us,  that  it 
would  distinctly  divide  the  north  star.  But  to  return  from  this  digression. 

The  next  morning  there  was  a  fog.  For,  in  this  part  of  the  country,  if  you 
enquire  of  one  who  is  weather-wise,  what  the  prospect  is  ?  he  informs  you 
gravely,  "that  there  is  an  appearance  of  a  fog."  So  we  were  informed  the 
evening  before,  and  so  in  the  morning  we  found  it.  However,  Mr.  T.  proposed 
visiting  the  lead  mine,  "  which  was  only  a  short  row  of  eleven  miles."  This  to 
us,  young  as  most  of  us  were,  and  inexperienced  in  rowing,  among  narrow  arms 
of  the  sea,  rapid  tides  and  a  dense  fog  withal,  appeared  somewhat  formidable. 
However  so  great  was  the  zeal  to  be  of  the  party  that,  in  order  to  prevent  diffi- 
culty, we  concluded  to  decide  who  should  go  by  lot.  —  And  here  we  may  state, 
that  our  expedition  went  on  the  peace  principle.  Several  of  us  were  quakers,  at 
least  so  far  as  the  New  Testament  goes,  and  those  who  were  not,  never  meant 
any  harm,  we  believe,  still  it  was  difficult  for  them  always  to  be  exactly  right. 
A  good  man  will  not  dispute  a  very  little.  Having  rowed  an  hour  or  two,  we 
found  ourselves  setting  on  a  strong  tide,  we  knew  not  whither,  our  pilot  having 
lost  his  bearings.  At  length  we  came  under  land,  and  on  enquiring  found  it 
to  be  Moose  Island,  the  same  on  which  Eastport  stands,  several  miles  out  of 
our  way.  —  Here  we  got  our  bearings  and  proceeded  on  until  afternoon  ;  when 
the  fog  suddenly  melted  up.  —  The  effect  can  scarcely  be  described ;  the  nearest 
objects  having  been  until  this  moment  completely  shrouded  from  our  view.  We 
lay  in  the  bosom  of  a  retired  bay,  studded  with  rocky  and  romantic  islands. 
These  islands  were  crowned  with  evergreens,  whose  reversed  pendent  branches 
gave  to  the  scenery  an  aspect  decidedly  northern  ;  whilst  the  familiar  shrubs  and 
trees,  interspersed  here  and  there,  and  the  warm  shining  of  the  sun,  reminded 
us  that  we  were  still  in  New  England.  Some  of  us  had  been  familiarized  to 
scenery,  like  that  which  soon  opened,  during  our  expedition,  last  Autumn,  to 
Umbagog  and  other  Lakes  in  the  interior.  To  others  it  was  entirely  new.  All 
probably  felt  repaid  for  a  fifteen  miles  row,  for  such  it  proved  to  be.  The  lead 
occurs  in  veins,  which  run  completely  down  to  the  bay  ;  though  we  traced  sev- 
eral of  them  quite  a  distance  back  into  the  country.  The  veins  are  from  one  to 
six  feet  in  thickness.  The  ore,  which  has  been  but  slightly  wrought,  is  a  fine 
crystallized  mineral,  resembling  much  both  in  external  characters 'and  composi- 
tion, that  found  at  Southampton  in  this  State.  Zinc  occurs  abundantly  at  this 
locality  and  specular  iron  on  the  opposite  shore. 

Our  space  forbids  but  a  single  excerpt  further  from  the  copious 
and  humorous  account,  which  the  professor  gave  to  the  Traveller,  of 
the  varied  experiences  of  his  party  in  their  month's  wanderings  and 
collectings  in  the  region  of  Nova  Scotia.  There  were  two  or  three 
in  the  party  who  cared  little  or  nothing  about  its  natural  history 
phases,  but  who  joined  it  at  the  professor's  invitation  for  the  pur- 
pose of  health  or  recreation.  One  of  these  was  Mr.  B.  F.  Mather,  a 
merchant  of  Williamstown,  whose  long  and  honorable  life  here  in 
church  and  town  made  him  influential  and  memorable  in  both.  Of 
course  the  variety  in  the  position  and  interest  of  those  whom  he  was 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL  THE   CENTENNIAL.  569 

conducting  added  something  to  the  leader's  perplexities,  to  which 
he  makes  some  amusing  allusions  in  the  passage  following,  which 
is  selected  from  among  others  perhaps  equally  entertaining,  mainly 
on  account  of  the  grotesque  contact  between  the  party  and  Judge 
Haliburton  of  Nova  Scotia  near  the  latter 's  summer  home  on  the 
coast. 

Next  morning  the  rock  bound  coast  of  the  Peninsula,  a  long  wall-like  barrier 
of  Greenstone,  lay  close  beside  us.  This  was  Nova  Scotia,  which  we  had  long 
had  before  us,  and  every  foot  was  eager  to  step  off  —  the  point  where  we  were, 
abounding  in  interesting  minerals.  It  is  termed  Peter's  Head.  At  such  times 
it  is  necessary  to  restrain  young  men  a  little  —  you  must  check  them,  and  not 
suffer  all  to  go  overboard  at  once  —  the  older  and  graver  members  must  get  into 
the  first  boat,  and  go  quietly  ashore  —  then  the  younger  ones  must  follow.  This 
was  all  done  up  without  any  difficulty.  In  fact  no  restraint  was  necessary  ; 
they  always  urged  us  to  go  first,  which  we  sometimes  did  to  save  time  and 
trouble.  The  members  of  our  party,  in  one  word,  had  all  been  brought  up, 
without  which  a  person  will  never  respect  either  age  or  character,  or  any  thing 
else  —  but  himself.  And  now  all  hands  were  busy  with  the  minerals.  The  Capt. 
himself,  it  appeared,  had  caught  the  spirit  of  the  expedition,  running  around 
among  the  rocks,  as  wild  and  eager  as  any  of  us.  One  of  the  company,  mean- 
while, who  had  found  his  way  on  to  the  table  land  above  the  cliff,  brought  back 
word  of  a  fine  mansion  he  had  seen — said  to  be  the  country  seat  of  Mr.  Hali- 
burton, the  Chief  Justice  of  the  Province.  Lured  in  part,  by  a  curiosity  to  see 
the  cottage,  (for  such  it  was)  and,  in  part,  by  the  prospect  of  a  fine  view  of  the 
bay  —  most  of  the  party  went  up  to  a  little  dwelling  which  stood  just  on  the 
brow  of  the  cliff.  Whether  the  fame  of  our  expedition  had  gone  before  us,  or 
whether  the  Chief  Justice,  like  the  hospitable  Patriarch,  was  watching  an  oppor- 
tunity to  entertain  strangers,  we  know  not  —  certain  it  is  that  he  soon  appeared 
in  person,  and  constrained  us,  though  little  in  the  guise  of  gentlemen,  to  go  up 
and  partake  the  hospitalities  of  his  house.  It  was  one  of  our  greatest  mortifica- 
tions to  have  been  absent  on  this  occasion.  Having  wandered  farther  than  the 
rest,  and  lighting  in  a  cave,  roofed  and  paved  with  stilbite,  we  were  at  work  very 
honestly,  without  any  knowledge  of  what  was  taking  place  above.  On  return- 
ing, and  finding  not  a  solitary  mineralogist,  we  began  to  be  suspicious  ;  and 
hastened  as  fast  as  possible,  up  the  steep  and  across  the  fields,  to  the  Cottage. 
Having  on  our  pea  jacket,  and  coming  after  the  rest,  we  were  somewhat  appre- 
hensive of  being  mistaken  for  one  of  the  crew.  However,  making  a  shift  to 
bring  our  sledge  hammer  into  a  prominent  position,  it  served  as  an  ample 
passport.  The  interesting  family  of  the  Judge  (for  he  himself  had  been  gone 
some  time  with  the  party)  received  us  with  polite  attention.  We  of  course  stayed 
but  a  moment,  returning  immediately  to  the  beach,  where  we  arrived  nearly  at 
the  same  time  with  the  Judge,  and  had  the  pleasure  of  a  few  moments  conversa- 
tion. On  enquiring  into  the  state  of  society  and  morals,  he  informed  us  that  it 
was  not  unusual,  with  him,  to  pass  through  his  extensive  circuit,  without  meet- 
ing a  single  criminal  case.  In  a  few  moments  the  party  were  all  at  the  boat, 
and  the  Judge  with  a  hearty  shake  of  the  hand  took  his  leave,  making  his  way 
among  slippery  rocks,  under  the  patterings  of  a  smart  shower,  to  his  now  dis- 


570  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    AVILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

tant  residence.  This  was  a  specimen  of  Old  England,  and  old  New  England 
politeness.  We  remember  to  have  seen  a  few,  in  our  early  boyhood,  who  we 
think  would  have  done  that  thing ;  but  since  they  have  got  into  the  habit  of 
coining  gentlemen  at  the  mint,  one  might  look  almost  in  vain,  among  us,  for 
a  specimen  of  this  old  and  venerated  school. 

Judge  Haliburton,  of  whom  nothing  was  then  known  in  the  United 
States,  was  a  native  of  Nova  Scotia  in  1797,  educated  at  King's  Col- 
lege, and  admitted  to  the  bar  in  1820.  He  practised  law  in  Nova 
Scotia  many  years ;  was  a  member  of  the  Provincial  Assembly ;  and 
became  a  judge  of  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas  in  1829,  and  later  of 
the  Supreme  Court.  During  this  very  year  of  1835,  when  the  Berk- 
shire party  encountered  him  on  his  own  estate,  he  was  contributing 
a  series  of  articles  to  a  Nova  Scotia  newspaper,  satirizing  the  Yan- 
kees, which  became  exceedingly  popular  in  the  United  States  and 
even  in  England,  and  which  were  published,  with  additions  and 
alterations,  in  1837,  under  the  title  of  "  The  Clock-Maker ;  or  Say- 
ings and  Doings  of  Samuel  Slick  of  Slickville."  Whether  or  not 
the  striking  courtesy  and  hospitality  of  the  first  great  American 
humorist  to  this  Berkshire  crowd  had  any  part  of  its  root  in  a 
desire  to  see  and  hear  some  new  specimens  of  the  genus  Yankee  for 
his  own  current  literary  purposes,  we  shall  never  know;  but  we 
may  know  one  thing  with  absolute  certainty,  namely,  that  when 
he  grasped  the  hand  at  parting  of  Albert  Hopkins,  in  his  pea  jacket, 
he  saw  a  man  of  uncommon  physical  presence  and  strength,  — a  man 
described  about  that  time  by  one  of  the  alumni,  as  possessing  "a 
frame  which  would  have  suited  an  athlete,  and  a  head  such  as  the 
Greek  sculptors  gave  to  their  great  orators,  large  in  feature,  but 
symmetrical  and  well-poised,  clad  with  soft  curly  hair,  and  wearing 
beneath  the  shaggy  protection  of  a  rugged  brow  eyes  of  raven  hue 
and  of  unmatched  depth  and  brilliancy." 

No  single  key  is  adequate  to  unlock  the  complex  life  and  tenden- 
cies of  Albert  Hopkins.  The  results  in  different  directions  do  not 
seem  to  be  consistent  with  one  another.  What  one  would  have  con- 
fidently anticipated,  he  does  not  in  reality  find ;  and  he  indisputably 
finds  much  that  seems  to  be  in  no  logical  connection  with  what 
went  before.  But  so  far  as  any  one  principle  appears  to  be  pre- 
dominant over  others  his  whole  life  through,  it  comes  out  in  his 
own  words  (but  just  quoted)  in  relation  to  this  Nova  Scotia  expedi- 
tion. It  was  a  natural  history  expedition.  They  went  to  observe 
the  high  tides  in  the  Bay  of  Fundy,  and  to  bring  back  what  they 
could  of  scientific  interest  of  botanical  and  geological  and  miner- 
alogical  specimens.  Still,  they  would  not  have  gone  at  that  time, 


TOWN    AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  571 

he  tells  us,  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  religious  revival  of  the  preced- 
ing term.  They  went,  after  all,  "  to  blow  the  Gospel  trumpet "  on 
shipboard  and  in  remote  regions.  In  his  few  minutes  only  with 
Judge  Haliburton  on  the  beach,  the  topic  was  solely  the  state  of 
society  and  morals  in  Nova  Scotia.  In  his  account  of  their  immi- 
nent shipwreck,  it  was  its  religious  aspects  chiefly  that  his  mind 
dwelt  upon.  "  This  was  the  moment  of  jeopardy.  Say  your  pray- 
ers, say  your  prayers,  said  a  wicked  sailor,  who  had  run  below  and 
brought  up  what  little  money  he  had.  Poor  fellow,  he  did  not 
seem  to  feel  that  we  had  attended  to  that  while  the  sky  was  clear. 
Now  was  the  time  to  look  out  for  the  body.  Only  about  twice  the 
length  of  the  vessel  remained  to  make  a  tack  in,  —  a  little  space,  — 
but  to  us  as  good  as  an  ocean.  She  turned  firmly  on  her  unstable 
pivot,  —  poised  a  moment,  —  and  then  left  for  ever  this,  —  Ebene- 
zer,  — so  we  called  it,  —to  be  still  dashed  on  by  the  ocean  surf;  but 
not  soon  to  be  forgotten  by  the  youthful  band  who  met  deliverance 
under  its  threatening  summit." 

The  spirit  first,  and  then  the  "  body  " ;  the  next  world  "  while  the 
sky  is  clear,"  and  afterward  this  present  evil  world  with  its  cares 
and  duties :  this  was  unquestionably  the  key-note  of  the  professor's 
life.  But  it  was  above  pitch  even  for  his  own  high-toned  instru- 
ment, take  it  through  and  through.  Still  more  was  it  above  pitch 
for  his  orchestra  generally.  There  could  not  but  be  more  or  less 
dissonance  under  such  circumstances ;  and,  to  drop  the  figure,  it  was 
impossible  for  him  to  maintain  year  after  year  this  marvellous  pre- 
cedence in  thought  and  action  of  the  uncertain  and  the  unseen  and 
the  eternal  over  what  is  seen  and  scientific  and,  in  one  sense,  tem- 
poral. One  world  at  a  time,  in  the  proper  construction  of  that 
abused  phrase ;  and  still  more  a  conception  of  the  profounder  truth, 
that  all  worlds  are  one,  as  that  is  now  beginning  to  dawn  on  the 
docile  and  the  waiting  and  the  thoughtful  of  mankind,  —  would  have 
been  an  unspeakable  boon  to  the  lofty  spirit  of  Albert  Hopkins. 
But  hush!  Every  man  is  for  his  own  generation,  and  not  for  the 
next.  He  is  not,  and  he  cannot  be,  essentially  and  on  the  whole, 
far  in  advance  of  his  environment  and  his  contemporaries.  What 
he  contributes  is  indeed  his  own,  but  the  ability  to  receive  on  the 
part  of  others  limits  the  contribution  as  really  as  his  own  ability  to 
impart  limits  the  same.  What  New  England  needed  in  the  two 
decades  on  either  side  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  was  not 
so  much  the  doctrine  of  evolution,  or  the  unity  of  God  in  all  his 
works  and  in  all  his  worlds,  as  it  needed  clear-eyed  and  disinterested 
and  fearless  men  to  perceive  and  believe  and  announce  in  word  and 


572  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

in  life  the  invisible  government  of  God  in  and  over  mankind. 
Within  his  sphere  men  understood  to  a  large  degree  the  life  and 
testimony  of  Albert  Hopkins  in  his  day.  They  did  not  and  could 
not  understand  the  broader  and  deeper  and  loftier  words  of  Darwin 
and  Huxley  and  Martineau.  In  a  sense,  accordingly,  he  was  more 
useful  to  the  men  of  his  generation  than  they  could  be  to  the  same 
men.  If  he  had  been  a  better  scientist  than  he  was,  if  he  had 
learned  the  charm  and  the  sweep  of  the  inductive  logic,  and  had 
given  himself  even  as  much  as  Silliman  and  Amos  Eaton  did  to  the 
then  opening  science  of  the  United  States,  he  would  not  have  been, 
on  the  whole,  so  useful  a  man  and  so  moving  a  force  as  he  actually 
became.  He  saw  indeed  that  Nature  and  Religion  are  allies,  reach- 
ing one  another  the  hand  over  a  wide  intervening  space;  he  did  not 
see  that  these  are  twin  sisters  nourished  from  the  same  breast. 

The  inevitable  happened.  He  gradually  lost  his  hold  over  the 
students  in  the  class-room  as  a  teacher  of  science,  only  to  be  stirred 
to  greater  effort  and  still  more  self-denial  in  their  behalf  as  a 
religious  leader.  He  could  not  be  successful  in  both.  The  stu- 
dents, who  began  to  be  earnest  and  outspoken  in  relation  to  his 
growing  unfitness  to  teach  the  sciences  of  his  department,  were 
among  the  best  students  and  the  best  men  who  have  ever  taken  the 
honors  of  the  College.  And  it  may  be  added  that  they  were  among 
those  who  estimated  at  the  highest  the  value  of  Professor  Hopkins 
to  the  College  as  a  religious  stimulus  and  guide.  Two  only  of  these 
will  be  mentioned  here  as  examples  of  many  more  of  like  insight 
and  character,  George  W.  Northrup,  of  the  class  of  1854,  and 
Charles  Marsh,  of  the  class  of  1855.  The  former  class  was  the 
largest  that,  till  then,  had  ever  been  graduated  from  the  College,  — 
sixty -three  men;  and  the  latter  class  was  only  inferior  in  number  to 
that  by  eight.  Both  held  an  unusual  proportion  of  men  who  after- 
ward became  distinguished  in  their  several  walks  of  life.  Without 
trying  to  draw  a  sharp  line  in  the  matter  of  reputation,  a  thing 
impossible  to  be  done  in  any  case,  the  following  fourteen  men  of 
the  class  of  1854  may  be  fairly  reckoned  as  "  distinguished,7'  just  one- 
half  of  them  being  marked  on  the  triennial  as  doctors  of  divinity :  — 

JAMES  M.  ANDERSON  CHARLES  R.  BLISS 

JAMES  R.  DEWET  JOHN  Doun 

HENRY  M.  GROUT  ABBOTT  E.  KITTREDGE 

ELBRIDGE  Mix  GEORGE  W.  NORTHRUP 

FRANCIS  L.  ROBBINS  JARVIS  ROCKWELL 

NORMAN  SEAVER  ROBERT  B.  SNOWDEN 

CHARLES  A.  STODDARD  ORSON  V.  TOCSLEY 


TOWN    AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  573 

The  same  number  may  properly  be  designated  in  the  same  man- 
ner of  the  class  of  1855,  six  of  this  class  being  noted  as  doctors  of 
divinity,  three  as  members  of  the  United  States  Congress,  four 
prominent  college  professors,  and  two  noteworthy  foreign  mission- 
aries. The  fourteen  may  be  grouped  in  this  way :  — 

WILLIAM  W.  ADAMS  WILLIAM  R.  DIMMOCK 

CYRUS  M.  DODD  HANFORD  A.  EDSON 

CHARLES  E.  FITCH  PHINEAS  W.  HITCHCOCK 

JOHN  J.  INGALLS  EDWARD  P.  INGERSOLL 

JAMES  ORTON  WILLIAM  P.  PRENTICE 

HENRY  W.  SEYMOUR  GEORGE  T.  WASHBURN 

ABRAHAM  LANSING  CHARLES  MARSH 

The  next  class,  that  of  1856,  though  smaller  than  the  two  pre- 
ceding, may  justly  claim  an  equal  number  of  members  of  public 
note.  Of  course,  all  might  not  agree  in  the  following  selection  of 
the  fourteen :  — 

STEPHEN  W.  BOWLES  JAMES  A.  GARFIELD 

JAMES  GILFILLAN  CHARLES  S.  HALSEY 

JAMES  K.  HAZEN  CLEMENT  H.  HILL 

FERRIS  JACOBS  GEORGE  B.  NEWCOMB 

FRANKLIN  NOBLE  ALMON  F.  ROCKWELL 

HENRY  ROOT  JOHN  T.  STONEMAN 

JOHN  TATLOCK  FREDERICK  F.  THOMPSON 

Now,  it  is  important  to  the  present  purpose  to  record  that  the 
entrance  and  course  and  exit  of  these  three  college  classes,  at  that 
time  and  under  those  circumstances,  brought  in  a  new  phase  of  life 
and  opinion  to  this  institution.  If  it  may  not  be  truthfully  said  of 
those  six  years  that  old  things  passed  away  then  and  behold!  all 
things  became  new;  it  may  at  least  be  truthfully  said,  that  those 
six  years,  1850-56,  were  a  pivot  of  time  on  which  college  things 
turned  to  face  thereafter  in  new  directions.  It  has  already  been 
unfolded  in  these  pages  that  a  full-orbed  college  consists  in  the 
action  and  interaction  of  four  distinct  yet  constantly  changing  bodies 
of  men,  —  namely,  the  trustees,  and  the  faculty,  and  the  students, 
and  the  alumni.  The  last  came  into  organized  and  wholesome 
operation  upon  this  ground  in  1821,  —  the  first  instance  of  such 
activity  in  the  history  of  New  England  colleges.  Up  to  the  middle 
of  the  century,  and  somewhat  beyond,  it  may  be  said  with  certainty 
that  the  feelings  and  opinions  and  forecastings  of  the  student-body, 
so  far  as  there  was  any  occasion  and  opportunity  for  gathering  these 
to  a  head  in  expression,  had  had  little  or  no  influence  on  the  stated 
action  of  the  two  bodies  having  primarily  the  College  in  charge. 


574  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

But  in  the  decade  already  referred  to,  there  was  a  very  consider- 
able change  in  this  particular.  The  student-body  was  much  larger 
than  ever  before.  Each  class  contained  a  considerable  number  of 
clear-sighted  and  disinterested,  and  more  or  less  experienced,  stu- 
dents, who  came  to  know  thoroughly  what  was  going  on  in  College,' 
what  was  going  wrong  in  College,  and  that  they  had  and  could  not 
escape  some  personal  and  cooperate  responsibility  for  all  these 
things.  A  sort  of  cooperate  self-consciousness  was  developed  in 
the  student-body  for  the  first  time.  Individual  students  began  to 
talk  these  matters  over  among  themselves  in  a  sober  and  reflective 
and  responsible  way.  There  were  small  and  informal  and  indecisive 
conferences  as  between  some  of  the  best  students  in  the  different 
classes.  There  were  two  young  professors  at  that  time,  neither  of 
them  long  out  of  College,  both  of  them  beginning  their  work  of 
instruction  at  the  same  hour  in  1853,  neither  of  them  certain  for 
several  years  that  they  themselves  would  make  a  thorough  success 
of  it;  but  both  of  them  drawing  the  general  moral  confidence  of  the 
students  to  a  degree  in  which  the  older  professors  did  not.  These 
were  Professor  Lincoln  and  Professor  Perry.  Some  of  those  stu- 
dents just  characterized  spoke  with  more  or  less  freedom  to  one  or 
the  other  of  these  gentlemen  about  their  older  instructors,  without 
any  concert  as  between  themselves,  and  without  any  resulting  con- 
ference as  between  the  two.  Neither  of  the  latter  could  say  much, 
if  anything,  in  the  way  of  comment  on  the  confidential  talk  of  the 
former.  Their  position  as  newcomers  forbade  it;  and  their  per- 
sonal relations  to  the  older  teachers,  who  had  but  recently  been  their 
own,  forbade  it  also;  and  besides,  there  was  more  or  less  dissatis- 
faction, freely  expressed,  in  relation  to  the  two  young  professors 
also.  Nevertheless,  these,  at  any  rate,  and  undoubtedly  others, 
too,  connected  with  the  College,  became  aware  that  there  was  a 
deep-seated  feeling  among  some  of  the  best  students  in  College,  in 
relation  to  the  unsuitableness  as  college  teachers,  —  not  at  all  as 
Christian  men,  — of  Professor  Hopkins  and  Professor  Tatlock  and 
Professor  Griffin,  and  in  that  general  order  of  delinquency.  The 
present  writer,  as  one  of  those  more  or  less  an  object  of  this  critical 
feeling  and  discussion,  wishes  to  express  his  conviction  of  the  pro- 
priety and  usefulness  of  such  discussion  and  animadversion  on  the 
part  of  college  students  as  toward  their  college  instructors  and  gov- 
ernors. When  the  motive  is  good,  when  the  spirit  is  temperate, 
when  the  real  or  supposed  interest's  of  the  college  furnish  the  light 
and  atmosphere  of  such  discussions,  they  can  do  no  harm,  — they 
never  did  any  harm  in  this  College  certainly.  Perhaps  one  or  more 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE    TILL   THE    CENTENNIAL.  575 

bits  of  injustice  have  been  done  and  suffered,  but  these  rather  in 
consequence  of  the  mismanagement  by  others  of  such  reasonings 
and  conclusions  than  of  their  direct  effect. 

So  far  as  Professor  Hopkins  himself  was  concerned,  the  marked 
disaffection  toward  him  as  a  teacher  was  diverted  for  a  time  by  the 
skilful  manipulations  of  his  brother  and  others,  and  he  continued  to 
teach  his  sciences  nominally  for  ten  years  longer,  or  until  1868. 
This  was  no  real  boon  to  him,  and  it  was  a  positive  loss  to  the  Col- 
lege in  many  ways.  Through  the  munificence  of  David  Dudley 
Field,  his  old  townsman  in  Stockbridge  and  fellow-collegian  here, 
Professor  Hopkins  was  then  put  upon  a  new  foundation  of  astronomy 
alone;  but  so  far  as  the  instruction  even  in  that  single  branch  was 
concerned,  during  the  four  years  of  his  further  life,  it  amounted 
absolutely  to  nothing,  and  tended  to  disorganize  the  entire  disci- 
pline of  the  Junior  class.  In  the  meantime,  and  indeed  all  the 
time,  the  immense  vitality  of  the  man  was  seeking  other  outlets 
than  those  commonly  encircling  a  professor's  life.  He  was  never 
satisfied  with  what  he  sometimes  called  "the  mill-horse  round." 
Like  other  versatile  and  original  men,  he  tired  after  a  while  of 
almost  any  routine,  no  matter  with  how  much  enthusiasm  he  had 
entered  upon  it  and  persuaded  others  to  embark  in  it  with  him.  The 
only  long-time  exception  to  this  was  his  noon  prayer-meeting,  which 
itself,  however,  palled  at  last.  He  took  up  at  different  periods  of 
his  life  radical  ideas  in  relation  to  missions,  in  relation  to  educa- 
tion, and  to  practical  Christian  conduct,  —  ideas  very  diverse  from 
those  of  his  brother  and  of  the  community ;  and  would  press  these 
for  a  time  with  vehement  zeal  on  all  convenient  occasions.  By  and 
by,  dropping  these  special  phases  of  truth  and  duty,  he  would  take 
up  something  else,  usually  cognate  with  the  last,  and  all  certainly 
bound  together  in  his  mind  with  the  present  and  pressing  need  of 
the  kingdom  of  God. 

(1)  He  did  not  believe,  for  instance,  in  the  training  of  Christian 
ministers  through  theological  seminaries.  It  seemed  to  him  some- 
thing unreal,  like  the  trying  to  learn  botany  out  of  the  pages  of  a 
book,  rather  than  in  the  fields  in  contact  with  the  flowers  themselves. 
He  had  his  fling  at  the  "  dry  wooden  desk,"  and  at  the  "  lily-fingered 
clergyman,  who  never  went  into  the  heart  of  Greylock  or  into  the 
heart  of  anything."  All  his  life  he  disparaged  books  as  compara- 
tively useless  for  purposes  of  interpretation,  and  particularly  the 
interpretation  of  Scripture;  he  commended  a  commentary  "not  of 
learned  critics  and  theologians,"  but  of  rocks  and  mountains,  of 
expanses  of  earth  and  sea  and  sky.  All  the  same,  he  was  very  fond 


576  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

and  very  proud  of  a  literal  and  critical  translation  of  the  Book  of 
Job,  executed  from  the  original  Hebrew  by  his  own  invalid  and 
scholarly  wife,  while  his  personal  knowledge  of  the  Bible  was  con- 
fined to  an  amazing  familiarity  with  the  words  of  both  Testaments 
in  the  old  English  version,  large  portions  of  which  he  seemed  to 
know  by  heart,  and  would  upon  occasion  quote  before  an  audience, 
with  an  apparently  powerful  effect,  when  sometimes  neither  he  him- 
self nor  one  person  in  the  audience  had  a  glimmer  of  any  rational 
sense  in  the  passage  quoted.  He  called  the  rocks  and  nooks  and 
fields  and  hills  in  the  White  Oaks,  those  in  the  neighborhood  of  his 
chapel,  by  Hebrew  names  culled  from  the  Old  Testament,  and  thus 
gave  a  grotesque  flavor  to  his  talk  about  them,  and  sometimes  to 
his  preaching.  He  seemed  to  think  that  theological  seminaries  put 
up  a  barrier  between  their  students  and  the  breezy  freshness  of 
Nature,  — her  direct  impressions  and  solemn  admonitions. 

(2)  Throughout  one  interval  of  several  years'  duration  he  de- 
nounced the  methods  of  the  American  Board,  of  which  his  brother 
was  then  the  president,  of  sending  out  seminary-trained  and  salary- 
paid  missionaries  in  order  to  convert  the  heathen  to  Christianity. 
He  thought  the  better  way  was  to  this  end,  to  encourage  the  going 
out  of  volunteer  colonies  of  young  Christian  people,  composed  of 
farmers  and  tradesmen  of  all  sorts,  and  merchants,  who  should 
settle  down  together  in  a  heathen  land,  and  exhibit  to  the  heathen 
practically  the  virtues  and  the  thrift  of  Christian  civilization,  all 
earning  their  own  living,  and  all  laying  by  something  for  a  rainy 
day ;  and  thus  and  otherwise  showing  forth  the  precepts  of  Christ 
in  actual  operation  before  the  very  eyes  of  the  unbelievers.  He 
would  have  such  colonies  prepared  after  a  little  to  build  railroads 
and  construct  ships  and  found  banks,  and  so  demonstrate  the  superi- 
ority of  Christianity  (not  in  words,  but  in  action). 

He  sometimes  waxed  very  warm  in  unfolding  the  benefits  of  his 
system  as  contrasted  with  the  here  a  little  and  there  a  very  little  of 
the  current  missionary  societies,  as  applied,  for  example,  to  the 
worn-out  civilization  of  India.  "  Why,  when  those  Hindoos  see  the 
working  of  your  railroad,  and  understand  it,  they  will  pick  up  their 
old  dirt  roads  and  carry  them  off  on  their  shoulders,  and  fling  'em 
away  forever ! " 

But  he  preferred  in  his  discourse  to  make  these  experiments  some- 
where in  the  neighboring  Catholic  countries  of  Central  and  South 
America.  Those  unfortunate  people  were  way  behind  the  times. 
Without  making  much  reference  to  their  peculiarities  in  race  and 
training,  in  climate  and  general  environment,  he  seemed  to  think 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL  THE   CENTENNIAL.  577 

that  such  a  colony  well  established  in  Nicaragua,  for  example,  or 
on  the  Isthmus,  would  soon  turn  the  Catholics  into  Protestants,  and 
the  Spanish-mixed  bloods  into  Yankees.  He  interested  several 
students  practically  in  such  a  scheme,  and  particularly  Frederick 
Hicks,  of  the  class  of  1861.  Hicks  was  a  native  and  resident  of 
Bennington,  and  died  there  Feb.  24,  1871.  Professor  Hopkins 
wrote  the  following  memorial  of  him  in  the  college  paper  of  the 
time,  the  Williams  Vidette. 

Mr.  Hicks  inherited,  in  large  measure,  the  missionary  zeal  and  enterprise 
which  first  made  its  appearance  on  this  ground  in  1806. 

The  very  summer  of  his  graduation  he  visited  South  America,  and  travelled 
there  somewhat  extensively.  His  object  was  to  select  certain  points  where 
permanent  Christian  missions  might  be  formed.  Having  made  himself  some- 
what familiar  with  the  country  and  language,  he  returned  to  Panama.  Having 
an  eye  to  future  movements,  he  thought  a  station  on  the  Isthmus  would  be  con- 
venient;  and  that  he  might  be  himself  more  advantageously  located  there. 
After  some  experience  he  saw  the  necessity  of  a  religious  centre,  and  to  secure 
this  object  he  erected  a  chapel  at  an  expense  of  about  twelve  thousand  dollars. 
He  established  various  schools,  Sabbath  schools,  and  others  not  strictly  of  a 
religious  character.  He  made  excursions  northward  into  Guatemala  and  other 
provinces,  and  was  laying  the  foundation  apparently  of  extensive  usefulness, 
when  his  labors  were  interrupted  by  disease.  Against  this  he  fought  heroically, 
but  unsuccessfully.  An  unhealthy  climate  and  frequent  exposure  proved  too 
much  for  a  constitution  not  originally  strong. 

Mr.  Hicks  was  a  man  of  earnest  convictions.  What  he  believed,  he  believed 
thoroughly,  and  he  had  sufficient  strength  of  will  to  carry  his  convictions  into 
effect.  During  his  college  course  he  became  convinced  that  the  Kingdom  of 
Christ  ought  to  be  advanced  in  a  business-like  way,  as  other  enterprises  are. 
He  saw  enterprising  young  men  going  to  California  and  elsewhere,  setting  up  for 
themselves,  amassing  fortunes,  and  doing  a  good  thing  for  their  generation. 
Why  might  not  Christian  young  men  be  as  wise  ?  Young  men  who  go  to  the 
West  do  not  ask  their  neighbors  to  help  them,  — they  help  themselves.  If  the 
land  is  full  of  Christians,  why  should  they  not  go  out,  plant  themselves  every- 
where, and  thus  disperse  everywhere  the  leaven  of  the  Gospel  ?  This  was  the 
idea  of  brother  Hicks.  He  believed  emphatically  in  the  idea  of  self-sustaining 
missions.  If  others  chose  to  be  sustained  by  the  Board,  he  did  not  object ;  but 
for  himself,  the  line  of  duty  seemed  to  lie  in  another  direction. 

Twice  during  his  stay  on  the  Isthmus  Mr.  Hicks  was  called  to  act  as  Vice- 
Consul.  In  this  way  he  became  generally  known.  And  it  was  very  well  under- 
stood that  he  carried  his  religion  into  his  office.  Clamorous  applications  were 
made  to  have  business  attended  to  on  the  Sabbath,  as  had  been  the  custom  ;  but 
the  example  of  Nehemiah  was  followed,  and  applicants  were  told  emphatically 
that  if  they  had  business  at  the  office  they  must  come  on  week-days. 

Mr.  Hicks  was  a  man  of  faith.     His  views  coincided,  to  some  extent,  with 
those  of  Miiller,  as  delineated  in  his  "Life  of  Trust."     And  his  brief  career 
was  marked  by  many  instances  illustrating  the  doctrine,  that  it  is  safe  to  *'  trust 
in  the  Lord." 
2p 


578  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

He  revisited  the  college  for  the  last  time  late  in  the  autumn.  Arriving  with 
his  family  just  as  the  noon  meeting  was  about  to  commence,  he  was  anxious  to 
be  once  more  in  his  place  ;  and  those  who  were  present  will  well  remember  his 
exhortation,  and  how  firmly  he  planted  himself  on  the  doctrine  of  simple  faith  : 
Who  will  be  baptized  for  the  dead  ? 

(3)  In  connection  with  his  peculiar  views  on  the  best  method  of 
conducting  missionary  operations  in  foreign  lands,  Professor  Hop- 
kins maintained  for  a  number  of  years  views  still  more  peculiar  in 
respect  to  college  education.  As  his  own  grasp  on  the  actual  college 
training  grew  weaker  and  weaker,  he  seemed  to  think  that  the 
trouble  was  with  the  plan  and  organization  of  the  College  itself,  and 
that  radical  changes  were  needful.  One  change  that  he  proposed 
and  dwelt  on  vehemently  for  a  while,  was  that  the  College  should 
actually  become  what  it  had  been  nominally  called  on  very  slight 
grounds  indeed,  "The  missionary  college."  Instead  of  having  the 
students  who  proposed  a  foreign  missionary  life  for  themselves 
pursue  on  this  ground  the  ancient  and  modern  languages  as  a  part 
of  their  general  education,  and  postpone  the  study  of  the  language  of 
the  people  to  whom  they  proposed  to  minister  until  they  should 
arrive  in  the  foreign  land  as  otherwise  full-fledged  missionaries,  he 
would  have  heathen  youth  in  very  considerable  numbers  brought 
over  here  to  Williamstown,  and  while  they  taught  their  native  lan- 
guages to  the  prospective  missionaries,  so  that  these  when  they 
went  could  begin  their  evangelizing  labors  immediately,  the  native 
comers  would  in  the  meantime  learn  English  well,  and  see  Chris- 
tianity and  civilization  exemplified  before  their  own  eyes  on  a  grand 
scale.  When  this  was  done,  some  of  them  might  accompany  the  white 
missionaries  back  to  their  own  native  shores  as  their  most  efficient 
coadjutors,  while  others  would  naturally  remain  in  America  to  plead 
the  cause  and  exemplify  the  wonders  of  universal  evangelization. 

Professor  Hopkins  had  a  constructive  imagination  of  marvellous 
power  to  set  forth  the  amazing  benefits  of  such  a  visionary  scheme 
as  this;  but  he  was  not  equally  facile  to  put  one  side  the  obvious 
difficulties  and  impossibilities  of  such  a  plan  to  be  realized  in  such 
a  narrow  and  remote  and  inaccessible  valley  as  this  of  the  upper 
Hoosac  River,  and  between  almost  contiguous  mountains.  Still, 
his  mind  foresaw  one  of  the  inevitable  objections,  and  he  made  a 
rude  attempt  to  parry  it.  "I  used  to  think,"  he  exclaimed,  raising 
his  voice  to  its  utmost  pitch  and  volume,  "  I  used  to  think  that  we 
couldn't  have  more  than  two  hundred  students  here,  but  now,  consider- 
ing what  kind  of  students  these  are  to  be,  I  DON'T  CARE  IF  WE  HAVE 
TWO  MILLION  HERE!  " 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  579 

Of  course  the  incongruities  of  such  a  burst  of  fervor  necessitated 
a  burst  of  laughter  on  the  part  of  those  present,  of  whom  the  writer 
was  one.  Naturally  the  speaker  subsided,  not  without  some  signs 
of  wonderment  as  to  what  caused  the  laughter! 

In  April,  1863,  while  the  clouds  of  the  Civil  War  hung  heavily 
around  the  whole  horizon,  while  his  only  son  was  meditating  on  the 
military  service,  which  he  entered  shortly  after  in  the  First  Massa- 
chusetts Cavalry,  to  be  killed  in  a  charge  near  Ashland,  Virginia, 
May  11,  1864,  and  while  College  was  depressed  in  every  part  by  the 
loss  of  sixty  students  gone  to  the  war,  Professor  Hopkins  formed 
the  "Alpine  Club  of  Williamstown,"  likely  to  be  long  remembered 
as  the  first  organization  in  the  United  States  for  recurring  pedestrian 
mountain  climbing.  The  original  club  consisted  of  twelve  members, 
as  follows :  — 

FANNY  DEWEY  LOUISA  HOPKINS 

RUTH  SABIN  FANNY  WHITMAN 

CARRIE  HOPKINS  ELISABETH  KILBY 

ALBERT  HOPKINS  PAUL  CHADBOURNE 

BESSIE  SABIN  HARRY  HOPKINS 

MAGGIE  TATLOCK  KITTIE  FOOTE 

The  only  officers  of  the  club,  —  and  their  tenure  was  perpetual, 
—  were  a  "Leader"  (Miss  Dewey),  a  "Chronicler"  (Professor 
Hopkins),  a  "Secretary  and  Treasurer"  (Miss  Carrie  Hopkins), 
a  "Surgeon"  (Miss  Bessie  Sabin),  and  a  "Bugler"  (Miss  Whit- 
man). The  object  of  the'  association  was  declared  to  be  "to 
explore  the  interesting  places  in  the  vicinity,  to  become  ac- 
quainted, to  some  extent  at  least,  with  the  natural  history  of 
the  localities,  and  also  to  improve  the  pedestrian  powers  of  the 
members." 

In  the  course  of  the  year,  and  in  a  little  time  subsequent,  twelve 
others  were  admitted  to  the  privileges  of  the  club,  under  this  ex- 
press provision  of  the  constitution,  that  no  new  members  were  to  be 
admitted  "  unless  they  are  possessed  of  good  pedestrian  powers,  are 
enthusiastic  lovers  of  Nature,  and  show  a  willingness  to  receive 
instruction  from  the  members  of  older  standing!  " 

MAGGIE  ADRIA.NCE  EDWARD  GRIFFIN 

SAMUEL  SCUDDER  EDWARD  HOPKINS 

JOHN  G.  GOODRIDGE  HENRY  GRIFFIN 

MRS.   D.  DEWEY  JULIA  GOULD 

HENRY  TATLOCK  CHARLES  GARDNER 

ABBIE  MARKER  JOHN  DENISON 


580  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

Nineteen  excursions  were  made  in  1863,  of  which  the  longest  was 
a  two  days'  camping  trip  to  Manchester,  Vermont,  for  the  ascent  of 
Mount  Equinox.  The  record  book  of  the  club  contains  some  account 
of  all  the  excursions,  whether  short  or  long.  The  short  ones  were 
usually  taken  in  the  afternoon,  often  lasting  until  late  in  the  even- 
ing, to  gain  the  advantage  of  the  cooler  air  and  to  see  the  beauties 
of  Williamstowii  by  moonlight.  The  following  record  may  be  taken 
as  a  fair  sample  of  the  rest.  Ex  uno  disce  omnes. 

On  Wednesday  afternoon,  October  18,  in  spite  of  a  cloudy  and  threatening 
sky,  a  walk  which  had  been  planned  to  Eolacca  was  undertaken.  Professor 
Hopkins  offering,  however,  to  take  the  party  to  Huge  World, — a  spot  unex- 
plored by  the  club,  —  it  was  resolved  to  go  there  instead.  The  gathering  of 
chestnuts,  bright  leaves,  and  berries  made  the  progress  up  the  mountain  a  slow 
one,  and  a  light  rain  was  falling  when  Laurel  Glen  was  reached.  Undeterred 
by  this,  however,  the  club  clambered  up  the  ledge,  and,  seated  on  the  edge  of 
Pulpit  Rock,  enjoyed  the  view  of  the  valley  with  the  shower  sweeping  over  the 
distant  mountains.  Just  north  of  this  they  stood  on  Solomon's  Housetop,  and 
watched  the  crashing  descent  of  numerous  rocks  which  Professor  Hopkins  and 
Mr.  Denison,  by  great  exertions,  loosened  from  their  resting-places  and  rolled 
down  the  steep.  After  a  visit  to  Geological  Rock,  and  a  climb  to  the  top  of  both 
Seneh  and  Bozez,  they  descended  once  more  into  the  glen,  and  the  rain  coming 
down  quite  briskly,  found  a  cave  where  they  built  a  fire  and  rested  for  a  while 
till  the  shower  passed  on  and  they  were  able  to  return  home. 

During  the  next  year,  1864,  eighteen  regular  tramps  were  taken  ; 
the  first  on  April  16  and  the  last  on  October  6,  including  two  camp- 
ing excursions, — one  to  Pontoosuc  Lake,  where  the  party,  with 
invited  guests,  numbered  twenty-six;  and  one  of  three  days  to  the 
Hopper,  in  which  seventeen  persons  joined.  They  camped  at 
Bacon's,  then  the  town  poorhouse,  the  ladies  occupying  the  ground 
floor  of  the  house,  and  the  gentlemen  bestowing  themselves  as 
best  they  could  in  the  barn.  The  chronicler  entitled  his  account 
of  the  varied  occurrences  of  these  three  days  "Baconian  Eeminis- 
cences;  or  the  Short  and  Simple  Annals  of  the  Poorhouse."  Fun 
enough.  Ascents  and  descents;  getting  lost  in  the  night,  coming 
down  from  Bald  Mountain ;  getting  found ;  —  "a blast  of  a  trumpet, 
the  advance  of  torches  through  the  murky  night,  a  rush,  a  passage 
of  arms,  embraces,  kisses  unequally  bestowed,  a  Babel  of  tongues,  a 
rush  of  the  famishing  to  the  groaning  board,  the  clash  of  steel, 
questions  and  answers;  —  and  then  over  the  home  of  the  Bacons 
silence  reigned  supreme." 

Nineteen  excursions  were  made  and  recorded  in  1865,  —  the  last 
year  of  the  active  operations  of  the  club.  Professor  Hopkins  did 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  581 

not  join  the  party  of  eight,  —  five  ladies  and  three  gentlemen,  — • 
who  represented  the  club  in  their  crowning  exploit  of  a  twelve  days' 
excursion  to  the  White  Mountains.  Samuel  Scudder,  a  trained 
mountaineer,  conducted  this  expedition,  the  members  of  it  rendez- 
vousing at  White  River  Junction,  August  22.  The  professor  had 
wearied  somewhat  of  the  excitements  and  labors  and  festivities  of 
an  organization  of  which  he  was  the  source  and  the  inspiration;  and 
had  turned  with  new  ardor  to  his  evangelizing  work  in  the  White 
Oaks,  probably  already  conscious  that  this  was  to  be  the  last  and 
best,  as  it  certainly  was  the  most  characteristic  and  permanent,  of 
his  earthly  labors.  He  was  planning  this  summer  for  his  chapel 
there,  which  was  built  in  the  next,  and  dedicated  Oct.  25,  1866. 
He  christened  both  the  building  and  his  little  band  of  believers 
"  The  Church  of  Christ  in  the  White  Oaks."  Here  he  preached  and 
prayed  and  labored  with  his  hands  in  unflagging  zeal  till  the  very 
end.  The  body  of  believers  in  covenant  there  was  organized, 
Dec.  20,  1868,  with  twelve  members,  increased  in  1895  to  seventy- 
three;  but  it  was  not  till  March  6,  1872,  two  months  before  his 
death,  that  he  wrote  the  formal  covenant  and  form  of  admission 
into  this  church,  which  he  fain  hoped  might  be  adopted  as  a 
formula  by  many  Christians  of  every  name  everywhere.  A  parson- 
age was  built  in  1880  through  the  efforts  of  S.  H.  Woodbridge,  class 
of  1873 ;  and  the  enlarged  and  beautified  chapel  was  rededicated  in 
January,  1895. 

No  such  funeral  as  that  of  Professor  Hopkins,  in  point  of  num- 
bers in  attendance,  in  point  of  universal  sympathy  of  each  and  every 
class  in  the  community,  and  especially  in  point  of  Sunday-school 
scholars  with  May  flowers  in  their  hands  filling  the  galleries  of  the 
large  church,  has  ever  been  attended  in  Williams  town.  The  fu- 
neral of  his  brother,  just  fifteen  years  later,  brought  together  many 
more  distinguished  people  from  abroad,  and  filled  the  body  of  the 
church  with  sincere  mourners.  The  funeral  of  Professor  Dodd  just 
twenty-five  years  later  also  filled  the  body  of  the  same  church  with 
college  people  and  townsfolk  who  admired  and  loved  a  diffident  and 
faithful  and  nature-loving  man. 

The  writer  closes  these  extended  memoranda  of  Albert  Hopkins 
with  a  skilful  portrayal  of  him  from  the  pen  of  Professor  Phillips, 
professor  of  Greek  from  1857  to  1868,  and  afterward  librarian.  It 
is  almost  more  in  endeavor  to  keep  green  the  memory  of  this  good 
man  of  insight  and  sympathy  indirectly,  than  in  hope  of  adding  any 
new  lineament  to  him  who  is  thus  portrayed,  that  this  beautiful 
sketch  is  appended. 


582  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

Professor  Hopkins  first  became  known  to  me  upon  my  entering  College  in 
1843.  He  was  then  in  the  prime  of  life  and  as  fine  looking'a  man  as  one  would 
meet  in  many  days.  —  He  was  tall,  erect,  dignified  though  unassuming,  simple 
in  garb  even  to  plainness  and  sometimes  to  rudeness  ;  but  always  refined  and 
courteous  in  demeanor,  with  a  frame  which  would  have  suited  an  athlete,  and  a 
head  such  as  the  Greek  sculptors  gave  to  their  great  orator  —  large  in  feature 
but  symmetrical  and  well-poised,  clad  with  soft  curling  hair,  and  wearing 
beneath  the  shaggy  projection  of  a  rugged  brow  eyes  of  rare  hue  and  of  un- 
matched depth  of  brilliancy.  With  the  more  sober  and  religious  part  of  the 
students  he  was  a  great  favorite,  and  in  their  estimation  he  fairly  divided  the 
honors  of  the  College  with  his  more  distinguished  brother.  He  was  their  chosen 
spiritual  guide  and  moral  hero.  His  was  the  favorite  type  of  religious  devotion. 
His  prayers,  exhortations  and  appeals  —  his  methods  of  religious  work  were 
commended.  His  religious  earnestness  and  separateness  from  the  world,  his 
reputed  fastings  and  struggles  with  the  powers  of  evil  invested  his  person  with  a 
peculiar  sanctity  in  the  eyes  of  enthusiastic  young  disciples.  As  may  be  sup- 
posed his  moral  influence  was  great.  Humanly  speaking  he  stood  at  the  head 
of  the  religious  powers  of  the  College.  But  he  had  other  claims  to  hero-worship 
of  a  different  order,  and  such  as  brought  him  a  larger  class  of  adherents.  His 
physical  strength,  agility  and  endurance  were  remarkable,  and  he  was  not  averse 
to  testing  them,  whence  it  happened  that  many  stood  in  awe  of  his  physical 
powers  who  were  not  greatly  moved  at  his  spiritual  excellence.  Students 
engaged  in  barring  their  associates  out  or  in  —  blocking  hall  or  chapel  door  by 
forming  a  wedge,  were  shy  about  resisting  the  weight  of  his  hand  or  the  momen- 
tum of  his  push.  Nocturnal  depredators  were  not  fond  of  attracting  his  notice. 
To  be  aware  of  his  presence  at  any  spot  where  anything  unjustifiable  was  going 
on  was  enough  to  sober  if  not  to  stay  the  stoutest  hearted  actor.  His  low  knock 
at  the  door  of  a  room  where  there  was  a  sound  of  revelry  was  a  signal  for  uncon- 
ditional surrender.  Many  stories  were  told  about  encounters  with  him  —  some 
real  probably  and  some  imaginary.  It  was  said  that  on  the  way  to  a  preaching 
exercise  at  Pownal,  as  he  walked  according  to  his  custom,  he  came  upon  a 
couple  of  pugilists  somewhat  heated  by  drink,  who  were  about  to  settle  their 
differences  by  personal  combat.  As  a  messenger  of  the  Prince  of  Peace,  he 
interposed  to  prevent  the  strife  at  the  risk  of  drawing  upon  himself  the  ven- 
geance of  both  the  contending  parties,  and  was  actually  upon  the  point  of  being 
struck  by  one  of  them,  when  he  gave  the  man  a  look  and  said  in  his  deliberate 
way  "  You'd  better  not  strike  we,  Sir.  If  you  do,  you  won't  strike  another  man 
in  some  time."  The  assailant  quailed  before  the  look  and  the  tone,  and  con- 
cluded to  defer  his  fight  for  a  season.  One  night  when  there  was  a  disturbance 
about  College  and  the  watch  were  out,  a  very  muscular  person  chanced  to  be 
stooping  for  some  purpose  —  to  pick  up  a  fireball  perhaps — when  he  felt  a  heavy 
hand  laid  on  him  from  behind.  By  a  sudden  effort  he  wrenched  himself  free 
and  fled,  but  found  that  he  had  left  as  a  trophy  in  the  grip  of  his  adversary  a 
handful  of  stout  cloth.  This  person  always  believed  that  the  man  who  tore  his 
trousers  for  him  that  night  was  Professor  Hopkins.  My  acquaintance  with 
the  Professor  began  in  the  Junior  class  room.  Thoroughness  was  his  motto 
there.  Hurried  and  confused  utterances  were  discouraged.  Deliberate  clear 
and  precise  statements  were  required.  All  things  were  made  ready  before  per- 
mission was  given  to  move.  Then  every  one  was  expected  to  go  in  his  own 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE    TILL    THE    CENTENNIAL.  583 

strength  —  at  least  he  received  no  help  from  the  teacher.  There  were  no  catch- 
words to  pull  one's  self  along  by,  nor  was  there  any  changing  the  terms  of  a 
question  to  indicate  the  answer.  Every  one  in  general  was  suffered  to  "gang 
his  own  gait"  but  a  brilliant  dash  was  sometimes  suspected  of  hiding  a  defect 
and  the  ground  had  to  be  marched  over  more  slowly,  the  lame  were  allowed  to 
stumble  and  the  slipshod  to  scuffle  along  as  they  might,  but  when  they  came  to 
a  stop  they  found  all  their  labor  vain  for  the  next  was  invariably  asked  to  state 
that.  He  never  to  my  recollection  indulged  in  jocose  remarks  while  hearing  a 
recitation  or  encouraged  undue  familiarity  on  the  part  of  the  students.  He  gave 
his  attention  strictly  to  the  business  in  hand,  and  expected  them  to  do  likewise. 
He  once  refused  to  hear  our  debate  and  broke  up  the  session  because  the  subject 
chosen,  viz.,  the  expediency  of  bringing  water  to  the  College  from  a  neighboring 
spring,  as  he  alleged,  was  frivolous.  Of  course  his  presence  insured  order.  It 
would  have  seemed  an  impertinence  if  not  a  species  of  sacrilege  to  have  attempted 
any  disturbance.  Another  place  where  many  of  the  students  became  acquainted 
with  Professor  Hopkins  was  the  daily  noon  prayer  meeting  which  he  almost 
always  attended  and  conducted.  He  established  this  meeting  and  it  continued 
to  be  held  as  long  as  he  lived.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  was  a  great  bless- 
ing to  the  College.  It  furnished  a  sort  of  spiritual  Exchange  where  Christians 
from  the  different  classes  met  each  other  and  exchanged  views  upon  religious 
experience  and  religious  work,  mingled  their  prayers  and  praises,  and  girded 
themselves  for  their  common  conflict.  It  was  a  place,  too,  where  any  impeni- 
tent person  who  was  beginning  to  be  anxious  about  his  salvation  might  come  or 
be  brought  by  a  friend,  and  be  welcomed  and  guided  and  helped  on  his  way  to 
Christ.  It  was  a  training  place  and  recruiting  station  as  well  for  the  band  of 
Christians  in  College.  It  was  the  true  prayer-gauge  also.  It  showed  —  as  the 
mercury  the  pressure  of  the  air  —  the  intensity  of  religious  fervor  in  the  College. 
It  was  a  precious  season  to  many  who  are  now  engaged  in  a  purer  and  loftier 
service  on  high,  and  to  many  who  still  tarry  here.  The  Exercises  invariably 
began  by  each  attendant  repeating  in  his  turn  a  verse  of  Scripture,  the  Professor 
correcting  all  errors  in  quotation.  His  remarkable  familiarity  with  the  Scrip- 
tures was  the  result  of  daily  reading  and  study  helped  by  a  naturally  retentive 
memory.  I  imagine  he  rarely  needed  to  consult  a  concordance  to  discover  where 
a  particular  passage  was  to  be  found.  The  solemnity  of  his  manner  at  these 
meetings,  especially  when  there  was  unusual  interest  and  the  room  was  filled, 
and  the  fervor  of  his  prayers  and  addresses  and  singing  were  veiy  marked  and 
impressive.  A  green  spot  in  the  latter  part  of  my  college  life  is  the  Thursday 
evening  meeting  held  in  Professor  Hopkins'  study  and  attended  by  a  circle  of 
choice  spirits  from  the  town,  and  by  some  of  the  students  in  the  College.  The 
walls  of  the  study  were  covered  with  cases  of  minerals  and  with  bookshelves,  and 
in  front  of  these  were  ranged  sofas,  benches,  and  chairs  which  were  occupied  gen- 
erally by  perhaps  twenty -five  or  thirty  persons.  Sometimes  we  were  crowded  out 
of  the  study  into  the  Conservatory,  where  we  had  a  glimpse  of  Mrs.  Hopkins  sit- 
ting secluded  in  the  back  parlor  but  with  the  door  ajar  so  that  she  could  hear  what 
was  said  in  the  study.  The  Professor  was  expounding  the  Psalms  with  a  delightful 
freedom,  and  unction  and  power  and  beauty.  The  meeting  was  conducted  mostly 
by  him  —  some  other  generally  offering  a  prayer  and  occasionally  brief  remarks. 
The  throng  became  so  great  that  it  was  thought  best  to  adjourn  to  the  schoolhouse, 
but  the  meeting  was  spoiled  by  the  change  and  had  to  be  brought  back  soon. 


584  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

Probably  the  estimate  generally  set  upon  Professor  Hopkins'  power  as  a 
preacher  is  not  high  enough.  His  efforts  were  very  unequal.  He  had  a  poet's 
soul,  and  when  the  inspiration  came  he  rose  to  the  loftiest  heights  of  oratory, 
while  at  other  times  he  remained  stationary.  He  never  sank  to  a  low  level, 
however.  His  pulpit  efforts  were  never  commonplace,  though  when  chilled  by 
untoward  circumstances  his  manner  was  constrained  and  his  tones  low  and 
spiritless.  But  when  in  good  bodily  health  he  stood  before  a  company  of  appre- 
ciative and  sympathizing  friends,  especially  when  there  was  fresh  religious  feel- 
ing and  signs  betokening  a  coming  revival  for  which  he  always  watched  and 
waited,  when  the  clouds  began  to  gather  and  draw  nigh  and  stand  overhead, 
big  with  mercy  and  only  needing  to  be  pierced  to  discharge  their  treasures  and 
pour  out  a  blessing  greater  than  could  be  received,  then  he  rose  in  the  pulpit  as 
from  a  throne  of  power,  and  with  nerves  unfluttered,  rather  steadied  by  excite- 
ment, with  rare  command  of  picturesque  speech  and  with  the  highest  display  of 
dramatic  force  in  look,  tone,  and  gesture,  he  enforced  the  lessons  and  raised  the 
spirit  of  the  hour.  We  shall  never  again  hear  such  sermons  as  he  preached  upon 
the  " Beginning  of  the  End,"  "The  Barren  Fig  Tree,"  and  " The  Conversion  of 
Zaccheus."  He  labored  much  in  private  for  the  spiritual  welfare  of  individuals. 
I  remember  his  entering  my  room  one  summer  evening  as  I  sat  alone  in  the  late 
twilight,  and  having  taken  a  seat,  remaining  silent  for  a  few  minutes  as  if  lost 
in  thought,  then  looking  up  pleasantly  and  saying,  "  Well,  aren't  you  about  ready 
to  go  with  us  ?  "  Without  waiting  for  an  answer,  he  struck  up  some  familiar 
and  appropriate  hymn, — I  believe  it  was  "We're  Marching  to  Immanuel's 
Land," — sang  one  verse,  and  disappeared  quickly  with  a  pleasant  "good 
night."  He  often  gave  a  religious  turn  to  ordinary  conversation.  Once  when 
the  year  had  opened  with  a  revival  and  there  had  been  many  conversions  in 
the  College,  some  students  who  had  been  taking  a  walk  met  him  and  informed 
him  that  they  had  heard  the  notes  of  a  blue-bird.  "Yes,"  said  he,  "the  time 
of  the  singing  of  birds  is  come  and,"  with  a  significant  smile,  "the  voice  of  the 
turtle  is  heard  in  the  land."  A  marked  feature  in  Professor  Hopkins'  charac- 
ter was  his  love  of  nature,  the  delight  he  had  in  some  fine  scenery,  and  the  inter- 
est he  took  in  individual  objects  of  the  outer  world,  as  birds,  flowers,  trees,  and 
rocks.  He  was  proficient  to  a  considerable  degree  in  nearly  all  the  branches  of 
natural  history.  He  was  the  presiding  genius  of  the  Natural  History  Society  of 
the  College,  whose  career  has  been  long  and  honorable.  He  was  well  acquainted 
with  the  local  Fauna  and  Flora,  the  habits  and  habitat  of  its  individual  mem- 
bers. He  knew  in  what  sunny  nook  the  earliest  blooms  of  the  arbutus  were 
scenting  the  air.  Every  June  he  visited  the  secluded  dale  where  the  woods  were 
gay  with  the  curious  clustered  cups  of  the  broad-leaved  Kalmia.  Once,  when  in 
taking  a  short  route  to  the  Cascade  we  had  reached  the  centre  of  a  large  and 
barren  field,  he  stopped  before  an  inconspicuous  shrub  and  asked  if  I  knew  what 
Species  it  was.  I  was  about  to  take  hold  of  it  when  he  exclaimed,  "  Don't  touch 
it.  It  is  the  Rhustoxicodendra,  the  most  poisonous  of  plants."  He  was  the 
best  and  most  genial  guide  to  the  many  places  of  interest  about  the  College. 
In  fact  they  had  become  places  of  interest  largely  from  the  interest  which  we 
had  taken  in  them.  The  numerous  summits  and  cascades  and  glens  had  their 
names  and  fame  mainly  from  him.  The  Alpine  Club  of  Williamstown  and 
Tent  Life  upon  Graylock  were  originated  by  him,  and  he  rarely  appeared  to 
better  advantage  than  when  he  met  the  little  company  of  his  followers  to.  open 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  585 

a  geode  or  crack  the  nuts,  literary  or  artistic,  gathered  in  their  rambles.  Any 
one  who  accompanied  him  for  half  a  day  over  East  mountain  and  through  the 
White  Oaks,  and  kept  by  his  side  as  he  strode  over  the  open,  darted  in  and  out 
of  thickets,  climbed  over  ridges,  and  plunged  down  precipices,  with  all  his  senses 
of  exquisite  fineness  on  the  alert,  observing  everything,  but  pausing  only  to 
notice  something  special,  —  a  remarkable  tree,  or  rock,  or  flower,  —  or  to  gain 
a  view  of  the  valley  from  some  spot  of  vantage,  visiting  the  nether  and  upper 
springs,  the  cliffs  Bozes  and  Seneh,  the  lake  Ulacca,  and  other  places  to  which 
his  playful  fancy  had  assigned  names,  stopping  to  council  with  poor  people 
about  things  temporal  and  spiritual,  and  finally  reaching  and  examining  the 
Chapel  with  its  neighboring  missionary  plot,  and  apple  trees  for  the  wayfaring 
man,  and  its  own  grounds  set  with  grapes  and  roses  and  Japanese  lilies,  and 
having  its  miniature  water  works,  any  one,  I  say,  who  ever  had  this  experience 
found  himself  by  turns  amused,  interested,  fascinated,  and  at  the  close  profoundly 
tired.  In  the  line  of  his  special  studies,  Professor  Hopkins  was  particularly  fond 
of  Astronomy.  The  grandeur  and  the  mysteries  of  the  stellar  worlds  appealed 
strongly  to  his  imagination,  and  he  loved  to  lie  and  watch  through  the  telescope 
the  appearances  of  the  moon  and  the  planets  —  the  fixed  stars  and  nebulae  and 
comets.  He  often  kept  late  hours  in  his  Observatory.  One  night  when  I  hap- 
pened to  be  with  him,  he  made  an  interesting  terrestrial  discovery  through  the 
telescope.  It  was  at  the  close  of  a  series  of  Indian  summer  days  such  as  we 
usually  have  in  the  latter  part  of  October  —  about  ten  o'clock  in  the  evening 
that  he  turned  his  instrument  towards  the  full  moon  and  was  surprised  to  see 
flocks  of  small  birds  drifting  across  the  object  glass,  birds  which  he  quickly  rec- 
ognized as  flying  steadily  and  in  countless  numbers  toward  the  south.  A  closer 
inspection  showed  the  species  to  be  the  common  American  Robin.  They  were 
passing  through  one  stage  of  their  annual  migration,  and  they  chose  to  do  it  by 
night.  The  fields  had  been  alive  with  them  during  the  day.  In  the  morning 
they  had  all  disappeared,  and  within  twenty -four  hours  the  ground  was  white 
with  the  first  snow  of  the  season.  The  last  time  I  saw  Professor  Hopkins  while 
he  was  able  to  be  out  of  doors  was  a  beautiful  summer  evening  when  the  azure 
sky  was  studded  most  thickly  with  its  diamonds.  He  gazed  for  a  long  time  and 
with  great  enthusiasm,  first  with  the  naked  eye,  and  then  with  his  glass,  remark- 
ing at  the  same  time  on  the  number  of  the  stars  then  visible  in  the  milky  way. 
Not  very  long  after,  the  blind  disease  which  was  gently  working  in  him,  gained 
the  mastery,  and  he  was  parted  from  his  weeping  friends  and  translated  to  a 
fairer  world  above  the  stars,  where  he  may  feast  his  soul  on  the  transcendent 
glories  of  the  heavenly  state.  Sad,  indeed,  should  we  be,  did  we  not  believe 
that  the  ties  which  are  broken  here,  will  be  reunited  there  —  that  the  pleasant 
intercourse  with  our  friend  will  be  resumed  again  when  the  night  is  gone. 

Alongside  of  Professor  Hopkins,  and  closely  associated  with  him, 
there  labored  for  many  years,  as  professors,  and,  in  a  very  subordi- 
nate sense,  as  successive  librarians  also,  two  graduates  of  the  Col- 
lege who  must  now  be  characterized,  both  individually,  and,  too,  in 
connection  with  each  other  and  their  work.  These  were  Nathaniel 
Griffin  and  John  Tatlock.  Griffin  was  graduated  in  1834,  and  Tat- 
lock  in  1836.  Both  were  associated  in  College  in  the  Kappa  Alpha 


586  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

Society,  then  just  established,  and  the  first  of  its  kind  on  this 
ground.  Both  were  good  scholars  in  College,  as  scholarship  was 
then  reckoned,  and  Tatlock  was  the  valedictorian  of  his  class.  Each 
married  in  due  time  into  a  leading  family  in  Williamstown,  Griffin 
into  that  of  the  Buckleys,  and  Tatlock  into  that  of  the  Whitmans. 
Both  were  called  to  a  tutorship  at  the  same  time,  1836,  the  year  in 
which  Mark  Hopkins  was  called  to  the  presidency,  and  Griffin 
served  one  year  and  Tatlock  two  years  in  that  capacity.  Griffin 
studied  theology  in  Princeton,  had  a  brief  Presbyterian  pastorate 
in  Delhi,  New  York,  returned  to  the  College,  and  passed  a  year 
supplying  the  place  of  Professor  Tatlock  in  his  absence  and  that 
of  Professor  Kellogg  in  his  illness,  and  then  established  himself 
in  Brooklyn  as  a  teacher  for  some  years.  He  was  born  and  bred 
and  fitted  for  college  on  Long  Island.  He  entered  at  sixteen,  in 
1830. 

John  Tatlock  was  just  six  years  older  than  Griffin,  and  eight  years 
older  at  his  graduation.  He  was  born  on  the  Island  of  Anglesey, 
North  Wales.  His  parents  removed  to  Liverpool,  and  seem  to  have 
come  into  some  sort  of  relations  with  Sir  John  Gladstone,  himself 
also  a  Welshman  in  part,  though  born  in  Leith.  Sir  John  won 
wealth  and  eminence  in  Liverpool  as  a  wholesale  wine  and  spirit 
merchant.  William  Ewart  Gladstone,  born  in  Liverpool,  was  just 
a  year  younger  than  John  Tatlock.  In  September,  1822,  at  fourteen 
years  of  age,  young  Tatlock  entered  the  office  of  Sir  John  Gladstone 
as  a  clerk,  and  remained  with  him  for  eight  years,  when  he  left 
Liverpool  for  the  United  States,  landing  at  Philadelphia.  After 
some  mutations,  he  found  himself  in  Hunter,  New  York,  where  he 
came  under  the  influence  of  Eev.  Calvin  Durfee,  of  the  college  class 
of  1825,  who  helped  him  to  prepare  for  college,  and  persuaded  him 
to  come  to  Williams.  On  the  Commencement  schedule  of  1836,  his 
residence  is  put  down  as  "Liverpool,  England."  According  to  the 
custom  of  the  time  he  taught  both  languages  and  mathematics  as  the 
Freshman  tutor,  and  the  same  the  next  year  to  the  Sophomores ;  and 
in  1838  was  elected  Professor  of  Mathematics.  Seven  years  later 
lie  was  transferred  for  a  single  year  to  the  chair  of  languages,  then 
vacated  by  Professor  Kellogg.  In  this  he  made  no  impression,  ex- 
cept a  confused  and  sinister  one.  It  is  somewhat  characteristic  of 
the  man's  mind  as  a  teacher,  that  he  undertook  to  learn  by  heart 
each  day's  lesson  in  Livy,  to  carry  no  text  into  his  recitation,  and 
in  that  way  to  teach  students  who  were  as  a  rule  extremely  ill- 
prepared  for  college  in  the  classics,  their  complex  and  difficult  con- 
structions and  translations.  It  was  a  dead  failure  of  necessity;  and 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  587 

so  he  went  back  to  mathematics  again,  and  kept  his  place  till  1867, 
—  twenty -one  years. 

Griffin  in  the  meantime  had  been  elected,  in  1846,  in  the  succes- 
sion to  Professor  Kellogg,  who  died  that  year,  to  the  chair  of  Latin 
and  Greek,  which  he  held  till  1853,  when  he  was  given  the  Greek 
alone,  and  the  Latin  passed  over  into  a  new  department,  which  was 
first  held  by  Isaac  N.  Lincoln,  of  the  class  of  1847,  for  nine  years, 
until  his  death  in  1862.  As  a  memorial  of  Professor  Kellogg,  a 
small  but  substantial  brick  building  of  three  stories  was  erected  in 
the  West  College  garden  in  1847,  and  named  "Kellogg  Hall."  The 
first  floor  was  occupied  by  two  commodious  recitation-rooms,  then 
called  the  "  Freshman  "  and  "  Sophomore  "  recitation-rooms.  Unless 
there  was  disorder  of  some  sort  in  one^  of  these  rooms,  the  two  were 
so  far  separated  from  each  other  that  the  proceedings  in  one  were 
not  noticed  in  the  other;  but  any  such  matter  as  the  egress  from 
either  of  a  whole  class  at  once  could  not  but  be  a  great  disturbance 
in  the  other.  At  this  point  Professor  Griffin,  who  often  occupied 
one  of  these  rooms  while  Professor  Tatlock  was  nominally  occupy- 
ing the  other,  was  placed  at  a  great  disadvantage;  for  Tatlock, 
having  come  to  possess  great  facility  in  the  elements  of  mathe- 
matics, such  as  geometry  and  conic  sections,  and  naturally  losing 
interest  in  them  from  not  carrying  forward  further  researches  in 
them,  rarely  giving  any  oral  instruction  to  his  classes,  but  merely 
calling  up  a  few  to  recite  the  propositions  and  another  few  to  demon- 
strate these  at  the  blackboard,  gradually  came  to  have  very  short  reci- 
tations, lasting  usually  from  fifteen  minutes  to  half  an  hour,  and  then 
his  class,  on  being  dismissed,  plunged  out  of  the  room  in  a  body 
and  noisily  to  the  great  detriment  of  the  work  going  on  to  its  full 
hour's  limit  in  the  adjoining  room.  More  than  this,  — as  Tatlock 
grew  older  and  lazier,  relishing  the  quasi  popularity  that  came  from 
short  and  easy  recitations  (especially  if  they  went  off  without  a  break 
in  their  flow),  perhaps  insensibly  to  himself,  came  to  call  up  the 
good  mathematical  scholars  only,  while  the  lamer  ducks  could  paddle 
through  an  entire  term  without  being  once  halted.  It  was  the  tes- 
timony of  at  least  one1  good  mathematician  in  the  class  of  1852, 
that  he  did  not  remember  and  did  not  believe  he  was  ever  in  one  of 
Professor  Tatlock's  recitations  in  the  whole  course  when  he  was  not 
called  up  to  recite. 

Professor  Griffin  was  a  competent  and  conscientious  teacher.     He 
needed  and  desired  a  full  hour  each  day  in  order  to  test  the  mem- 
bers of  his  class  without  discrimination  as  to  their  previous  skill, 
1  Henry  M.  Hazeltine. 


588  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

and  to  give  such  instruction  to  all  as  lie  supposed  was  fitting  and 
desirable.  His  department  was  not  popular;  he  had  grave  faults  as 
a  teacher,  and  still  graver  difficulties  to  contend  with  in  the  miser- 
ably inadequate  fitting  of  the  bulk  of  his  students  in  their  classics. 
To  such  a  man,  wishing  to  do  his  best  with  such  students,  it  was 
no  light  additional  burden  to  carry  to  have  his  class  made  restive 
and  impatient  by  the  bursting  out  of  a  neighboring  class  from  their 
already  completed  task,  some  of  them,  perchance,  peering  through  a 
window  in  mockery  upon  those  still  kept  in  durance  vile.  Griffin 
worried  along,  doing  the  best  he  could,  all  the  time  useful  to  the 
College  in  various  capacities,  not  supported  as  such  a  man  ought  to 
have  been  by  his  colleagues,  including  the  executive  head  of  the 
College.  In  every  class  he  encountered  at  least  two  or  three  of  the 
students  who  were  fond  of  the  classics  and  willing  to  be  instructed, 
to  whom  he  always  gave  quick  recognition,  and  all  the  help  fairly 
at  his  disposal.  His  chief  fault  as  a  teacher  was  that  he  did  not 
keep  to  a  progressive  proportion  in  his  questions  and  instructions. 
He  would  examine  a  Freshman  for  admission  in  much  the  same  style 
as  a  Junior  on  a  passage  in  Demosthenes.  Closely  connected  with 
this  fault,  even  if  it  were  not  a  part  or  a  cause  of  it,  was  his  failure 
to  keep  himself  fresh  and  growing  in  all  the  ever-new  events  con- 
nected with  his  department.  It  is  essential  to  the  sustained  success 
of  a  college  professor  that  he  read  and  study  much  in  order  that  he 
may  teach  a  little.  Griffin  was  useful  and  efficient  as  the  secretary 
of  the  Society  of  Alumni.  He  was  for  twenty  years,  till  his  death 
in  1876,  the  active  and  intelligent  college  librarian.  He  was  an 
earnest  patriot.  "  We  must  back  up  the  Government  at  all  hazards  I " 
he  cried,  at  the  news  of  the  second  battle  of  Bull  Kun,  in  the  last 
of  August,  1862.  "  It  is  time  for  the  Government  to  lack  us  up  !  "  in- 
stantly responded  one  of  his  colleagues.  In  less  than  a  month  both 
things  followed,  —  a  newly  recruited  army,  and  Lincoln's  prelimi- 
nary Emancipation  Proclamation,  dated  September  22. 

The  writer  saw  Professor  Griffin  on  his  death-bed.  No  wavering 
of  his  life-long  faith  in  Jesus  Christ,  but  an  honest  and  earnest 
expression  of  ignorance  of  what  the  future  is  to  be.  Whittier's 
stanza  expresses  exactly  the  spirit  of  that  conversation :  — 

I  know  not  where  His  islands  lift 
Their  fronded  palms  in  air  ; 
I  only  know  I  cannot  drift 
Beyond  His  love  and  care. 

No  words  should  be  spoken  or  written  in  extenuation  of  the  short 
times  and  partial  nature  and  wrongful  neglects  of  Professor  Tat- 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL    THE    CENTENNIAL.  589 

lock's  recitations.  He  slighted  and  shirked  his  proper  and  needful 
work.  He  came  to  keep  few  or  no  records  of  the  absences  or  of  the 
standing  of  the  members  of  his  classes.  He  often  casually  threw 
upon  others  more  conscientious  the  duties  that  were  peculiarly  his 
own.  Whatever  was  easiest  in  relation  to  all  college  matters  seemed 
to  him  to  be  best.  He  gradually  and  naturally  lost  the  respect  and 
control  of  his  classes,  and  wore  out  the  forbearance  (much  too  long 
extended)  of  the  president  and  his  other  colleagues.  College  became 
more  or  less  demoralized  throughout  by  his  own  remissnesses  and 
occasional  absences.  Things  came  to  a  preliminary  crisis  in  1860, 
which  was  a  critical  year  in  the  history  of  the  College,  when  the 
trustees  came  together  to  inquire  into  abuses  and  negligences  (not 
his  alone  by  any  means)  that  had  become  noised  abroad,  and  when, 
in  consequence,  discipline  was  superficially  and  temporarily  tight- 
ened up.  Tatlock,  however,  did  not  resign  till  1867. 

Let  no  reader  infer  from  all  this  that  a  man  who  was  out  of  his 
place  as  a  college  professor  did  not  have  some  excellent  traits  of 
character,  and  a  practical  benevolence  perhaps  unusual.  He  edu- 
cated at  the  College,  mainly  at  his  own  expense,  three  of  his 
nephews  born  in  the  old  country,  —  William,  John,  and  Henry  Tat- 
lock, who  were  graduated  respectively  in  1857  and  1856  and  1871. 
William,  the  eldest,  born  in  Liverpool  in  1833,  became  prominently 
useful  as  a  rector  and  otherwise  in  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church 
in  the  United  States ;  he  was  secretary  to  the  Bench  of  Bishops  for 
about  a  quarter  of  a  century,  nearly  until  his  death  in  Stamford, 
Connecticut,  where  he  was  a  rector  after  May,  1866.  John,  born 
in  1835,  was  and  remained  a  distinguished  minister  in  the  Presby- 
terian Church.  He,  too,  like  his  uncle,  married  into  the  Whitman 
family  of  Williamstown.  His  son  John,  Williams  College  1882, 
became  a  skilled  and  trusted  accountant  in  the  office  of  the  "  New 
York  Mutual  Life  Insurance  Company." 

Professor  Tatlock  had  a  homely  wit,  and  often  made  a  quick  and 
telling  retort.  For  a  perfect  recitation,  the  students  were  always 
supposed  to  be  marked  10,  or,  expressed  colloquially,  "to  rake  an 
X."  When  the  news  of  General  Pope's  capture  of  the  rebel  "  Island 
No.  10  "  in  1862,  reached  the  College,  some  students  rushed  to  him 
with  the  announcement,  —  "Hm!  hm!  he  raked  an  X,  didn't  he?" 
This  was  quite  as  good,  though  not  so  severely  classical,  as  Lawyer 
Evarts's  expression  on  the  same  exploit,  which  was  achieved  by  saw- 
ing off  the  trunks  of  trees  four  feet  under  water  for  access  for  the 
gunboats  to  the  island,  — "  A  new  Ccesar !  He  came,  SAWED,  con- 
quered! " 


590  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

Throughout  a  part  of  his  teaching  career,  Professor  Tatlock 
preached  occasionally  both  in  town  and  in  the  neighboring  towns ; 
and  while  his  sermons  were  never  labored  or  original,  they  were 
often  sensible,  and  sometimes  piquant  and  impressive.  They  were 
more  apt  to  tell  upon  young  men  in  common  and  artisan  life  than 
upon  any  other  class  of  persons.  Instances  are  known  to  the  writer 
of  great  and  permanent  good  coming  to  such  from  his  preaching. 
But  he  repeated  himself  in  the  pulpit  to  the  weariness  of  any  stated 
hearers.  His  sermons  lacked  depth  and  solemnity.  They  were 
always  short,  like  his  recitations;  they  were  often  iterated,  both  in 
parts  and  as  wholes ;  and  they  soon  ceased  to  be  called  for  in  any 
'one  particular  place.  In  College,  they  never  became  common.  We 
have  no  call  to  follow  the  professor  in  his  after  life  as  a  lawyer. 
Following  one  year's  study  he  was  admitted  to  the  bar  and  opened 
an  office  in  Lenox.  He  was  sixty  years  old.  He  soon  moved  his 
office  to  Pittsfield.  He  never  gained  a  foothold  in  the  county  as  a 
lawyer.  Of  course  he  could  not.  His  character  deteriorated  sadly 
under  his  inevitable  disappointments.  He  died  in  1886,  and  was 
buried  in  the  college  cemetery.  What  are  the  lessons  of  this  man's 
life  and  failures?  (1)  Waste  not  through  indolence  or  other  neglect 
the  given  golden  opportunity.  (2)  Inflexible  and  invariable  duty 
to  others  the  only  key  to  life-success. 

The  celebration  of  the  semi-centennial  of  the  College,  in  1843, 
and  the  publication  of  the  striking  address  of  Mark  Hopkins  upon 
that  occasion,  extended  very  much  the  reputation  of  the  institution 
and  of  its  president,  who  was  then  forty-one  years  old  and  had  been 
seven  years  in  his  place.  Neither  had  yet  become  widely  known. 
The  average  number  of  graduates  for  the  nine  years  up  to  and  in- 
cluding 1843,  was  twenty-eight;  while  the  average  for  the  nine 
years  following  was  forty -two.  This  steady  increase  in  a  college 
remote  from  the  centres  of  population,  and  itself  difficult  of  access, 
can  only  be  accounted  for  by  some  general  cause ;  and  that  cause 
was  unquestionably  a  good  name,  extending  out  on  longer  radii  of 
influence.  Nor  were  increased  numbers  the  only  indication  of  this. 
Even  a  surer  proof  of  it  was  the  public  attention  then  and  thereafter 
centred  upon  Mark  Hopkins,  and  the  invitations  addressed  to  him 
to  perform  public  services  or  fill  public  positions  elsewhere  than  in 
Williamstown.  The  earliest  one  of  these  noticeable  invitations  was 
that  to  deliver  a  course  of  lectures  on  the  then  newly  laid  foundation 
of  the  Lowell  Institute  in  Boston.  John  Lowell  had  bequeathed, 
in  1836,  to  his  native  city  about  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
dollars  to  maintain  there  in  perpetuity  annual  courses  of  free  lee- 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  591 

tures  on  natural  and  revealed  religion,  the  sciences,  literature,  and 
eloquence.  The  lectures  went  into  operation  in  the  winter  of 
1839-40.  Dr.  Hopkins  was  chosen  to  lecture  upon  this  foundation 
in  the  winter  of  1843-44.  He  chose  for  his  theme  "  The  Evidences 
of  Christianity."  He  was  doubtless  led  to  this  choice  by  his  inter- 
est in  and  through  study  of  Paley  and  Butler,  who  had  been  the 
chief  text-book  authors  in  Senior  studies  from  the  beginning  of  the 
College,  and  over  some  of  whose  points,  especially  Paley 's,  he  had 
combated,  as  a  student,  with  Dr.  Griffin  as  his  teacher,  and  both  of 
whom  he  had  now  been  critically  teaching  to  Seniors  for  several 
years.  Paley's  "  Moral  Philosophy "  was  published  in  1785,  his 
"  Horse  Paulinae  "  in  1790.  his  "  Evidences  of  Christianity  "  in  1794, 
and  his  "  Natural  Theology  "  in  1802.  The  first  and  last  of  these 
were  college  text-books,  and  they  quickened  Hopkins 's  mind,  first 
and  last,  more  than  any  other  text-books  he  ever  used,  except  it  may 
have  been  Butler's  "Analogy."  It  is  altogether  likely  that  he  had 
access  in  the  college  library  to  the  other  two  books  of  Paley  just 
mentioned;  but  the  "Horse  Paulinae,"  which  was  the  broadest  and 
most  original  of  the  four,  was  not  adapted  to  the  structure  of  the 
president's  mind;  and  while  he  quotes  from  it  once  in  his  own 
lectures,  there  is  no  evidence  that  an  historical  argument  based  upon 
the  undesigned  coincidences  between  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul  and 
the  statements  of  the  four  Evangelists  ever  deeply  affected  his 
mind,  or  colored  his  own  lectures. 

In  his  later  life,  to  the  writer  particularly,  for  reasons  which  will 
appear  in  a  moment,  and  to  others  also,  Hopkins  communicated 
freely  and  repeatedly  the  circumstances  of  this  appointment  and  of 
its  fulfilment,  which  pleased  him  greatly  at  the  time,  and  ever  after 
in  the  retrospect.  The  interval  of  time  between  appointment  and 
fulfilment  was  about  a  year;  nearly  all  of  this  time  was  preoccupied 
by  pressing  duties,  both  teaching  and  executive;  he  postponed  as 
much  in  the  way  of  preparation  as  he  could  until  the  summer  vaca- 
tion, when  he  would  give  all  the  days  long  to  the  writing  of  his 
twelve  lectures ;  when  the  time  came,  he  devoted  himself  assidu- 
ously and  exclusively  to  this  writing;  "when  the  vacation  was  about 
two-thirds  gone,  and  I  had  put  in  my  utmost  strength,  suddenly  one 
morning  while  writing,  and  as  quick  as  a  flash,  I  heard  something  snap 
in  my  head,  and  I  found  I  could  not  write  at  all.  I  do  not  know  ivhat 
it  was  —  never  experienced  anything  like  it  before  or  since,  and  never 
heard  of  anybody  who  had  anything  like  it,  but  I  could  not  write  a 
word.  I  flung  up  everything,  kept  out  of  doors  most  of  the  time  for  a 
week  or  more,  walked  and  drove  and  climbed,  and  then  I  found  I  could 


592  WILLIAMSTOWST   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

write  again,  but  not  at  the  previous  pace,  which  I  have  never  since 
resumed."  This  is  his  own  account  of  the  matter  orally  and  often 
given. 

While  he  was  thus  hastily  writing  these  lectures,  he  never  had  a 
thought  of  their  being  printed.  They  were  written  for  a  popular 
audience  and  for  popular  effect.  They  were  well  adapted  to  both. 
Lowell  lectures  were  then  new  in  Boston.  They  were  popular. 
They  became  the  talk  of  the  town.  They  were  resorted  to  even 
from  considerable  distances  by  families  in  their  carriages.  The 
Unitarian  controversy  in  Boston  had  somewhat  subsided  from  its 
previous  virulence.  The  Lowell  lectures,  though  founded  and 
largely  supported  by  Unitarian  families,  were  acceptable  to  and 
frequented  by  the  Orthodox  also.  This  was  particularly  true  of 
the  Hopkins  course  on  the  "Evidences  of  Christianity."  There  was 
nothing  whatever  sectarian  in  the  theme  or  in  the  treatment  of  it. 
The  lectures  formed  a  common  ground  of  meeting  and  fellowship  for 
all  the  sects.  The  man  was  the  man  for  the  time  and  place  and 
subject.  This  proved  to  be  very  fortunate  for  him  and  for  the 
College.  It  was  at  this  time  and  in  this  way  that  his  lasting  rela- 
tions were  knit  with  Amos  Lawrence,  who  became  thereby  a  munifi- 
cent patron  of  the  College.  The  Unitarians  of  Massachusetts  as  a 
body,  by  this  initial  course  of  lectures  and  by  three  subsequent 
courses  upon  the  same  foundation,  were  more  or  less  drawn  toward 
the  College,  and  became  more  or  less  patrons  of  it  in  the  way  of 
sending  students.  The  ability  and  breadth  of  the  president  as 
manifested  in  these  four  courses  of  Lowell  lectures,  and  in  another 
course  of  lectures  later  delivered  before  several  of  the  theological 
seminaries,  and  especially  the  masterly  baccalaureate  sermons,  both 
as  individually  printed  and  as  collectively  published  under  different 
titles,  persuasively  disarmed  all  sectarian  feeling,  and  gradually 
brought  to  the  support  of  the  College  members  of  all  Protestant 
denominations,  and  many  Catholic  students  also.  The  debt  of  the 
institution  to  its  fourth  president  along  this  line  of  forceful  Chris- 
tian attraction  was  and  remained  very  great  indeed.  This  personal 
attractiveness  of  the  man  and  his  manner,  and  more  specifically  the 
attractiveness  of  his  public  presentations  of  moral  and  religious 
truth,  did  not  depend  very  much  upon  the  accuracy  (or  want  of  it) 
of  his  citations  of  fact,  whether  for  argument  or  illustration;  nor 
did  it  depend  very  much  on  the  width  of  his  reading  (or  want  of  it) ; 
and  still  less  did  it  depend  very  much  on  whether  his  main  points 
were  what  is  called  "  original "  or  borrowed.  It  did  depend  very 
much  on  a  broad-minded  and  warm-hearted  and  thoroughly  honest 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE    TILL   THE    CENTENNIAL.  593 

attitude  as  toward  his  topic,  combined  with  an  ever-hospitable 
aspect  toward  all  cognate  truth  known  to  him,  by  whomsoever 
stated,  and  also  with  an  always  luminous  and  often  beautiful  style 
of  language. 

J.  R.  Marvin,  a  printer  of  Boston,  though  in  no  sense  a  publisher, 
finding  the  echoes  of  these  lectures  pretty  clear  and  strong  for  some 
time  after  their  delivery,  requested  leave  to  print  them  at  his  own 
risk,  which  was  granted.  They  were  issued  in  good  form,  but  not 
with  so  good  a  promise  of  circulation  as  if  they  had  been  in  the 
hands  of  a  regular  publisher.  Dr.  Hopkins  took  occasion  long  after- 
ward to  express  his  regrets  to  the  present  writer  that  he  had  not 
put  his  book  into  one  of  the  regular  channels  of  communication  with 
the  public,  and  that  he  himself  had  not  divined  before,  and  while 
writing  it,  that  it  would  probably  be  printed,  and  so  come  under  the 
eyes,  in  every  part,  of  careful  and  critical  readers.  He  was  com- 
pelled to  pay  the  inevitable  penalty  of  his  haste  in  composition,  and 
of  his  want  of  foresight  and  diligence  in  comparing  his  quotations 
with  their  originals  and  his  statements  of  fact  with  authorities  of 
ready  reference.  The  book  had  some  sale  from  the  first.  The  cir- 
cumstance, however,  that  gave  to  it  subsequently  its  main  success 
deserves  to  be  recounted  in  these  pages  at  length. 

Joseph  Alden,  a  name  fast  interlinked  with  the  history  of  Wil- 
liamstown  and  Williams  College,  although  not  in  the  deepest  or 
highest  or  longest  relations,  was  ordained  pastor  of  the  church  in 
town  in  1834,  at  the  age  of  twenty-seven.  He  had  spent  two  years 
at  Brown  University,  and  then  two  more  at  Union  College,  where 
he  was  graduated  in  1828.  He  then  spent  two  years  at  the  theo- 
logical seminary  in  Princeton,  and  then  was  a  tutor  in  Nassau  Hall 
for  two  years  more.  In  his  brief  pastorate  in  town  his  health 
apparently  gave  way,  and  he  was  chosen,  in  1835,  Professor  of 
Rhetoric,  Political  Economy,  and  History.  He  had  seen  much 
more  of  the  colleges  and  of  the  intellectual  life  of  the  country  than 
either  of  the  Hopkins  brothers,  then  both  professors  here,  and  he 
was  of  just  the  same  age  as  Albert,  and  but  five  years  the  junior  of 
Mark.  He  was  a  young  man  of  fine  personal  presence,  tall  and 
handsome,  of  a  good  voice  and  superior  elocution,  though  lacking  in 
the  clear  and  courageous  and  dominating  eye  of  each  of  his  two 
compeers.  He  had  just  married  into  the  very  prominent  Livingston 
family,  descendants  of  the  emigrant  Robert,  of  a  noble  Scottish 
family,  who  obtained,  in  1686,  the  patent  of  Livingston  Manor  on 
the  North  River.  Mrs.  Alden  was  the  daughter  of  Rev.  Dr.  Liv- 
ingston of  Philadelphia,  whose  widow  spent  much  time  in  Williams- 


594  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

town  in  her  daughter's  family.  Had  Joseph  Alden,  in  connection 
with  all  these  external  advantages,  been  possessed  of  a  real  love  of 
college  teaching  and  management,  the  power  of  gaming  and  holding 
the  confidence  of  his  classes  as  their  friend  and  instructor,  and  been 
persistent  and  patient  in  all  his  relations  with  others,  there  is  no 
telling  what  a  social  and  academical  pillar  he  might  have  become. 
As  it  was,  he  stayed  seventeen  years  as  a  professor  without  ever 
becoming  locally  rooted.  He  helped  and  stimulated  individual  stu- 
dents a  good  deal,  both  rhetorically  and  politically,  without  ever 
receiving  the  majority  of  the  suffrages  in  a  single  class.  The  mem- 
bers of  his  family  were  highly  esteemed  in  the  town  and  in  the 
College.  He  built  a  handsome  house  for  them,  and  lived  in  better 
style  than  other  members  of  the  faculty.  But  he  was  not  contented 
in  his  work.  He  complained  of  living  under  the  densissima  umbra 
of  Mark  Hopkins's  growing  reputation,  when  he  might  apparently 
have  made  no  small  shade  of  his  own.  He  resigned  in  1852,  under 
circumstances  which  will  be  later  referred  to  again,  becoming  at 
once  Professor  of  Moral  Philosophy  in  Lafayette  College,  and  in 
1857  president  of  Jefferson  College,  and  in  1867  president  of  the 
State  Normal  College  at  Albany. 

Shortly  after  the  appearance  in  print  of  Hopkins's  "  Evidences  of 
Christianity,"  Professor  Alden  volunteered  to  introduce  the  book 
into  his  own  department,  as  a  text-book  for  study  and  recitation; 
and  did  so,  continuing  to  teach  it  in  a  rather  cursory  way  so  long 
as  he  stayed.  By  this  casual  stroke  he  left  his  own  mark  on  the 
College  in  a  longer  and  deeper  form  than  in  any  other;  for  when 
Professor  Perry  succeeded,  in  1853,  to  Alden's  professorship,  this 
study,  by  the  president's  express  order,  went  over  to  him,  along 
with  the  history  and  political  economy.  A  separate  disposition  was 
made  of  Alden' s  rhetoric  by  the  appointment  of  Addison  Ballard, 
of  the  class  of  1842,  as  brief  professor  of  that  branch,  and  then  of 
John  Bascom,  of  1849,  as  a  permanent  professor.  As  a  student, 
Perry  had  studied  the  "  Evidences  "  under  Professor  Alden,  and  had 
become  much  interested  in  them ;  as  he  had  also  gained  more  than 
the  other  members  of  his  class  from  all  other  of  that  professor's 
studies.  Accordingly,  when  he  became  charged  with  the  instruction 
out  of  that  book  to  successive  Junior  classes,  he  devoted  himself 
anew  to  that  study,  resolving  that  nothing  in  it  should  escape  him ; 
and  that  he  would  communicate  to  his  class  every  thing,  pertinent 
that  he  himself  might  acquire.  He  began  by  preparing  his  own  les- 
sons in  such  a  way  that  he  had  no  need  to  carry  into  his  recitation- 
room  a  text-book,  at  all.  He  did  not  memorize  the  paragraphs,  but 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    CENTENNIAL.  595 

he  mastered  them  thoroughly,  so  that  he  could  explain  the  allusions 
and  enforce  the  arguments  and  apply  the  illustrations.  His  own 
interest  and  zeal  gradually  communicated  themselves  to  the  mem- 
bers of  the  successive  classes,  so  that  it  was  said,  and  the  president 
certainly  believed  it,  that  there  was  no  study  in  college  that,  speak- 
ing generally,  drew  out  the  attention  and  the  powers  and  the  con- 
tinuous efforts  of  the  students  as  this  did.  The  president  often 
attended  the  oral  examinations  at  the  close  of  the  study,  and  always 
expressed  himself  as  more  than  satisfied  and  more  than  gratified 
with  the  results  thus  exhibited.  In  other  words,  the  book,  when 
given  ample  time  and  thorough  discussion  in  the  class-room,  proved 
itself,  under  all  the  circumstances,  to  be  an  excellent  text -book. 
The  president  more  than  once  expressed  his  surprise  as  well  as 
gratification  that  it  had  proven  so. 

At  the  same  time,  and  in  harmony  with  the  result,  the  book  proved 
itself  also,  under  such  continuous  handling,  to  be  imperfect  and 
defective  in  places.  All  books  are  imperfect  and  defective;  while 
a  book  written  under  such  circumstances  as  that  was,  and  by  such  a 
man  as  he  was,  necessarily  showed  weak  spots,  and  many  of  them. 
It  needs  to  be  said  in  this  connection,  that  Perry,  however  deficient 
his  college  education  had  been  in  other  important  directions,  had 
given  himself,  wholly  outside  of  the  curriculum,  a  thorough  course, 
lasting  over  a  year  in  all,  in  Mill's  "Logic,"  which  had  then  newly 
appeared.  Said  Dr.  Hopkins  to  him  many  years  afterward,  "I 
picked  you  out  for  a  professor  in  your  Junior  year  in  that  first  pub- 
lic debate  between  the  societies."  This  self-imposed  and  solitary 
and  long-continued  training  in  a  subject,  then  and  still  too  much 
neglected  in  the  College,  had  given  him  a  keen  scent  for  logical 
fallacies  of  all  kinds,  and  also  a  keener  delight  in  all  kinds  of  logical 
proofs.  In  the  first  and  preparatory  lecture  in  the  "Evidences," 
there  fell  an  attempted  refutation  of  Hume's  argument  against 
miracles,  and  what  purported  to  be  verbal  extracts  from  Hume's 
essay  upon  that  subject.  Almost  from  the  first  of  his  teaching  the 
book,  Perry  did  not  like  the  form  of  the  refutation,  nor  did  he  see 
the  germaneness  of  its  alleged  accessories.  He  went  to  the  college 
library  to  draw  a  copy  of  Hume's  "Essays."  To  his  surprise,  he 
found  there  was  no  copy  there,  and  never  had  been.  After  delays 
of  a  year  or  two,  for  in  those  days  such  books  had  to  be  imported  to 
order,  and  were  not  kept  in  stock  by  the  city  booksellers,  the  library 
procured  a  set  of  Hume's  "Essays,"  and  the  "Essay  on  Miracles" 
was  eagerly  perused  by  the  professor  who  had  wanted  it.  He  found 
that  the  refutation  was  not  relevant  to  Hume's  argument;  and  what 


596  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

surprised  him  more,  there  were  no  such  sentences  in  the  essay  as 
seemed  to  be  verbally  quoted  in  the  lecture.  There  was  a  reference 
in  the  latter  to  a  note  in  the  essay,  and  an  ostensible  summing  up 
of  the  contents  of  the  note;  but  no  such  note  was  found  in  the 
essay  itself  or  in  any  connection  with  it. 

Of  course  these  points  were  kindly  and  fully  communicated  to  the 
president  by  the  professor  at  a  proper  time,  and  were  considerately 
and  kindly  received.  The  two  men  then  went  over  the  points 
together;  and  the  president  pleaded  carelessness  on  his  own  part  in 
copying  or  condensing  from  the  arguments  of  others  against  Hume. 
" I  never  read  Hume's  argument,"  said  he.  He  was  more  or  less  dis- 
turbed by  all  this,  but  not  distressed  as  most  authors  would  have 
been  under  such  circumstances.  As  soon  as  he  could  fairly  bring 
it  about  through  his  printer,  which  was  not  indeed  very  soon,  the 
whole  passage  was  remodelled  and  put  into  a  more  defensible  shape. 
When  he  had  undertaken  his  original  task,  he  divided  the  "Evi- 
dences" into  external  and  internal.  Naturally  the  external,  or 
historical,  part  should  be  treated  first ;  and  so  indeed  he  had  begun, 
as  he  told  Professor  Perry  more  than  once;  but  he  had  no  interest 
in  and  no  special  qualification  for  writing  upon  that  branch  of  the 
general  subject,  which  was  ultimately  put  over  into  the  four  final 
lectures  of  the  twelve;  which  were  introduced  by  the  remark  that 
nothing  new  was  left  to  him,  either  as  to  the  matter  or  manner 
of  presentation.  In  this  final  third  of  his  lectures  he  had  merely 
copied  or  summarized  from  the  books  of  other  authors  upon  the  his- 
torical evidences.  It  is  to  be  presumed  that  his  chief  source  was 
Paley's  "Evidences."  He  took  no  real  interest  in  this  part  of  his 
task.  History  he  had  never  conned,  and  did  not  care  for.  Eight 
lectures  to  four  was  the  proportion  he  gave  to  the  internal  evidences, 
in  which  his  own  personal  interest  and  preparation  lay.  Fortu- 
nately the  bent  and  training  of  Perry  led  him  in  the  opposite  direc- 
tion. What  was  of  dead  weight  to  the  president  in  the  preparation 
of  these  lectures  was  a  live  concern  to  the  professor  in  the  teaching 
of  them.  He  gradually  schooled  himself  in  the  authorities  quoted, 
in  the  comparisons  and  contrasts  instituted  or  implied;  and  so  was 
able  in  general  to  keep  up  the  enthusiasm  of  successive  classes  per- 
haps to  the  plane  of  their  interest  in  the  earlier  and  better  lectures. 
There  were,  of  course,  a  good  many  mistakes  in  the  last  four  lec- 
tures ;  but  they  were  of  such  a  character  as  could  be  easily  smoothed 
over  and  swallowed  up  in  a  new  and  fresher  presentation  of  the 
argument.  For  seventeen  years  consecutively  Professor  Perry 
taught  the  "  Evidences  "  in  this  general  fashion,  when  the,  claims  of 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  597 

his  own  more  special  studies,  history  and  political  economy,  led  to 
another  arrangement. 

Moreover,  all  the  emphasis  is  to  be  put  on  Lectures  II. -VIII.,  if 
one  seeks  to  investigate  the  normal  action  of  the  author's  mind  in 
the  day  of  his  prime,  or  would  find  the  clew  to  determine  the  oft- 
mooted  question  whether  Paley  or  Butler  (almost  his  sole  teachers) 
exerted  the  more  penetrative  and  permanent  influence  upon  his  mind. 
In  these  seven  lectures  on  the  Evidences  of  Christianity,  the  master- 
working  of  both  these  great  leaders  of  English  thought  is  clearly 
enough  discernible,  and  it  is  rather  a  matter  of  curiosity  than  of  any 
practical  consequence  which  of  two  cognate  influences  predominates. 
Hopkins  had  an  original  mind  of  his  own,  which  acted  in  its  own 
way,  which  it  is  interesting  to  watch  and  wait  upon,  and  which, 
while  it  rarely  or  never  strikes  out  a  wholly  new  path  for  itself, 
indicates  its  own  greatness  by  receiving  only  the  really  great 
impulses  from  without.  In  these  lectures  Hopkins  borrows  bodily 
from  Butler  much  more  than  he  takes  in  the  same  way  from  Paley. 
In  the  third  and  fifth  lectures,  for  example,  there  is  little  else  than 
adoptions  and  adaptations  from  the  "Analogy,"  whose  author  he 
declares  in  another  connection  "the  highest  English  authority  in 
morals."  In  the  three  lectures  following  the  fifth,  there  are  several 
main  points  unquestionably  suggestad  by  his  complete  familiarity 
with  Butler's  "Analogy."  Nevertheless,  it  is  the  writer's  firm 
conviction,  that,  were  all  the  teaching  and  preaching  and  all  the 
books  of  the  president  subjected  to  a  fair  analysis  under  the  present 
point  of  view,  it  would  abundantly  appear  that  William  Paley,  rather 
than  Joseph  Butler,  guided  the  trend  of  these  lifelong  investiga- 
tions and  expositions  in  mental  and  moral  science.  In  Hopkins,  as 
well  as  in  Paley,  the  ethical  elements  by  much  outweigh  the  meta- 
physical, and  the  two,  as  developed  in  each,  lie  along  paths  notice- 
ably similar,  although  not  identical  in  direction. 

In  his  "Historical  Interpretation  of  Philosophy,"  page  268,  Bas- 
com  has  this  illuminating  sentence :  — 

The  completeness  with  which  the  English  mind  was  subjected  to  the  ethics  of 
Happiness  is  seen  in  the  "Moral  Philosophy"  of  William  Paley,  a  dignitary  of 
the  church,  and  remarkable  as  a  writer  for  his  clear,  terse  statement,  and  the 
firmness  of  his  hold  on  the  nearest  and  most  conclusive  arguments.  He  does 
not  hesitate  to  bring  forward,  as  the  last  and  most  inclusive  motives  to  obedi- 
ence to  the  Moral  Law,  —  itself  resting  on  the  will  of  God,  —  the  pleasures  and 
pains  of  another  life. 

The  same  comprehensive  author,  in  the  volume  just  quoted  from, 
page  320,  has  this  also  further  to  say  pertinent  to  the  other  passage : 


598  TVILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

Most  of  the  expositions  of  Ethics  in  this  country,  arising  in  connection  with 
the  timid  claims  and  half-way  concessions  of  Scottish  philosophy,  have  been  of 
an  unequal,  incongruous  order.  They  have  sought  to  reconcile  experience  and 
insight  as  sources  of  authority.  The  theory  of  Dr.  Hopkins,  that  Blessedness  is 
the  ultimate  ground  of  duty,  is  a  favorable  example.  A  distinction  is  made  in 
pleasures,  which,  after  all,  cannot  be  sustained  without  a  prior  recognition  of 
moral  vision.  Few  have  been  able  to  find,  in  the  manifold  teachings  of  experi- 
ence, simply  the  indispensable  conditions  under  which  the  inner  life  is  called 
out. 

The  widespread  popularity,  in  the  best  sense  of  that  much-abused 
word,  that  came  to  Dr.  Hopkins  in  connection  with  the  delivery 
and  publication  of  his  lectures  of  the  Evidences,  rather  suddenly  in 
point  of  time  and  almost  without  stint  in  point  of  measure,  coming 
as  it  did  outside  the  lines  of  that  distinctive  Christian  sect  of  the 
country  with  which  he  was  connected,  coming  particularly  from 
Unitarians  and  Episcopalians  and  Presbyterians  and  Methodists, 
while  it  was  deserved  and  did  him  good  in  some  ways,  and  the 
College  a  great  good,  it  must  also  be  said  that  the  popularity  and 
its  accessories,  namely,  a  flood  of  invitation's  coming  in  on  all  sides 
for  years  to  take  permanent  positions  in  city  churches  and  in  theo- 
logical seminaries  and  in  newly  organized  universities, —  for  most 
of  which  positions  he  was  wholly  unfitted,  —  did  him  an  immediate 
and  lasting  harm.  He  was  by  nature  unusually  susceptible  to 
flattery.  That  appetite,  beyond  all  others,  grows  by  what  it  feeds 
on.  Public  recognition  was  grateful  to  him  and  wholesome  to  him, 
as  it  is  to  all  men;  but  in  his  case,  certainly,  there  came  in  connec- 
tion with  this  from  various  sources  something  quite  different  in  its 
nature  from  recognition,  namely,  the  subtle  suggestion  of  the  wizard, 
of  something  marvellous  in  power  and  stroke.  To  some  of  those 
who  knew  the  facts  about  the  brevity  of  the  time  in  which  the 
Evidences  were  prepared,  it  was  a  strong  temptation  to  suggest  or 
imply  to  him :  No  other  man  could  have  done  that  thing,  and  with 
such  results!  No  matter  in  what  form  it  came,  his  manifested 
pleasure  at  all  such  insinuations  but  drew  the  speaker  on  to  say 
more,  with  even  a  heartier  reception.  It  was  not  by  any  means 
those  alone  who  had  private  ends  to  gain,  though  these  were  present 
in  increasing  numbers  as  the  years  went  on,  but  more  especially  it 
was  those  who  love  to  confer  pleasure  for  its  own  sake,  and  who 
only  erred  in  not  being  scrupulous  enough  to  keep  within  the  exact 
truth  while  they  were  conferring  a  happiness  which  cost  them  little 
and  which  seemed  to  go  a  good  way.  In  most  cases  innocently 
enough,  but  in  others  for  the  sake  of  warding  off  from  themselves 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL    THE   CENTENNIAL.  599 

or  from  their  clique  deserved  censure  or  college  discipline,  certain 
students  in  almost  every  class  caught  on  to  this  trick  of  flattering 
the  president;  in  both  classes  of  cases  alike  ill  effects  followed 
sooner  or  later  to  both  parties,  and  for  obvious  reasons.  The  presi- 
dent was  the  chief  sufferer  in  the  end.  Insensibly  to  himself  he 
came  to  regard  the  sweet-smelling  offering  as  his  due,  and  when  it 
was  withholden,  he  deemed  himself  wronged;  what  was  worse  in 
the  result,  some  such  stimulus  came  at  length  to  be  a  need  of  his 
life,  and  a  future  page  may  record  one  or  two  instances  of  such 
painful  deprivation  and  reaction. 

Seventeen  years  after  his  first  experience  with  Lowell  lectures, 
namely,  in  1861,  Hopkins  was  invited  to  deliver  a  second  course 
upon  the  same  noble  foundation.  His  topic  this  time  was  "  Moral 
Science."  The  lectures  were  originally  written  in  1830,  when  he 
became  professor  of  Moral  Philosophy  and  Rhetoric.  They  were 
thoroughly  revised  and  enlarged  at  intervals  during  the  three  years 
preceding  their  delivery,  although  it  does  not  seem  that  their  fun- 
damental principle  was  changed.  According  to  Paley,  the  last  and 
most  inclusive  motive  to  obedience  to  the  moral  law  is  Happiness; 
according  to  Hopkins,  the  ground  of  moral  obligation  is  Blessedness. 
When  he  came  to  publish  these  lectures  in  1863,  he  referred  to  a 
change  of  view  on  his  own  part,  addressing  his  former  pupils  in  the 
Introduction,  as  follows :  — 

When  these  lectures  were  first  written,  the  text-book  here  and  generally  in 
our  colleges  was  Paley  ;  not  agreeing  with  him,  and  failing  to  carry  out  fully  the 
doctrine  of  ends,  I  adopted  that  of  an  ultimate  right,  as  taught  by  Kant  and 
Coleridge,  making  that  the  end.  If,  therefore,  any  of  you  still  hold  that  view, 
as  doubtless  many  do,  it  is  not  for  me  to  say  that  you  have  not  good  authority 
for  it,  or  to  complain  if  you  object  to  that  now  taken. 

"  That  now  taken  "  appears  to  some  of  the  best  authorities  to  be 
a  decided  going  back  to  Paleyism;  and  if  it  be  such,  it  is  of  some 
interest  in  relation  to  our  recent  contention  that  Paley  was,  after 
all,  the  master-spring  of  Hopkins 's  mind  throughout.  In  searching 
for  the  ultimate  ground  of  the  Ought,  it  seems,  even  to  laymen,  in 
these  controversies,  that  simplicity  at  least  must  crown  the  finding. 
But  Dr.  Hopkins's  ultimate  is  not  simply  composite,  but  a  ganglion 
of  powers  and  functions.  Possibly  his  early  training  as  an  anatomist 
may  have  insensibly  favored  the  conception  he  repeatedly  unfolds. 
He  says :  "  The  whole  moral  nature  consists  of  those  powers  whose 
activity  gives  the  moral  quality,  and  also  of  those  which  judge  of 
the  moral  quality,  and  are  affected  by  it,  and  it  would  conduce  to 


600  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

perspicuity  if  the  term  '  conscience  '  could  be  confined  to  the  latter." 
The  newspaper  controversy  carried  on  between  Presidents  McCosh 
of  Princeton  and  Hopkins  of  Williamstown  turned  almost  wholly  on 
this  point  of  the  ultimate  ground  of  Eight.  In  McCosh's  review 
of  the  "  Law  of  Love  and  Love  as  a  Law, "  he  introduces  his  criti- 
cism by  the  remark  that  the  "reading  of  Dr.  Hopkins,  like  that 
of  Edwards,  seems  confined,  and  confined  to  rather  commonplace 
works  " ;  to  which  Hopkins  rejoins  with  dignity :  "  While  I  acknowl- 
edge fully  the  want  of  reading  referred  to  by  Dr.  McCosh,  and  regret 
it,  I  may  be  permitted  to  say  that  on  this  subject  he  has  presented 
no  point  that  I  had  not  seen,  and  has  raised  no  objection  that  I  had 
not  considered."  McCosh  presented  his  own,  the  intuitive,  view  of 
what  is  ultimate  in  Morals,  which  is  the  view  Hopkins  had  dis- 
carded, and  the  view  now  taken  by  the  leading  thinkers  of  the  world, 
in  these  words :  — 

Why  ought  I  to  love  my  fellow-men  ?  Why  ought  I  to  love  God  and  to  love 
Him  more  than  I  love  even  my  fellow-men  ?  To  MS,  whatever  there  may  be  to 
higher  intelligence,  there  can  be  no  answer  but  one,  and  that  is,  that  I  ought  to 
do  so.  And  if  any  one  puts  the  other  question,  "  How  do  I  come  to  know  this  ?  " 
there  is  but  one  answer,  and  this  is  that  it  is  self-evident.  In  other  words,  an 
action  is  right  because  it  is  right,  and  that  is  the  end  of  it. 

Dr.  Hopkins  was  often  heard  playfully  to  remark  on  the  contrast 
between  the  circumstances  under  which  were  delivered  his  first 
course  of  Lowell  lectures,  in  1844,  and  those  in  which  came  off  the 
second  course,  in  1861.  The  fine  carriages  from  the  city  and  suburbs 
bringing  in  and  taking  away  at  the  steps  of  the  hall  the  fine  ladies, 
old  and  young,  in  their  silk  gowns  and  handsome  bonnets,  probably 
accompanied  by  well-dressed  husbands  and  brothers,  to  fill  up  the 
hall  to  the  very  walls,  had  mostly  disappeared  in  the  long  interval 
of  time.  The  ladies  and  their  style  were  no  longer  prominent. 
Lowell  lecturing  was  slowly  coming  down  to  hard-pan.  Audiences 
were  not  the  popular  audiences  of  two  decades  before.  Besides,  the 
Civil  War  was  drawing  on  in  January,  1861.  Gloom  was  over- 
spreading the  whole  land.  Before  the  president  sailed  for  Europe, 
with  certain  members  of  his  family,  in  the  spring  of  that  year, 
there  were  several  earnest  conversations  in  the  weekly  faculty 
meeting  over  the  prospects  of  the  country.  Many  of  the  States  had 
already  seceded,  and  blood  had  been  shed  as  between  the  sections. 
There  are  but  two  persons  now  living  who  remember  the  vigor  with 
which  the  president  expressed  his  doubts  whether  the  two  parts 
of  the  country  would  ever  be  politically  reunited.  He  took  for 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  601 

Ms  parallel  case  the  division  of  Solomon's  kingdom  at  his  death 
into  the  two  kingdoms  of  Judah  and  Israel.  And  they  never  came 
together  again  —  never.  There  was  no  more  reason  for  that  division 
than  for  this — perhaps  not  so  much.  But  they  parted.  They  spilt 
each  other's  blood.  They  never  became  one  kingdom  again.  John 
Basconi  took  up  the  cudgels  valiantly  in  behalf  of  a  hoped-for 
reunion  of  the  States.  But  he  had  no  concrete  historical  example 
to  aid  him.  When  the  war  was  all  over,  and  the  president  made 
a  speech  before  the  students  in  their  public  jubilation,  he  asserted 
confidently  that  he  had  never  felt  a  doubt  of  what  the  good  issue 
would  be  from  the  beginning.  There  were  at  least  two  persons 
present  who  "never  felt  a  doubt"  that  the  good  president  had  for- 
gotten what  had  happened  at  the  beginning. 

The  third  course  of  lectures  before  the  Lowell  Institute  was 
delivered  in  1868,  and  the  volume  ensuing  was  entitled  "  The  Law 
of  Love  and  Love  as  a  Law."  This,  like  the  second,  was  a  thorough 
discussion  of  Ethics,  in  which,  after  a  seven  years7  interval  of  time, 
while  the  fundamental  ground  of  Obligation  was  not  changed,  there 
was  perhaps  a  wider  and  riper  scope  given  to  the  entire  presenta- 
tion, and  certainly  a  more  direct  and  full  appeal  made  to  Scripture 
confirmations  of  his  own  well-developed  system. 

In  January,  1872,  the  year  in  which  he  resigned  the  presidency 
of  Williams  College,  but  retained  the  professorship  of  Intellectual 
and  Moral  Philosophy,  he  gave  a  fourth  and  final  course  on  the 
Lowell  foundation,  entitling  it  "An  Outline  Study  of  Man."  This 
also  proved  to  be  a  popular  book,  perhaps  as  much  so  as  his  "  Moral 
Science  "  had  been.  It  was  at  any  rate  the  final  statement  of  his 
matured  views  in  the  nature  and  action  of  the  Mind,  in  its  relation 
on  the  one  hand  to  the  Body,  and  on  the  other  to  the  Soul.  The 
studies  of  his  earlier  years,  and  those  of  his  middle  life  and  ripe 
old  age,  all  brought  their  contributions  in  due  form  to  this  crowning 
and  comprehensive  book.  So  far  as  books  are  concerned,  he  then 
ceased.  But  he  went  on  to  prepare  a  course  of  lectures  on  "  The 
Scriptural  Idea  of  Man,"  which  were  read  first  in  1875  before  the 
Yale  Theological  Seminary,  and  some  years  later  at  Princeton  and 
Oberlin  and  Chicago.  He  prepared  also  in  1876  a  course  to  be  read 
at  Yale  on  "The  Scriptural  Idea  of  God."  As  he  himself  had  no 
knowledge  of  the  Scriptures  except  what  he  had  gained  in  the 
ordinary  way  from  the  common  English  version,  and  no  background 
whatever  for  their  interpretation  in  any  acquaintance  with  Oriental 
(in  distinction  from  Occidental)  history  and  modes  of  speech  and 
conceptions  of  the  universe,  and  held,  too,  in  a  bald  way,  the  dogma 


602  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

of  a  verbal  inspiration,  these  last-mentioned  lectures  had  very  little 
significance  in  the  eyes  of  scholars,  who  were  then  beginning  to  find 
in  the  varied  books  of  the  Bible  a  vastly  increased  significance  and 
a  greater  assistance  in  personal  living,  from  a  view  of  their  origin 
and  interpretation  in  the  natural,  and  hence  divine,  aspirations  and 
findings  and  anticipations  of  holy  men  of  old,  who  thought  their 
thoughts  and  said  their  words  in  a  racial  and  historical  and  tradi- 
tional setting  quite  different  from  those  in  New  England.  And  it 
should  be  added  in  this  connection,  that  Hopkins  had  little  sym- 
pathy with  and  considerable  prejudice  against  two  or  three  of  his 
younger  colleagues  in  the  faculty,  who  were  then  in  an  earnest  and 
devout  spirit  searching  the  Scriptures  daily  in  the  light  of  all  out- 
ward helps  accessible  to  them  whether  these  things  are  so.  This 
only  means  that  the  best  and  wisest  man  is  for  his  own  generation, 
and  for  very  little  beyond  it. 

Wide  and  sound  as  the  reputation  of  Dr.  Hopkins  became  from 
his  lectures  and  books,  it  was  on  his  skill  and  success  as  a  college 
teacher  and  preacher  that  his  main  fame  always  rested.  The  Senior 
classes  passing  out  from  under  his  instructions  for  more  than  forty 
years  carried  with  them  to  their  homes  and  elsewhere,  and  conse- 
quently disseminated  widely,  a  high  opinion  of  him  in  these  two 
functions,  or  rather  in  the  one  function  as  combined  toward  them 
in  the  class-room  and  college  pulpit.  There  were  some  differences, 
of  course,  in  the  ways  of  his  teaching  as  from  desk  or  pulpit,  but 
there  were  more  likenesses  than  divergences  between  the  two.  He 
did  everything  in  public  in  a  certain  large  way.  He  was  a  large 
man  in  person.  He  was  possessed  of  a  large  mind.  His  grasp  of 
the  points  he  wished  to  present,  whether  in  class  or  in  church,  was 
usually  broad  and  firm.  He  looked  like  a  master,  and  he  was  mas- 
terful in  his  way  of  putting  points  in  whichever  place  he  might  be. 
In  a  preliminary  way,  he  often  conceded  a  good  deal  to  any  party 
of  the  other  part,  who  might  seem  to  be  present  or  might  have  a 
claim  to  be  present;  and  in  this  manner  and  otherwise  he  gained  a 
general  attention;  and,  his  hearers  once  well  in  hand,  he  was  care- 
ful not  to  let  them  drop,  never  drowning  his  points  in  too  many 
words,  passing  readily  from  one  to  the  next,  and  often  finishing 
before  he  was  expected  to  finish.  He  did  not  seem  to  wish  to  take 
any  advantage  of  anybody  anywhere.  There  was  a  "  lucid  sanity  " 
about  the  man,  as  Francis  Palgrave  predicates  it  of  William  Words- 
worth, that  gave  him  a  moral  advantage,  both  as  teacher  and 
preacher,  of  which  he  was  well  aware,  which  he  availed  himself  of 
to  the  fullest,  which  he  made  a  means  of  conveying  truth  to  ordinary 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL  THE   CENTENNIAL.  603 

minds  without  much  effort,  and  which  enabled  him  with  a  very  little 
special  preparation  to  preach  an  acceptable  and  often  excellent  ser- 
mon on  any  ordinary  occasion.  His  general  resources  were  so  con- 
stant, his  possession  of  them  and  of  himself  so  calm,  that  he  was 
rarely  or  never  disconcerted  or  his  theme  belittled.  He  preached 
so  much  and  for  so  many  years,  both  in  town  and  in  college,  and  to 
these  as  often  and  for  long  united  in  one  audience,  that  almost  of 
necessity  he  came  to  borrow  more  or  less  from  himself;  but  it  must 
be  said  that  he  usually  adorned  the  thought  presented  before,  and 
polished  up  the  old  illustrations.  All  this  of  his  ordinary  sermons 
delivered  to  an  ordinary  mixed  audience,  and  always  ex  tempore. 
"  How  long  does  it  take  you  to  prepare  these  sermons,  such  as  you 
give  us  from  Sunday  to  Sunday?"  "Very  little  time  indeed." 

But  when  it  came  to  his  baccalaureate  discourses,  the  story  is 
quite  different.  These  were  elaborately  prepared.  These  were 
always  written  out  in  full.  They  had  a  body  carefully  moulded  in 
moral  and  religious  philosophy,  and  a  form  fashioned  after  a  severe 
but  lofty  rhetoric.  Much  came  to  be  expected  of  them,  and  much 
was  devoted  to  a  realization  of  these  expectations.  There  is  a  moral 
interacting  in  demand  and  supply,  much  after  the  pattern  of  the 
more  open  economical  demand  and  supply.  On  baccalaureate  Sun- 
days Mark  Hopkins  rose  to  the  occasion;  and  the  occasion  rose  in 
crowded  pews  and  galleries  to  the  sermon.  The  neighboring  towns 
sent  in  their  quotas,  and  strangers  came  from  a  distance,  to  hear. 
By  all  odds  his  best  writing  and  most  eloquent  speaking  were  therein 
displayed.  All  of  these  printed  discussions  were  admirable;  two 
surpass  all  the  rest,  namely :  "  Strength  and  Beauty  are  in  His  Sanc- 
tuary," and  "  They  shall  mount  up  as  on  Eagles'  Wings."  Looked  at 
as  a  whole,  the  baccalaureates  slowly  climbed  up  to  this  lofty  water- 
shed, and  as  slowly  declined  from  it  till  the  end. 

In  partial  distinction  from  his  preaching  powers  and  methods, 
description  must  now  be  briefly  attempted  of  his  ordinary  manner 
and  success  in  the  class-room.  This  is  the  more  needful  in  the 
interest  of  truth  and  candor,  inasmuch  as  some  frightful  exaggera- 
tions of  his  skill  and  power  became  current  toward  the  end  of  his 
life  which  were  by  no  means  free  in  their  origin  from  that  strong 
temptation  to  flatter  him  of  which  previous  mention  has  been  made. 
He  was  an  easy  master  in  his  own  lecture-room,  not  in  the  way  of 
exercising  authority  there,  not  in  the  way  of  exacting  requirement 
of  any  kind  from  his  pupils,  and  not  at  all  in  the  way  of  a  sharp 
discrimination  made  between  those  who  had  studied  their  lessons 
and  those  who  had  not.  He  put  them  all  at  their  ease  at  the  out- 


604  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

set.  He  did  not  call  the  roll,  nor  did  he  look  around  to  note  the 
absences  of  any  who  might  not  be  in  their  places.  There  were  no 
preliminaries  whatever.  He  assumed  that  all  came  to  be  instructed, 
and  for  no  other  purpose,  and  that  he  was  the  instructor,  and  they 
the  pupils.  He  knew  perfectly  well  that  there  was  a  considerable 
fraction  in  every  class  whom  he  would  not  be  able  to  benefit,  because 
they  had  not  reached  that  sufficient  discipline  of  mind  enabling 
them  to  grapple  even  with  the  elements  of  mental  and  moral  sci- 
ence, which  was  his  staple ;  nevertheless,  he  did  not  allow  that  fact 
and  his  knowledge  to  create  any  friction  anywhere.  He  did  not 
seek  to  eliminate  from  his  room  any  such,  or  bring  home  to  their 
consciousness  in  any  way  a  sense  of  their  inferiority.  "  Let  them 
come  in  and  get  what  they  can.  Some  of  them  will  practically  get 
nothing,  but  they  do  no  harm.  Most  of  them  will  get  something, 
and  some  of  them  will  get  much."  So  he  expressed  himself  in  sub- 
stance over  and  over  again.  In  a  somewhat  different  connection  he 
used  to  say  in  substance :  "  There  are  always  from  six  to  ten  in  my 
classes,  as  to  whom  I  do  not  care  whether  they  are  present  at  my 
recitations  or  not,  —  that  is,  morally  care, —  of  course  we  must  see 
to  it  that  there  is  a  fair  attendance."  Practically,  this  meant  with 
him,  they  can  come  or  not  as  they  see  fit,  for  all  I  care.  But  to 
the  classes  themselves,  coming  up  out  of  the  hands  of  men  who  did 
care,  and  who  made  more  or  less  friction  and  trouble  in  class  and 
faculty  meeting  about  attendance,  and  who  seemed  to  the  students 
less  securely  seated  in  their  chairs  than  the  president  did  in  his, 
this  coming  under  the  free  and  easy  conditions  of  the  Senior  year 
seemed  like  paradise  regained.  They  came  for  the  pleasure  of  it 
and  for  the  profit  of  it  and  for  the  freedom  of  it.  Prex  is  great, 
and  we  are  the  beneficiaries.  In  most  cases,  probably,  they  did  not 
gain  so  much  as  they  seemed  to  themselves  in  the  course  of  the  year 
to  be  gaining.  No  matter.  They  gained  a  good  deal,  and  they  were 
fond  and  proud  of  the  president. 

What  was  the  general  method  employed  by  him  when  once  the 
subject  was  reached?  Speaking  generally,  and  mindful  of  the  motto 
that  exceptions  but  prove  the  rule,  he  followed  the  drawing-out 
rather  than  the  pouring-in  process.  He  rarely  referred  to  the  ety- 
mology of  words,  and  was  seldom  guided  thereby  in  his  expositions, 
but  he  did  call  attention  to  the  origin  of  the  term  "education,"  as 
implying  something  led  forth  rather  than  something  imparted.  He 
did  not  appear  to  have  any  special  theory  of  education  in  mind,  and 
he  did  not  believe  that  a  really  good  teacher  could  be  made,  least 
of  all  by  the  copying  of  others,  while  his  own  teaching  was  surely 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE    TILL    THE   CENTENNIAL.  605 

adapted  to  himself  and  to  his  training  and  to  all  his  surroundings. 
As  to  text-books,  he  always  used  one  in  each  and  every  his  subjects 
taught,  and  he  expected  his  pupils  to  know  something  about  the 
order  of  the  thoughts  in  the  book;  he  almost  invariably  began  his 
questioning  by  asking  what  the  book  said  upon  this  or  that  topic, 
while  usually  he  pretty  soon  got  away  from  the  line  of  the  book, 
especially  if  he  had  up  a  few  students  in  succession  who  actually 
knew  what  the  discussion  was  about,  and  the  most  important  and 
the  most  common  question  under  these  circumstances  was  pretty 
sure  to  fall  in  :  "  What  do  you  think  about  it?  "  This  question,  if 
not  in  form,  yet  certainly  in  spirit,  is  the  central  key  which  unlocks 
the  remarkable  success  of  Mark  Hopkins  as  a  teacher.  What  do 
you  think  about  it  ?  It  stole  the  hearts  of  crude  young  men  to  hear 
such  a  man  as  he  was  plumping  down  upon  them  from  his  desk,  as 
if  it  were  a  matter  of  much  importance,  such  a  question  as  that !  It 
suddenly  increased  their  own  self-respect.  If  they  had  no  opinion 
then,  they  felt  bound  thereafter  to  gain  one,  and  a  sound  one, 
if  possible.  It  quickened  their  interest  in  the  subject,  however 
abstruse  it  might  be.  It  led  to  some  research,  and  to  a  comparison 
of  opinions  of  others.  It  sometimes  led  the  foremost  of  a  class  to 
think  of  themselves  more  highly  than  they  ought  to  think,  rather 
than  soberly  according  to  the  measure  of  real  acquirement.  But 
these  were  pretty  sure  to  fall  to  their  proper  level  afterward.  Of 
course  a  section  in  every  class  could  not  be  roused  to  interest  and 
introspection  by  this  or  any  other  means ;  but  even  they  were  lifted 
up  to  some  attention  by  pat  questions  and  answers  back  and  forth, 
although  they  saw  very  little  of  the  drift  of  either.  Suspended 
animation  is  better  in  a  college  class-room  than  a  dull  level  of  death. 
It  has  been  sometimes  said  that  Mark  Hopkins  pursued  the 
Socratic  mode  of  instruction.  That  depends  on  what  the  Socratic 
mode  is.  If  that  be,  as  it  is,  a  mode  of  reasoning  and  instruction 
by  means  of  a  series  of  questions  and  answers  leading  to  a  desired 
result  in  the  case  in  hand,  then  the  Hopkinsonian  was  not  the 
Socratic  mode.  In  his  earlier  and  middle  and  some  of  his  later 
teaching,  the  president  rarely,  if  ever,  prepared  a  lesson  beforehand 
with  any  reference  to  leading  the  class  to  any  desired  and  definite 
position  at  that  time.  He  did  not  know  himself  what  course  the 
recitation  and  discussion  would  take.  He  did  not  much  care.  His 
purpose  was  to  awaken  the  minds  of  the  class,  and  to  give  a  general 
training  to  their  intellectual  and  ethical  powers.  He  did  not  him- 
self see  the  end  from  the  beginning,  and  he  did  not  care  to  have  his 
pupils  suppose  there  was  any  special  end  toward  which  he  was 


606  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

driving.  From  his  point  of  view  this  general  method  had  great 
advantages,  for  he  did  not  care  to  tie  himself  down  to  any  par- 
ticular trend  within  a  comprehensive  subject.  More  than  most 
teachers  he  liked  to  keep  himself  foot-loose  for  emergencies.  He 
escaped  any  casual  charge  of  inconsistency  of  view  with  wonderful 
adroitness  and  plausibility.  But  the  manner  had  its  disadvantages 
also.  In  certain  states  of  the  weather  and  of  the  class  and  of  the 
teacher,  a  profitable  general  discussion  could  not  be  started,  or,  if 
started,  could  not  be  maintained.  The  conditions  were  adverse. 
Hence  a  dull  hour, —  sometimes  a  very  dull  hour.  Again,  some 
classes  were  better  fitted  than  others  by  nature  and  previous  culture 
for  such  a  free  and  high  and  cooperative  method  as  this.  A  few 
classes  spoke  against  it  in  such  numbers  as  indicated  a  majority  of 
voices.  One  day  the  president  called  on  one  of  the  professors,  in 
whom  he  had  confidence,  in  more  dejection  than  that  man  ever  saw 
in  him  throughout  an  almost  lifelong  association,  and  told  him  that 
his  copy  of  Dugald  Stewart,  from  which  he  had  taught  classes  twenty- 
five  years,  had  been  purloined  through  the  agency  (he  had  no  doubt) 
of  members  of  the  Senior  class.  He  never  saw  his  copy  afterward, 
nor  did  he  ever  teach  from  Stewart  any  more.  This  incident  would 
not  be  worth  the  noting,  were  it  not  for  a  false  impression  that  went 
widely  abroad  years  ago,  that,  whatever  might  happen  to  any  one  or 
all  of  his  colleagues  in  the  way  of  unpleasant  experience  with  the 
students,  Mark  Hopkins  always  rode  the  topmost  wave  of  college 
popularity.  This  was  not  the  fact.  Taking  his  whole  college  career 
from  1830, when  he  became  a  professor,  till  1872,  when  he  laid  down 
the  presidency,  as  one  piece,  he  had  about  his  share  of  sinister  mani- 
festations from  the  students  as  compared  with  three  or  four  of  the 
most  permanent  and  successful  professors  in  the  same  interval  of 
time.  Even  as  a  college  preacher  he  received  a  personal  insult  from 
a  few  despicable  scapegraces,  such  as  was  never  offered  to  any  other 
in  the  whole  history  of  college  preaching  here.  It  was  when  he  was 
regularly  officiating  in  the  college  chapel  Sunday  forenoons,  while 
the  clerical  professors  were  alternating  afternoons,  that  the  entire 
furniture  of  the  desk  was  removed  before  one  morning  service,  and 
many  of  the  students'  seats  were  outrageously  defiled. 

It  is  important  to  notice,  in  order  to  do  full  justice  to  Dr.  Hopkins 
as  a  teacher  of  Ethics,  that,  in  his  own  o*pinion,  and  in  the  opinion 
of  some  of  his  best  critics,  he  changed  in  his  later  life  his  mode  of 
questioning  in  his  classes  more  toward  the  Socratic  method;  and 
this,  not  because  he  knew  or  cared  much  about  the  Socratic  method, 
or  any  other  method  but  his  own,  but  because  he  had  slowly  come 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  607 

to  the  doctrine  of  Ends,  or  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Conditional,  or  to 
the  law  of  Limitation,  by  each  of  which  three  terms  he  expressed 
his  view  of  the  ground  of  moral  obligation.  "  If  the  End  accom- 
plished by  any  system  or  group  be  conditional  for  any  other  end 
beyond  itself,  it  will  be  lower  than  that  end."  Or,  again:  "Every 
activity  may  be  put  forth,  and  so  every  good  be  enjoyed,  up  to  the 
point  when  it  is  most  perfectly  conditional  for  a  higher  good.7'1 
As  it  was  incumbent  on  him  under  this  view  to  indicate  the  rank 
or  order  of  the  various  forms  of  good,  and  so  to  offer  a  criterion  of 
pleasures,  and  a  law  of  precedence  among  them,  he  gradually  came 
to  arrange  his  questions  and  discussions  in  a  way  subordinate  to  his 
system  as  a  whole.  This  appeared  more  distinctly,  and  indeed  very 
distinctly,  in  his  examinations  of  his  classes  in  Morals.  He  was  a 
skilful  questioner  under  all  circumstances,  and  in  all  subjects ;  but 
particularly  so  in  Senior  examinations  on  his  own  book  of  "  Moral 
Science,"  because  of  these  gradations  or  goings-up  from  the  lower 
to  the  higher,  from  the  body  and  its  innocent  pleasures  to  the  mind 
and  reason  with  their  insights  and  approbations.  Great  pleasure 
was  often  experienced  and  expressed  in  connection  with  these 
examinations,  not  only  by  the  committee  of  the  trustees,  which 
always  attended  them,  but  also  by  returning  graduates  and  other 
gentlemen,  to  whom  they  were  open.  Competent  and  attentive 
Seniors  easily  took  the  cue  in  these  examinations,  and  often  appeared 
extremely  well  in  them,  which,  perhaps  more  than  any  other  one 
thing,  gave  rise  to  the  common  saying,  that  Williams  graduates 
bore  the  stamp  of  Mark  Hopkins  in  their  after  lives.  Under  a  wide 
observation,  this  was  only  true  in  the  sense  in  which  all  competent 
and  enlightened  teachers  influence  strongly  the  lives  of  their  pupils. 
His  teaching  was  always  broad,  lucid,  and  attractive,  but  never 
incisive.  "  What  is  the  use  of  being  so  earnest  about  it  ? "  was 
once  his  query  to  a  teacher,  who  had  just  lectured  to  a  normal-school 
class  under  the  direction  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Board  of  Education. 
Nothing  too  much  was  so  much  in  the  make  and  spirit  of  the  man, 
that  much  too  little  was  often  the  criticism  of  him  and  of  his  attitude 
in  relation  to  great  public  questions  involving  moral  rights  of  a  part 
of  the  people,  in  respect  to  which  the  people  themselves  were  divided. 
Then,  too,  the  college  subjects  that  he  taught,  including  Health  and 
Metaphysics  and  Morals,  do  not  commonly  allow  such  sharp  and 
certain  judgments  as  do  some  at  least  of  the  sciences. 

It  remains  to  this  branch  of  the  present  inquiry  to  consider 
President  Hopkins  in  his  relations  as  head  of  the  faculty  and  gen- 
1  Moral  Science ,  pp.  68  and  72. 


608  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

eral  administrator  of  college  affairs.  The  circumstances  have  already 
been  detailed,  and  may  now  be  remembered,  under  which  Mark  and 
Albert  Hopkins  were  forced  during  the  decline  of  the  powers  of 
President  Griffin  to  assume  advisory  and  executive  functions.  This 
they  did  wisely  and  modestly  and  successfully,  with  the  full  appro- 
bation of  those  trustees  who  knew  the  most  of  the  state  of  things. 
If  these  two  had  been  common  men,  they  would  naturally  have 
assumed  more  and  more  control  after  the  final  retirement  of  Griffin, 
under  whom  both  had  become  professors,  and  after  the  accession  of 
the  elder  of  the  two  to  the  presidency  in  1836.  But  they  were  not 
common  men.  The  younger  continued,  indeed,  almost  to  the  close 
of  his  life  to  have  the  direction  in  matters  religious,  not  because  he 
had  been  compelled  at  that  time  to  assume  it,  but  because  he  was 
the  fittest  of  all  men  to  have  and  hold  it.  On  the  accession  of  Mark 
Hopkins,  the  faculty  consisted  of  Professors  Kellogg  and  Emmons 
and  Hopkins  and  Alden  and  Lasell,  and  Tutors  Griffin  and  Tatlock. 
The  tenure  of  tutors  was  too  brief  to  reckon  them  as  members  of 
the  faculty  in  general;  but  it  so  happened  that  these  two  tutors 
became  permanent  professors  afterward.  Emmons  and  Lasell  were 
only  employed  about  one-third  of  the  year  each.  Kellogg  was  then 
creeping  into  his  dotage,  having  been  appointed  professor  in  1815, 
and  having  never  been  a  strong  man  in  the  matter  of  government; 
Alden  was  then  new  in  his  place,  and  peculiar  in  his  views,  and 
never,  in  his  seventeen  years  of  service,  became  a  really  thorough 
coadjutor ;  and  all  this  left  the  two  brothers,  young  and  strong  and 
united,  in  such  a  situation  as  must  have  tempted,  and  certainly 
invited,  them  to  assume  more  of  influence  and  domination  than  they 
actually  took.  Both  showed  themselves  to  be  rare  and  admirable 
men  in  the  spirit  of  fellowship  and  concession  exhibited  to  all  their 
colleagues.  The  elder  brother  would  have  been  more  than  human 
if  he  had  escaped  altogether  the  flush  sense  of  new  and  almost  un- 
trammelled authority  in  the  first  years  of  his  presidency.  No  one 
would  now  have  known  that  he  did  not  escape  it,  if  he  himself  had 
not  repeatedly  spoken  of  it  in  his  later  life.  He  pressed  his  author- 
ity in  two  or  three  cases  almost  to  the  point  of  snapping  it,  with 
the  result,  as  he  used  to  phrase  it,  of  being  told  to  his  face  by  one 
of  the  students  that  he  had  scarcely  a  friend  left  in  their  whole 
number. 

This  fact  is  the  more  noteworthy,  inasmuch  as  a  notable  and  last- 
ing reaction  in  his  own  mind  from  mere  or  bare  authority  was  evi- 
dently the  result  of  it.  He  gained  back  all  his  friends  in  the  classes 
fast  enough,  when  he  himself  fell  back  from  authority  to  persua- 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  609 

sion,  or  sometimes  to  finesse.  But  lie  always  thereafter  governed 
through  the  faculty  ostensibly,  and  almost  always  in  reality.  He 
relied  on  his  own  powers  of  persuading  them  in  cases  of  decided 
difference  of  opinion,  or  in  shifting  the  question  in  one  way  or 
another  so  as  to  secure  unanimity.  He  was  exceedingly  skilful  in 
devising  verbal  or  other  compromises  so  as  to  avoid  friction  or 
division.  He  did  not  always  expect  to  bring  over  his  colleagues  to 
his  point  of  view,  or  always  succeed  even  when  he  did  expect  this. 
He  knew  how  gracefully  to  surrender  when  it  came  to  that  as  well 
as  graciously  to  receive  capitulations.  The  latter  were  the  more 
common  of  the  two.  It  was  take  and  give,  back  and  forth.  Fac- 
ulty meetings  were  held  on  Wednesday  evenings  throughout  term- 
times,  and  were  not  intermitted  in  his  rare  absences  from  town. 
Very  frequently  there  was  no  business  to  bring  before  the  meeting; 
but  that  made  no  difference,  the  meeting  was  held  all  the  same ; 
there  was  a  social  chat,  and  the  president  made  it  a  point  to  make 
it  pleasant  for  all  present.  He  never  seemed  to  be  in  a  hurry.  He 
seemed  to  enjoy  the  hour  or  more  so  spent  as  much  as  anybody.  All 
enjoyed  it.  He  always  contributed  the  most  to  the  flow  of  conver- 
sation, or  to  any  discussion  that  chanced  to  come  up.  If  there  were 
any  business  it  was  much  the  same,  so  far  as  informality  and  mutual 
good-fellowship  and  hospitable  greetings  were  concerned.  General 
business  was  presented  first,  and  always  by  him,  and  was  guided  by 
him  to  its  conclusion;  special  business  was  then  in  order,  and  was 
always  called  for,  and  each  one  presenting  it  was  patiently  heard 
and  courteously  treated  throughout,  until  that,  too,  was  brought  to 
a  satisfactory  conclusion.  It  is  not  meant  to  be  here  asserted  that 
there  was  never  sparring  or  retort  or  transient  ill-blood  in  these 
faculty  meetings  while  Mark  Hopkins  presided  in  them  (1836-72). 
Something  of  these  was  a  matter  of  course  in  such  a  changeable 
body,  for  so  long  a  time  under  recurringly  diverse  circumstances. 
The  exact  meaning  is,  that  during  this  long  interval  of  time,  for 
more  than  half  of  which  the  writer  was  in  constant  attendance  on 
them,  the  faculty  meetings  were  pleasant,  harmonious,  consolidat- 
ing, useful  in  acquaintance-making  and  friendship-forming,  and 
extremely  useful  as  a  place  where  extra  steam  was  let  off,  and  bud- 
ding feuds  nipped,  and  loyalty  to  the  College  strengthened,  —  all 
which  was  promoted  by  the  wisely  generous  leadership  of  the 
president. 

New  men  came  into  the  faculty  almost  every  year,  as  the  elders 
fell  out  from  one  cause  and  another,  and  as  new  branches  of  in- 
struction were  established  from  time  to  time.  Tatlock  and  Griffin, 

2B 


6JO  WILLIAMSTOWN  AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

who  were  both  members  of  the  Kappa  Alpha  Society  in  college,  and 
fellow-tutors,  became  permanent  professors,  the  former  in  1838  and 
the  latter  in  1846.  Professor  Lincoln  and  Professor  Perry  both 
became  professors  in  1853,  and  both  held  their  first  recitations  at 
the  same  hour  in  the  same  building.  Professor  Bascom  was  ap- 
pointed as  such  in  1855,  and  Professor  Phillips  in  1857.  The  same 
broad  policy  that  characterized  President  Hopkins  in  the  manage- 
ment of  the  faculty  meetings,  characterized  him  also  in  his  rela- 
tions with  these  and  all  later  new  professors  appointed  under  his 
administration.  So  far  as  times  and  interrelations  of  instruction 
needed  adjustment  when  new  professors  came  in  and  new  depart- 
ments were  formed,  these  questions  were  determined,  after  discus- 
sion, in  open  faculty  meeting;  and  each  man  was  then  left  at  full 
liberty  to  decide  on  his  own  text-books  and  peculiar  modes  of 
instruction,  as  whether  by  lectures  or  recitations  or  the  proportions 
between  each.  The  president's  bearing  toward  all  his  colleagues 
was  open  and  friendly ;  toward  the  younger  and  inexperienced  ones 
kindly  and  fatherly;  he  often  called  on  these  at  their  rooms,  and 
gave  them  encouraging  or  cautionary  words,  as  their  case  might 
seem  to  him  at  the  time ;  he  quickly  recognized  and  acknowledged 
good  service  in  all;  and  he  was  too  large  a  man  to  play  the  small 
despot  toward  any  because  he  chanced  to  have  authority  and  oppor- 
tunity to  do  so.  He  was  patient  and  forbearing  toward  all,  — 
sometimes  too  much  so  toward  some  who  may  have  been  inclined 
to  slight  their  work.  He  was  perfectly  conscious  of  his  own  supe- 
rior success  and  popularity  as  a  teacher,  and  was  more  than  willing 
that  this  should  be  enlarged  upon  by  any  who  consulted  him  about 
their  own  relative  failures  in  this  regard;  while  his  general  atti- 
tude of  encouragement  to  those  about  him  tended  to  bring  out  all 
that  was  good  in  them,  and  to  develop  all  that  was  peculiar  to  them, 
so  that  their  ultimate  failure  (if  it  fell)  could  not  be  justly  referred 
to  him,  and  their  ultimate  success  (when  it  came)  came  with  a  per- 
sonal self-respect  and  sense  of  independence  that  doubled  its  value. 
As  there  is  no  ground  for  supposing  that  his  college  relations  to 
Professor  Perry  were  essentially  different  from  those  to  a  dozen 
others,  who  began  with  him  and  served  long  with  him,  it  would 
seem  to  be  fair  and  logical  to  select  some  of  these  as  a  single 
example,  for  the  sake  of  definiteness,  among  many  other  possible 
ones,  in  order  to  illustrate  in  some  detail  the  mind  and  heart  of 
perhaps  the  most  illustrious  college  teacher  in  New  England  during 
the  century  now  closing.  It  was  his  habit  to  watch  critically  and 
persistently  any  student  who  manifested  a  special  talent  along  any 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  611 

line,  and  particularly  along  his  own  line,  of  studies.  In  the  fall 
term  of  1850  occurred  the  first  of  those  annual  public  debates 
between  the  Philologian  and  Philotechnian  Societies,  which  were 
kept  up  with  interest  for  several  years  thereafter.  Perry,  then  a 
Junior,  having  already  given  himself  a  careful  training  in  Mill's 
"Logic,"  to  which  reference  was  made  some  pages  back,  was  one 
of  the  debaters  for  the  'Logian.  The  question  turned  on  the  influ- 
ence of  civilization  upon  the  imagination.  It  was  doubtless  crude 
enough,  but  the  Junior  did  the  best  he  could  for  his  side  and 
society,  noticed  that  the  president  gave  him  close  attention,  and 
then  forgot  all  about  it.  Near  twenty  years  after  the  latter  said  to 
the  former,  "I  picked  you  out  for  a  professor,  when  you  tvere  a  Junior, 
in  that  first  public  debate  between  the  two  literary  societies"  The  next 
year,  when  the  president  took  entire  charge  of  the  Senior  studies, 
the  boy,  largely  owing  to  his  previous  studies  in  Mill,  had  a  deeper 
interest  in  and  a  firmer  grasp  on  the  Senior  course  than  any  other 
member  of  the  class  of  1852.  So,  at  least,  thought  the  president; 
and,  accordingly,  as  his  Commencement  appointment,  he  assigned 
to  this  boy  the  "metaphysical  oration,"  never  given  out  but  once 
before,  and  then  to  P.  M.  Bartlett,  of  the  class  of  1850,  a  man  much 
older  and  more  mature  than  the  average  graduate  of  those  days. 
This  honor  of  the  metaphysical  oration  on  the  Commencement  stage, 
which  was  only  given  in  four  cases  in  all  (possibly  in  five),  was 
justly  regarded  by  each  of  its  recipients  as  a  great  honor,  because  a 
more  personal  one  than  the  valedictory  itself,  which  was  always 
bestowed  on  the  scholar  with  the  highest  aggregate  average  in  all 
the  studies  of  the  course.  The  last  person  to  receive  this  special 
honor  was  E.  H.  Griffin,  of  the  class  of  1862. 

During  the  year  following  his  graduation,  Perry  was  an  assistant 
in  an  academy  in  Washington,  and  received  the  subjoined  letter 
from  the  president  of  the  College. 

WILLIAMS  COLLEGE,  May  2,  1853. 
DEAR  SIR  : 

It  gives  me  much  pleasure  to  say  that  at  a  recent  meeting  of  the  Faculty  you 
were  unanimously  elected  as  a  Tutor  for  the  ensuing  College  year.    I  hope  it  will 
be  in  accordance  with  your  views  and  arrangements  to  accept  the  appointment. 
With  much  Regard,     Yours, 

MR.  A.  L.  PERRY  MARK  HOPKINS. 

To  this  letter  a  response  was  given  on  the  18th  of  May,  declining 
the  appointment  of  tutor,  partly  on  the  ground  of  the  supposed 
smallness  of  the  salary  attached,  but  chiefly  for  the  reason  that  the 


612  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

writer  had  chosen  the  Christian  ministry  as  his  profession,  and  was 
intending  to  enter  in  the  fall  the  theological  seminary  at  Andover, 
and  did  not  wish  to  incur  the  delay  of  a  year  in  Williamstown.  The 
following  rejoinder  by  President  Hopkins  to  this  response  changed 
in  the  issue  the  whole  course  of  Perry's  life,  and  hence  has  been 
regarded  by  him  as  the  most  important  letter  he  has  ever  received; 
but  the  principal  reason  for  its  printing  now,  for  the  first  time  and 
in  this  connection,  is,  that  it  illustrates  in  almost  every  line  some 
one  of  the  president's  deep-lying  qualities  of  character;  —  his  fore- 
thought, his  caution,  his  kindness,  and  his  deference  to  the  opinions 
of  other  trustees. 

WILLIAMS  COLLEGE,  May  27th,  1853. 
DEAR  SIR  : 

As  I  have  been  absent  during  the  vacation  Yours  of  the  18th  inst.  has  remained 
unanswered.  You  are  right  in  regard  to  the  smallness  of  the  salary.  It  is  only 
$400.  This  is  too  little.  I  have  endeavored  to  have  it  increased,  but  have  not 
yet  succeeded,  though  I  think  I  shall  the  present  year.  That  however  is  of 
comparatively  little  consequence.  In  writing  to  you  I  had  another  object  in  my 
mind,  of  which  I  think  I  may  and  must  speak  to  you  now  confidentially.  We 
have  not  as  yet  been  able  to  find  any  one  to  fill  the  place  vacated  by  Dr.  Alden  ; 
and  after  conversing  with  gentlemen  here,  I  have  preferred  to  look  to  some 
young  man,  who  should  prepare  himself  for  the  place.  We  could  not  elect  you 
professor  now,  but  if  everything  should  go  right,  I  think  we  could  at  the  end  of 
a  year.  This  is  my  present  view  of  what  would  be  best  for  the  college,  but  I  do 
not  know  that  the  Trustees  would  concur  in  it,  and  there  might  be  other  reasons 
why  such  a  plan  could  not  be  carried  out.  It  was  however  with  special  reference 
to  that  that  I  wrote  to  you,  and  now  I  do  not  like  to  give  up  the  hope  of  seeing 
this  carried  out.  I  can,  as  you  will  see,  promise  you  nothing  absolutely,  because 
I  must  always  hold  myself  open  to  act  as  the  good  of  the  Institution  shall  require  ; 
but  if  you  will  come,  I  will  do  what  I  can  to  have  the  compensation  at  least 
$500,  and  I  should  hope  the  result  might  be  that  you  would  be  associated  with 
us  permanently.  This  is  all  I  can  say.  I  should  have  preferred  to  have  you 
come  and  say  nothing  about  it,  but  it  is  evident  I  must  either  state  to  you  all 
that  is  in  my  mind  or  give  it  up  altogether,  and  I  prefer  the  former.  Under 
these  circumstances  I  hope  you  will  make  up  your  mind  to  come,  and  we  will 
see  what  the  leadings  of  Providence  may  be. 

With  much  Regard, 

Yours, 

MARK  HOPKINS. 

This  considerate  and  fatherly  letter  came  to  Perry,  then  just 
turned  of  twenty -three,  in  perfect  health,  and  with  a  physical  con- 
stitution as  firm  perhaps  as  any  boy  ever  had,  as  the  voice  of  God. 
He  had  been  reared  in  extreme  poverty  in  northern  New  Hampshire, 
son  of  a  young  minister  graduated  at  Cambridge  and  Andover,  de- 
ceased at  Lyme  in  1830,  and  of  a  mother  of  Scotch-Irish  blood,  born 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  613 

at  Worcester  (as  was  also  the  father),  of  keen  intellect  and  of  indomi- 
table will  and  work.  The  perspective  of  an  earnest  young  life  was 
shifted  in  an  hour.  A  letter  to  Dr.  Hopkins  accepted  all  the  con- 
tingencies of  his  proposal.  At  an  interview  in  August  the  president 
offered  the  young  man  an  immediate  election  to  the  professorship, 
which  the  latter  declined,  preferring  the  issue  of  a  year's  experi- 
ment in  the  department  as  a  nominal  tutor.  At  the  end  of  the  year, 
he  was  chosen  Professor  of  History  and  Political  Economy,  in  con- 
tinuation of  Dr.  Alden's  work,  exactly  in  accordance  with  the  plan 
outlined  in  the  president's  letter  quoted  above.  In  an  association 
with  Mark  Hopkins  of  forty  years  all  told,  1848-87,  Perry  probably 
came  to  know  him  better  than  any  one  else  outside  of  his  own 
family.  His  sense  of  personal  obligations  to  the  president,  which 
continued  strong  till  the  last;  his  free  admiration  for  the  great  tal- 
ents, practical  wisdom,  constant  benevolence,  kindness,  and  courtesy, 
and  silent  forbearance  under  undeserved  and  cruel  treatment  toward 
the  last,  —  never  blinded  the  mind  of  the  younger  man  to  certain 
minor  yet  persistent  faults  of  the  elder,  manifested  for  two  genera- 
tions alongside  of  and  in  connection  with  conspicuous  virtues  on  a 
theatre  of  life  that  may  well  be  called  illustrious.  To  attempt  to 
catalogue  these  faults  would  afford  no  pleasure  or  profit  to  anybody, 
least  of  all  to  the  writer.  Some  of  them  have  already  been  im- 
plied or  referred  to  in  these  pages,  and  others  will  in  like  manner 
appear  as  we  go  on. 

To  his  own  self  not  always  just, 
Bound  in  the  bonds  that  all  men  share,  — 
Confess  the  failings  as  we  must, 
The  lion's  mark  is  always  there  ! 

The  weekly  rhetorical  exercises  in  the  college  chapel  on  Wednes- 
day afternoons,  otherwise  a  half-holiday,  which  had  probably  begun 
with  the  beginnings  of  the  College,  and  certainly  continued  till  about 
1860,  at  which  the  president  presided,  assisted  by  the  Professor  of 
Rhetoric,  constituted  a  prominent  feature  of  college  routine,  par- 
ticularly under  the  imposing  leadership  of  Griffin  and  Hopkins. 
All  four  of  the  classes  were  assembled  in  their  places  as  at  prayers; 
two  members  of  each  class  declaimed  on  the  stage  from  Freshman 
to  Senior;  the  president  criticised  each  declamation  in  turn,  usually 
at  some  length,  laying  down  from  time  to  time  the  principles  appli- 
cable to  oral  expression  in  public,  and  the  professor  in  attendance 
sometimes  followed  in  supplementary  criticisms;  and  the  exercises, 
taken  as  a  whole,  were  profitable  and  popular  in  college.  The  better 


614  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

speakers  took  pains  in  these  efforts,  and  were  somewhat  dependent 
on  them  for  their  "moonlight"  and  other  rhetorical  appointments. 
The  order  in  the  classes  on  these  occasions  was  usually  pretty  good 
in  the  time  of  Dr.  Hopkins ;  but  he  was  in  general  so  thoroughly  a 
master  of  the  situation  that  he  was  not  scrupulous  about  some  whis- 
pering and  laughing  in  the  classes,  some  applause  or  its  opposite  at 
the  end  of  a  declamation.  One  day  in  1852,  not  long  after  he  had 
been  urged  to  accept  the  nomination  as  president  of  the  University 
of  Michigan,  there  was  rather  more  disorder  of  these  sorts  in  the 
classes  than  usual,  to  which  he  had  quietly  called  attention  in  order 
to  check  it ;  but  as  it  continued  nevertheless,  he  rose  to  his  feet  and 
rebuked  it  with  dignity,  and  added  (with  less  dignity),  "  I  am  not 
obliged  to  remain  here  longer  in  my  present  position."  The  incident 
is  trifling  in  itself,  while  it  gave  rise  to  a  little  talk  as  between  two 
Seniors,  each  of  whom  expressed  himself  strongly,  that  that  was  the 
very  first  indication,  in  word  or  act,  on  the  part  of  the  president  of 
any  lowering  of  the  highest  dignity  and  self-control  they  had  ever 
witnessed. 

Perry  had  not  been  very  long  a  member  of  the  faculty  before  he 
had  occasion  to  witness  and  experience  a  trait  in  the  make-up  of  its 
head  which,  continuing  its  manifestations  from  time  to  time  toward 
other  members  and  at  times  toward  the  entire  faculty,  became  at 
length  the  main  cause  of  the  lessening  of  his  legitimate  authority 
and  the  moral  necessity  of  his  resignation.  The  pettiness  of  this 
occasion  makes  it  all  the  better  illustration  of  a  trait  which,  longer 
indulged,  became  at  last  a  weakness  irresistible  by  him.  When  the 
class  of  1856  were  Sophomores,  and  Perry  was  the  officer  of  the 
class,  and  thus  in  some  sense  responsible  for  their  current  disci- 
pline, he  ascertained  the  names  of  three  members  who  had  repeatedly 
hazed  and  abused  a  Freshman  rooming  alone  in  West  College,  an 
entire  stranger  in  town  and  college,  a  boy  very  slightly  built,  but 
excellently  fitted,  who  had  come  as  a  first-fruit  to  Williamstown 
from  an  academy  in  central  Vermont,  which  sent  most  of  its  well- 
fitted  boys  to  Dartmouth.  The  three  Sophomores  were  big,  burly 
fellows,  just  brave  and  chivalrous  enough  to  think  it  an  exploit  to 
boast  of  to  harry  and  browbeat  a  small,  solitary  Freshman  in  his 
room.  Eldredge,  one  of  the  three,  a  smooth-tongued  fellow  (nothing 
is  now  said  of  his  other  qualities),  suspecting  that  he  was  known, 
went  to  the  president,  lauded  him  to  his  face,  told  him  two  or  three 
of  the  class  had  just  had  a  little  fun  —  nothing  more  —  with  a  new 
Freshman,  —  they  had  not  touched  him  to  hurt  him,  —  and  pro- 
ceeded to  deprecate  as  useless,  and  worse  than  useless,  the  making 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    CENTENNIAL.  615 

any  case  in  discipline  out  of  any  such  innocent  matter;  the  class 
was  all  right,  the  individuals  were  all  right,  and  the  College  was 
the  best  in  the  country.  Eldredge  won  his  case  before  it  got  into 
court.  The  Freshman  stole  out  of  town  in  the  night;  and  from 
that  day  to  this  not  another  student  has  entered  here  from  that 
academy.  What  the  president  promised  to  Eldredge,  if  anything, 
is  not  known;  what  he  said  to  the  class-officer  is  well  remembered. 
He  forbade  a  word  being  said  to  the  Sophomores  in  the  way  of  re- 
buke, or  a  thing  being  done  in  the  way  of  discipline ;  only,  when 
the  term  was  over,  and  the  term-bills  to  parents  made  out,  a  minute 
might  be  entered  of  the  offence,  if  the  officer  thought  best.  In  this 
way  an  easy  victory  came  to  the  three  rowdies,  of  which  they  were 
fully  conscious,  and  in  general  the  class  also,  with  such  results  to 
general  discipline  as  might  of  course  be  expected.  A  son  of  Gov- 
ernor Marcy  of  New  York,  the  same  who  was  afterward  hung  at 
the  yard-arm  of  a  naval  vessel  for  mutiny,  was  a  member  for  a  time 
of  this  Sophomore  class ;  whose  ill  reputation  for  lawless  conduct 
was  redeemed  during  its  last  two  years  by  the  accession  of  James 
A.  Garfield  and  several  others  of  a  like  spirit,  and  also  by  the 
coming  forward  into  relative  prominence  of  the  better  members  of 
the  class  from  the  first. 

There  is  evidence,  although  it  is  indirect  and  would  not  stand  of 
itself  as  such,  that  this  instance  of  a  weak  concession  by  the  presi- 
dent to  offenders  against  good  order  and  express  college  laws  was 
not  the  first  of  its  kind.  This  should  in  justice  be  said,  in  partial 
extenuation  at  least  of  the  want  of  proper  control  of  their  classes  by 
Professor  Griffin  and  Professor  Tatlock.  To  take  the  odium  of  fol- 
lowing up  an  offence  and  ferreting  out  the  offenders,  and  then  to  be 
secretly  thwarted  in  the  application  of  proper  punishment,  does  not 
conduce  to  the  self-respect  of  a  college  professor,  and  least  of  all  to 
the  respect  in  which  he  is  held  by  those  for  whose  good  conduct  he 
is  held  responsible.  Such  things,  if  much  repeated,  go  far  to  excuse 
faithful  college  officers  for  ultimate  laxity  in  discipline.  The  only 
problem  here  is  to  reconcile,  as  far  as  it  may  be  done,  the  ostensible 
and  actual  deference  of  Mark  Hopkins  to  his  colleagues,  both  singly 
and  collectively,  with  a  personal  action  recurring  too  often,  whose 
result  was  their  humiliation  and  also  a  deep-cast  wound  into  general 
college  discipline.  The  result  crept  on  for  the  most  part  invisibly, 
but  ever  inevitably,  until  1860,  when  there  came  a  crisis,  which 
makes  that  year  an  epochal  one  in  the  history  of  the  College, 
although  but  few  persons  now  living  know  it  to  have  been  such. 
It  is  but  fair  to  suppose  that  the  president  did  not  realize  that  an 


616  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

apparently  simple  function,  which  afforded  him  great  pleasure,  and 
which  he  was  extraordinarily  well-fitted  to  exercise,  namely,  to 
bring  all  sorts  of  students  (whether  presently  offenders  or  not)  into 
personal  allegiance  with  himself,  must  in  such  cases  bring  pain 
to  his  colleagues,  and  injure  of  necessity  the  reputation,  because  the 
efficiency,  of  the  College  itself.  The  institution  was  to  him  as  the 
apple  of  his  eye.  He  had  done  much  and  suffered  much  and  for- 
borne much  in  its  upbuilding.  It  was  by  no  means  a  case  of  per- 
sonal selfishness  as  over  against  general  interests.  Dr.  Hopkins 
was  not  a  selfish  man  in  this  sense.  Selfish  men  in  this  sense  have 
indeed  been  seen  on  this  ground,  and  their  actions  weighed  in  a 
balance  and  been  found  wanting;  and  the  inescapable  consequences 
have  come  home  in  ignominy  and  disaster.  But  Dr.  Hopkins  was 
not  at  any  time  in  that  boat.  The  circumstances  under  which  he 
and  his  brother  came  into  almost  absolute  control  in  the  College, 
about  1835,  were  not  favorable  toward  preventing  him  from  con- 
tinuing, in  minor  matters,  a  personal  removal  when  possible  of 
what  he  dreaded  more  than  almost  anything  else,  namely,  a  public 
friction  in  the  ongoing  of  College.  This,  too,  after  matters  had 
come  to  be  well  established  under  a  reasonably  full  body  of  profes- 
sors, who,  in  order  to  move  effectively,  must  needs  move  together. 
He  doubtless  seemed  to  himself  to  be  doing  a  good  thing,  to  be 
relieving  both  the  College  and  his  colleagues  of  some  impending 
trouble  by  compromising,  by  privately  settling,  the  matter  with  the 
student  or  students  involved.  Whether  it  were  a  good  thing  or  not, 
depended  very  largely  upon  how  far  the  matter  had  already  gone 
in  other  hands  than  his  own.  His  general  motives  in  action  were 
good ;  but  he  did  not  see  as  clearly  as  he  might,  nor  estimate  as 
highly  as  he  should,  the  principle,  that  general  college  discipline  in 
the  hands  of  a  body  must  suffer  by  being  taken  out  of  the  hands  of 
the  body. 

The  trustees  have  always  passed  over  into  the  hands  of  the  fac- 
ulty, not  into  the  hands  of  the  president,  the  general  control  of 
instruction  and  discipline.  The  president  is  also  a  member  of  the 
Board  of  Trustees,  and  is  the  usual  channel  of  communication  from 
them  to  the  faculty.  This  is  the  theory  and  practice  of  the  College. 
This  has  been  the  express  tenor  of  the  college  laws,  so  called,  from 
the  beginning,  and  in  every  one  of  their  editions  and  revisions. 
Dr.  Hopkins  understood  this,  and  often  expounded  it  to  others,  and 
acted  on  it  himself  in  good  faith.  Even  in  the  particular  already 
now  sufficiently  indicated,  he  doubtless  acted  in  good  faith,  but  with 
too  little  prevision  and  circumspection  of  the  natural  ill  conse- 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  617 

quences.  His  fault  lay  in  a  subconstruction  of  his  duty,  rather  than 
in  a  false  construction  of  his  position  relating  to  others.  When 
this  very  question  came  before  the  trustees  as  a  body,  it  was  decided 
as  against  the  president,  and  in  favor  of  the  rights  and  privileges 
of  the  faculty  as  such.  This  was  very  important  action  on  their 
part.  Whether  it  were  properly  recorded  or  not  may  be  doubtful ; 
but  it  is  pretty  certain  to  have  passed  out  of  the  minds  of  most  of 
those  who  have  had  to  do  with  the  management  of  the  College  since 
that  time.  Whatever  may  be  said  of  the  language  of  charters  and 
laws  and  precedents,  there  is  a  practical  region  of  cloudland  between 
the  spheres  of  action  and  influence  respectively  of  trustees  and  fac- 
ulty and  alumni  and  students.  There  are  certain  rights  and  privi- 
leges to  each  of  these  four  conjoint  bodies  that  constitute  the 
College  in  the  largest  sense  of  that  flexible  and  comprehensive  word. 
The  trustees  are  not  the  College,  the  faculty  are  not  the  College, 
the  alumni  are  not  the  College,  and  the  students  are  not  the  Col- 
lege; but  all  of  these  together,  in  certain  actions  and  reactions,  in 
certain  living  and  reciprocal  relations,  which  it  is  as  impossible  as 
it  is  needless  precisely  to  delineate  in  words.  All  that  is  necessary 
in  order  to  the  harmonious  interworking  of  these  bodies  as  toward 
the  great  ends  of  education  and  righteousness  is  good  sense  and  good 
will  and  reciprocal  respect  and  forbearance  on  the  part  of  the  most 
in  each  of  these  four  bodies  toward  each  other. 

That  these  conditions  with  this  issue  are  not  Utopian  and  unat- 
tainable, has  been  demonstrated  for  considerable  and  recurring  inter- 
vals of  time  in  each  of  the  older  New  England  colleges  during  the 
century  now  closing.  Individualisms  and  colleges  are  a  contradic- 
tion in  terms,  and  in  practical  hostility  to  each  other.  Any  undue 
exaltation  of  one  person  in  any  one  of  these  four  bodies  becomes  at 
once  an  element  of  mischief  to  that  part,  and  consequently  to  each 
of  the  other  three  parts.  This  vital  principle  in  the  constitution  of 
colleges,  which  may  be  prejudiced  in  some  minds  by  its  comparative 
novelty,  does  not  mean,  or  imply,  that  a  man  in  any  position  may 
not  have  or  ought  not  to  exercise  all  the  weight  that  conies  to  him 
from  superior  intelligence  or  experience  or  character;  but  it  does 
mean  that  all  such  or  other  influence,  in  order  to  be  wholesome  and 
safe,  must  be  exercised  with  sincere  deference  and  kindness  to  all 
colleagues  and  with  a  quiet  submission  to  any  decision  of  the  most 
of  questions  belonging  to  all.  A  lifetime  of  college  experience  and 
observation  has  brought  this  conviction  to  some  men,  that  most  col- 
lege difficulties  of  any  depth  (and  they  have  been  very  prevalent), 
have  come  from  the  assumption  on  the  part  of  somebody  of  func- 


618  WILL1AMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

tions  that  did  not  properly  belong  to  him,  or  the  personal  exhibition 
toward  his  colleagues  of  qualities  unworthy  a  man  and  a  Christian. 
This  does  not  require  of  college  men  that  they  be  perfect  men;  but 
it  does  require  of  them  that  they  be  kindly  and  just  gentlemen.  All 
others  are  unfit  for  college  officers.  And  it  does  particularly,  also, 
require  of  these  men  that  they  be  open  and  above  board  and  honest 
in  all  their  relations  to  colleagues,  or  else  pay  the  certain  penalty 
of  the  opposite,  always  at  the  expense  of  the  institution  itself  as 
well  as  at  their  own  expense.  It  is  fortunate,  on  the  whole,  that 
the  name  "college,"  both  in  the  etymological  and  customary  signifi- 
cance, that  the  theory  of  the  selection  and  action  of  all  the  bodies 
constituent  of  a  college,  and  the  natural  and  unmistakable  ill  effects 
of  the  violation  of  these  in  practice,  —  all  alike  and  all  the  time 
forbid  any  college  man  to  maximize  himself,  that  is,  to  minimize 
his  colleagues,  in  any  matter  of  their  conjoint  responsibility,  by  and 
through  the  above-mentioned  assumption  or  exhibition. 

As  the  annual  Commencement  season  drew  on,  in  1860,  at  Wil- 
liams, there  came  evidence  to  some  of  the  men  then  in  active  service 
on  the  ground,  that  the  trustees  would  come  together  with  deep  dis- 
satisfaction in  their  minds  as  to  the  condition  of  college  discipline. 
When  they  did  come  together  they  adopted  a  novel  means  of  ascer- 
taining the  precise  views  on  this  subject  of  all  the  responsible  col- 
lege officers.  They  summoned  the  faculty  to  appear  in  two  sections 
simultaneously  before  a  large  committee  of  the  trustees,  themselves 
sitting  in  two  sections.  The  professors  then  in  service  were  Hopkins, 
Tatlock,  Griffin,  Chadbourne,  Emmons,  Lincoln,  Perry,  Bascom, 
and  Phillips.  The  trustees  then  in  service  were  C.  A.  Dewey,  Em- 
erson Davis,  H.  L.  Sabin,  Charles  Stoddard,  George  N.  Briggs,  John 
Todd,  Absalom  Peters,  H.  W.  Bishop,  Adam  Reid,  Joseph  White, 
A.  C.  Thompson,  E.  C.  Benedict,  Homer  Bartlett,  William  Hyde, 
and  Nicholas  Murray.  The  professors  in  each  section  were  sub- 
jected to  a  courteous  and  sharp  questioning,  the  preliminary  in  case 
of  the  younger. men  being,  "How  long  have  you  been  here?"  and 
then  each  was  invited  to  state  his  own  view  of  the  reasons  why  dis- 
cipline in  College  was  so  slack.  That  it  was  too  slack  was  assumed 
at  the  outset  and  throughout  by  each  party.  It  is  believed  there 
was  no  discussion  on  this  point  in  either  section;  there  was  certainly 
none  in  one  of  the  two  sections.  How  the  trustees  came  so  gener- 
ally to  believe  that  the  faculty  were  negligent  in  their  duty  in  this 
regard  is  not  now  known,  nor  is  that  point  one  of  much  moment ; 
the  point  of  moment  was,  that  they  did  believe  it,  and  that  it  was 
true.  It  is  possible  they  had  noticed  a  decline  in  the  average  num- 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    CENTENNIAL.  619 

ber  of  graduates.  For  the  five  years  1854-58  the  average  had  been 
fifty -five ;  in  each  of  the  years  1859  and  1860  the  number  was  forty- 
eight.  It  is  more  likely  that  individual  members  of  the  Board  of 
Trustees,  several  of  whom  resided  in  the  town  or  the  neighborhood, 
had  learned  through  conversation  or  correspondence  with  members 
of  the  faculty  the  fact  of  baffled  discipline  and  the  point  at  which 
it  was  being  baffled.  At  any  rate,  however  this  matter  may  have 
been,  when  the  question  came  to  be  pointedly  put  to  each  of  three  or 
four  professors  in  turn  in  each  of  two  committee-rooms  by  the  spokes- 
man of  three  or  four  trustees  in  each  room,  "  What  is  the  matter 
with  college  discipline?"  the  answers  brought  forth  were  all  of  one 
tenor  in  substance,  namely  this,  the  executive  officer  of  the  faculty, 
the  president,  either  softened  down  or  ignored  the  decisions  of  the  ma- 
jority in  cases  of  discipline  brought  before  them,  or  took  out  of  their 
hands  altogether  important  cases,  either  patching  them  up  himself  or 
more  likely  letting  them  drift.  It  should  be  said  here,  in  explanation, 
that  no  records  of  the  ordinary  faculty  meetings  were  kept  at  that 
time ;  and  the  exact  terms  of  votes  passed  could  only  be  reproduced 
by  memory;  and  the  president's  memory  of  words,  though  good, 
naturally  presented  the  softer  rather  than  the  sterner  expressions. 
The  next  forenoon  after  these  important  meetings  in  the  library, 
it  so  chanced  that  Professor  Perry  met  two  of  the  influential  trustees 
together  in  the  office  of  their  late  colleague,  Judge  Daniel  N.  Dewey. 
Neither  one  of  these  two  had  been  in  that  section  the  evening  before, 
in  which  he  had  given  expression  to  his  views  concurrently  with 
Professor  Lincoln  and  Professor  Tatlock,  and  perhaps  more  fully 
and  pointedly  than  either  of  them.  Probably  these  two  trustees  had 
been  present  in  the  other  section.  At  any  rate,  they  knew  thor- 
oughly what  had  been  the  responsive  voice  in  both  sections;  and 
they  proceeded  to  address  him  in  language  and  with  an  earnestness 
that  has  never  ceased  to  seem  strange  to  him,  considering  that  he 
had  been  but  seven  years  in  service,  and  these  quiet  years  absorbed 
in  the  work  of  his  own  department.  They  must  have  gotten  an  idea 
from  some  source  more  favorable  to  his  vigor  and  influence  in  the 
faculty  than  the  facts  would  then  have  warranted.  They  urged  him 
as  from  the  side  of  the  trustees,  and  as  expressing  the  sense  of  the 
trustees,  to  pursue  a  policy  in  faculty  meetings  independent  of  the  presi- 
dent's, more  strenuous  and  steady  in  the  line  of  good  discipline;  and,  if 
this  individual  action  did  not  prove  effective  as  toward  that  end,  to 
make  combinations  with  other  professors  like-minded,  in  order  to  outvote 
the  president  on  occasion,  and  to  hold  him  up  strongly  to  a  line  of  col- 
lege conduct  to  which  he  was  naturally  and  by  habit  disinclined. 


620  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

Doubtless  it  may  be  said  that  this  was  improper  talk  as  between 
two  trustees  and  a  single  professor  after  such  formal  and  official 
meetings  as  those  of  the  evening  before,  unless  the  two  were  spe- 
cially charged  by  the  whole  to  communicate  such  a  message  to  a 
member  or  members  of  the  faculty.  Whether  it  were  improper  talk 
or  not,  it  was  actual  talk  and  emphatic  talk,  passing  from  the  two 
to  the  one  as  if  it  were  the  judgment  of  the  whole,  though  it  was 
not  announced  in  words  as  such  judgment.  The  professor  was  wholly 
passive  in  the  interview,  receiving  the  message  as  a  personal  one 
and  as  from  authority,  saying  nothing,  least  of  all  making  any 
promises.  Whether  there  were  any  one  or  more  of  the  trustees 
present  at  the  meetings  deeply  friendly  enough  to  the  president  to 
frankly  tell  him  what  had  passed  there,  can  now  never  be  known ; 
that  there  was  communication  over  the  matter  between  them  and  him 
is  proved  by  his  telling  the  faculty  not  very  long  after,  that  "the 
trustees  felt  better  about  it  when  they  went  away  than  when  they 
came."  Why  they  should  have  "felt  better  about  it"  has  never 
been  revealed.  The  only  known  immediate  result  of  a  very  consid- 
erable official  procedure  on  their  part  was  the  chance  interview  with 
Perry  just  narrated. 

There  were,  however,  more  distant  results  of  that  interview  of 
some  consequence  to  the  College.  Perry  did  not  speak  of  it  to  any 
one  of  his  colleagues,  or  to  any  one  else,  for  more  than  thirty  years. 
He  remembered  it  nevertheless,  and  profited  by  it.  (1)  He  could  do 
no  less  than  assume  from  it  that  he  had  already  gained  the  confidence 
of  the  trustees  as  a  competent  and  faithful  college  officer,  knowing 
what  the  institution  was  established  and  maintained  for,  and  willing 
to  take  risks  (if  need  be)  for  the  furtherance  of  those  ends.  (2)  With 
this,  their  confidence,  in  mind,  and  seeing  no  evidence  of  any  more 
stringent  methods  in  the  president's  hand,  and  distrusting  the  effi- 
cacy of  any  such  possible  combination  of  professors  as  had  been 
commended  to  him,  he  determined  quietly,  but  firmly,  to  take  the 
control  of  each  class  as  they  came  in  succession  under  his  instruction 
into  his  own  hands,  so  far  as  his  jurisdiction  in  his  own  lecture- 
room  and  his  own  studies  might  be  extended,  and  thereafter  to  bring 
no  case  of  discipline  thus  occurring  before  the  faculty  in  any  event. 
He  did  so,  saying  nothing  to  any  one  of  his  purpose  and  of  its 
gradual  success.  He  was  the  first  professor  in  the  College  to  call 
aloud  the  roll  of  his  class  at  the  beginning  of  every  exercise,  and 
thus  to  keep  an  exact  account  of  all  absences.  If  any  one's  number 
of  absences  in  any  study  became  considerable,  he  spoke  to  the  stu- 
dent about  it  privately,  looking  him  always  right  in  the  eye,  and 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  621 

saying  that  if  such  unexcused  absences  continued,  his  name  would 
be  dropped  from  that  roll  altogether.  If  any  student  appeared  to  be 
culpably  negligent  in  his  preparation  of  the  lessons,  he,  too,  was  seen 
privately,  and  asked  the  reason :  if  he  were  a  poor  scholar  and  found 
the  subject  difficult,  he  was  uniformly  encouraged  and  helped ;  if  he 
were  shirking  and  indifferent,  he  was  told  that  unless  there  were 
evidence  of  an  immediate  and  continued  improvement,  his  name 
would  be  dropped  from  the  roll,  and  there  would  be  no  replacing  it. 
These  simple  customs,  kindly  and  firmly  administered,  did  much 
more  than  secure  a  fair  attendance  and  proper  progress  in  study  in 
that  lecture-room  ;  they  drew  the  confidence  of  pupils  toward  the 
teacher,  as  aiming  solely  at  their  good  and  at  the  good  reputation 
of  the  College.  The  teacher  also  strove  to  make  the  acquaintance 
of  all  the  members  of  his  classes,  trusting  every  one  until  he  saw 
good  grounds  for  distrusting  him ;  pursuing  a  course  frank  and  open 
as  toward  all;  and  paying  particular  attention,  unobserved,  to 
those  pecuniarily  poor  and  those  poorly  fitted  for  college,  trying  the 
most  to  help  along  those  who  needed  it  the  most.  The  moral  re- 
wards that  have  been  coming  and  that  keep  coming  to  that  teacher 
from  those  thus  slightly  assisted  at  the  outset  of  their  course  in  life, 
cannot  be  expressed  in  words. 

(3)  In  more  direct  accordance  with  the  intimations  received  from 
the  trustees,  Professor  Perry  rarely  or  never  failed,  after  1860,  to 
support  in  the  faculty  meeting,  in  all  cases  of  discipline  brought 
there,  the  view  that  seemed  to  him  the  surest  in  favor  of  good  and 
steady  government.  There  were  then  no  "sides"  in  the  faculty 
properly  so  called.  The  president  was  the  acknowledged  head  and 
leader.  No  one  in  the  faculty  desired  to  make  any  combination  to 
outvote  him  on  any  question  of  discipline,  current  or  prospective. 
But  opinions  even  then  pretty  sharply  diverged.  He  was  sure  to 
take  the  smooth  side  in  all  such  questions  relating  to  the  students, 
for  two  main  reasons :  namely,  first,  he  believed  and  frankly  avowed 
that  college  government  was  a  sort  of  family  government,  extended 
and  modified,  in  which  precept  and  example  and  moral  considera- 
tions brought  to  bear  upon  the  students  individually  and  collec- 
tively, were  far  better  than  a  system  of  offences  with  difficulty 
precisely  defined,  and  with  rigid  penalties  attached  to  them;  and, 
secondly,  he  was  conscious  of  possessing  superior  facilities  himself 
in  thus  handling  students  to  good  ends,  and  of  having  had  remark- 
able success  along  these  lines  in  the  time  past.  At  the  same  time, 
he  wanted  no  monopoly  of  these  influences  in  his  own  hands.  He 
desired  each  of  his  colleagues  to  use  these  general  methods  in  his 


622  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

own  way,  and  the  better  each  succeeded  with  his  classes,  the  better 
the  president  was  pleased.  He  knew  nothing  of  Perry's  special 
experiments  or  the  motives  that  led  to  them,  but  he  knew  that  the 
latter  was  gaining  the  good  will  of  his  classes,  and  getting  in  a 
modest  way  good  work  out  of  them;  and  he  rejoiced  at  this,  and 
communicated  to  the  others  his  satisfaction  time  and  time  again. 
Particularly  did  he  do  this,  when  the  young  man  seemed  to  be  suc- 
ceeding well  in  his  preaching  in  turn  in  the  college  chapel.  After 
three  successive  written  sermons,  which  had  taken  him  all  the 
summer  vacation  to  prepare,  he  called  attention  to  them  in  a  faculty 
meeting,  commended  them,  and,  especially,  the  skill  displayed  in 
each  in  making  transitions,  and  expressed  the  good-humored  wish 
that  the  professor  might  go  on  so  throughout  the  term;  and  when, 
some  terms  later,  the  young  man  ventured  on  his  first  ex  tempore 
delivered  discourse  in  the  chapel,  the  president  took  pains  to  come 
down  to  his  house  early  Monday  morning  to  congratulate  him,  —  "I 
did  not  see  but  you  succeeded  perfectly."  He  did  not  require  of 
any  new  professor  adhesion  to  his  principles  of  moral  government 
in  College,  nor  did  he  ever  prescribe  to  any  one  the  manner  in  which 
he  should  teach  or  govern  in  his  classes.  Every  man  had  unre- 
stricted liberty  in  his  own  department.  On  the  last  day  of  June, 
1897,  the  trustees  of  Amherst  College  voted  unanimously  that  each 
professor  should  be  head  and  master  in  his  own  department,  in  spite 
of  the  president  or  anybody  else.  Exactly  that  liberty,  and  nothing 
short  of  it,  was  enjoyed  at  Williams  by  each  and  every  professor 
throughout  the  entire  administrations  of  Mark  Hopkins  and  his 
successor.  Nor  did  this  liberty  rest  on  any  vote  of  the  Board  of 
Trustees.  It  rested  on  the  original  constitution  of  the  College  as 
such,  on  which  no  doctrine  in  conflict  with  this  can  find  any  foothold. 
(4)  It  is  true,  nevertheless,  that  an  increasing  number  in  the  fac- 
ulty, as  well  as  in  the  trustees,  were  feeling  that  something  more 
tangible  and  immediately  applicable  than  family  government  was 
needed  in  the  daily  administration  of  the  College.  The  trustees 
appointed  a  committee,  of  which  Joseph  White  was  the  chairman, 
to  prepare  a  code  of  college  laws.  Mr.  White  gathered  together  the 
printed  codes  of  all  the  New  England  colleges,  and  of  several  outside 
of  New  England,  and  then,  feeling  that  he  was  not  really  adequate 
to  the  work,  thrust  the  whole  batch  into  the  hands  of  a  member 
of  the  faculty,  at  the  beginning  of  a  long  vacation,  who  did  not  feel 
at  liberty  to  decline  the  task.  Thorough  and  long-continued  labor 
was  given  to  the  codification,  and  it  was  read  in  extenso  by  Dr.  Hop- 
kins to  the  faculty  in  manuscript,  and,  being  approved  by  them, 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL    THE   CENTENNIAL.  623 

was  enacted  by  the  trustees  without  a  single  change,  and  with  only 
the  addition  of  one  sentence  relating  to  the  annual  meeting  of  that 
body ;  and  then  was  printed  as  the  laws  prescribed  by  the  trustees 
to  the  faculty  and  students.  But  Dr.  Hopkins  did  not  like  rigid 
rules  prescribed  in  this  formal  and  roundabout  manner  any  better 
than  rigid  rules  prescribed  by  the  faculty  as  such  to  themselves. 
The  new  code,  so  unanimously  approved,  was  rarely  ever  referred 
to  in  faculty  meetings,  and  was  soon  forgotten  altogether.  John 
Bascom,  of  the  class  of  1849,  had  come  permanently  into  the  faculty 
in  1855  as  Professor  of  Rhetoric.  Though  always  lacking  in  the 
social  and  sympathetic  impulses,  which  must  be  a  part  of  the  very 
best  teachers  as  such,  in  intellectual, insight  and  vigor  and  in  moral 
purpose  and  power,  accompanied  with  language  appropriate  for  the 
expression  of  these,  he  was  not  equalled  by  any  man  at  Williams 
during  the  first  century  of  the  College;  and  it  shall  go  hard  if  any 
man  during  its  second  century  shall  present  himself  to  surpass  him. 
But  rhetoric  was  not  his  natural  department  of  instruction;  nor  did 
he  ever  become  satisfied  with  it  as  the  proper  sphere  for  the  exer- 
cise of  his  trained  and  profound  powers.  His  book  on  that  subject 
is  entitled  "The  Philosophy  of  Rhetoric,"  giving,  as  he  says  in  the 
preface,  "the  principles  as  well  as  the  rules  on  which  excellence 
depends.  The  discussions  present  the  mental  and  moral  laws  of 
influence."  These  words  indicate  the  ineradicable  bent  of  his  mind, 
which  was  toward  and  in  the  ultimate  philosophy.  He  held  the 
professorship,  however,  for  eighteen  years,  when  he  became  presi- 
dent of  the  University  of  Wisconsin  for  fourteen  years,  in  which 
position  he  taught  his  favorite  studies  only.  Partly  on  account  of 
this  lack  of  content  with  his  department  at  Williams,  and  partly  on 
account  of  some  theological  antagonisms  aroused  as  between  the 
president  and  him  by  his  independent  thinking  and  preaching  in 
the  chapel,  he  did  not  exercise  so  controlling  an  influence  in  and 
over  the  College  as  he  otherwise  would  doubtless  have  done ;  for  he 
was  a  master  in  the  art  of  strong  speech  no  less  than  in  the  art  of 
strong  thought.  In  1860  and  afterward,  he  was  certainly,  though 
quietly,  in  favor  of  more  stringent  rules  of  action  by  the  faculty  as 
toward  delinquent  students. 

The  same  may  be  said  of  Professors  Lincoln  and  Phillips,  who 
assumed  their  respective  professorships  of  Latin  and  Greek  in  1853 
and  1857.  These  men  were  classmates,  graduated  in  1847,  were 
brothers-in-law,  and  always  very  intimately  associated  with  each 
other  until  the  death  of  the  former,  in  1862.  They  belonged  to  two 
differing  types  of  men  and  teachers,  each  excellent  in  his  way. 


624:  WILLIAMSTOWX   AND    WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

Lincoln,  in  his  more  pronounced  and  strenuous  mode  of  instruction, 
had  felt  much  more  the  need  of  external  aid  from  the  faculty  in  the 
governing  of  his  classes,  and  had  been  vexed  in  spirit  that  such  aid 
had  been  withheld,  doubtless  under  a  good  deal  of  misapprehension 
of  the  real  relations  between  him  and  his  classes  on  the  part  of  the 
president  and  others.  Phillips  needed  no  help  from  anybody,  for 
his  quiet  and  scholarly  ways  were  masterful;  but  both  alike  would 
have  welcomed  in  1860  such  deliberate  action  by  the  faculty  as 
would  have  been  forthcoming  if  the  trustees  had  courageously  ful- 
filled their  duty  by  reporting  back  to  the  faculty  as  such  what  they 
had  found  out  by  painstaking  inquiry.  Paul  A.  Chadbourne,  of  the 
college  class  of  1848,  had  beeji  appointed  Professor  of  Chemistry 
and  Botany  at  the  same  time  as  Lincoln  and  Perry  had  been  ap- 
pointed to  their  respective  departments,  and  occupied  for  many 
years,  till  he  was  chosen  president  in  1872  to  succeed  Mark  Hop- 
kins, a  somewhat  anomalous  position  in  College,  in  that  he  was 
never  employed  throughout  the  entire  year,  even  after  he  became 
Professor  of  Natural  History,  in  1859,  and  was  always  changeable 
in  times  and  seasons  and  in  purposes  and  manner.  Yet  there  is  not 
the  least  doubt  that  he  would  heartily  have  favored  a  substantial 
change  of  policy  in  1860,  had  but  the  trustees  kindly  and  firmly 
told  the  president  what  the  professors  had  said,  and  enjoined  him 
to  lead  in  a  suitable  conjoint  reform  in  faculty  action.  The  golden 
opportunity  was  missed.  President  Hopkins  felt  himself  stronger 
than  he  actually  was,  and  did  not  clearly  perceive  the  danger  signals 
ahead,  that  pointed  to  1868  and  1872. 

There  followed  a  somewhat  broken  time  of  several  years.  In  1861 
the  president  visited  Europe  for  the  first  time.  The  Civil  War 
breaking  out  while  he  was  away,  according  to  a  public  statement  of 
his  after  its  close,  carried  from  Williamstown  about  sixty  students, 
and  among  them  three  of  his  own  sons  and  the  only  son  of  his 
brother  Albert.  Notwithstanding  this,  the  average  number  of  gradu- 
ates for  the  five  years,  1861-65,  was  fifty-three,  only  two  less  than 
the  average  for  the  five  years  1854-58.  The  next  five  years, 
1866-70,  witnessed  a  decline  in  the  average  to  thirty-nine,  or  four- 
teen annually  less  than  for  the  five  years  preceding. 

In  the  course  of  the  decade,  1861-71,  came  into  the  faculty,  at  dif- 
ferent times,  the  following  gentlemen,  each  of  whom  deserves  con- 
siderable notice  at  our  hands  at  the  present  time,  —  namely,  Charles 
F.  Gilson  of  the  class  of  1853;  Sanborn  Tenney  of  the  Amherst 
class  of  1853;  Cyrus  M.  Dodd  of  the  class  of  1855;  William  E. 
Dimmock  of  the  class  of  1855;  and  Franklin  Carter  of  the  class  of 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  625 

1862.  In  the  course  of  impressive  funeral  services  in  memory  of 
Professor  Dodd,  who  died  in  his  work  in  April,  1897,  Professor 
Bascom  said  with  solemnity  of  manner  and  depth  of  feeling,  that 
the  most  hospitable  man  in  mind  and  heart  that  he  had  ever  met  with 
in  his  life  (he  was  then  just  turned  of  seventy)  had  been  Professor 
Gilson.  This  touched  a  responsive  chord  in  the  hearts  of  many 
present,  but  none  so  deeply  as  in  that  of  Professor  Perry,  whose 
house  had  been  the  other's  transient  home  in  Williamstown  for 
very  many  years  (he  had  no  other),  and  within  whose  lot  in  the  col- 
lege cemetery  the  beloved  brother  had  been  sleeping  since  his  death, 
in  1881.  His  monument  there  bears  this  inscription,  suggested  by 
himself,  "Mein  Trubsal  war  rnein  Gltick."  Gilson  had  come  to  the 
College  as  a  Freshman  in  1849,  just  a  year  later  than  Perry  had 
come  from  the  same  general  region  of  country,  though  Gilson's 
home  was  lower  down  on  the  Connecticut  and  on  the  Vermont  side 
of  the  river.  Gilson  had  an  interesting  ancestry  and  one  connect- 
ing him  closely  with  the  Hoosac  Valley,  although  he  himself  never 
knew  of  this  connection.  His  grandfather,  Michael  Gilson,  was 
for  some  time  a  soldier  in  the  line  of  forts  during  the  last  French 
and  Indian  war,  of  which  Fort  Massachusetts  was  the  chief.  In 
1755,  John  Perry  and  Michael  Gilson  and  Philip  Alexander,  all 
known  to  have  been  soldiers  in  the  east  and  west  line,  and  others, 
were  ordered  by  the  General  Court  of  Massachusetts  to  go  up  the 
Connecticut,  above  ISTorthfield,  and  to  build  a  block-house  on  the 
"  Great  Meadow, "  in  what  is  now  Putney,  in  the  north  and  south 
line  of  forts  along  the  Connecticut,  of  which  the  southernmost  was 
Fort  Dummer  and  the  northernmost  the  Charlestown  fort,  or  No.  4, 
on  the  other  side.  The  new  fort  to  be  built  in  Putney  was  to  be 
almost  an  exact  copy  of  the  Forts  Shirley  and  Massachusetts  in  the 
other  line.  That  Michael  Gilson  fulfilled  his  task,  and  helped  also 
to  garrison  the  fort  when  built,  is  proven  by  his  becoming  one  of 
the  first  settlers  on  the  fertile  meadow  a  little  above  in  the  present 
town  of  Westminster.  Among  the  landed  proprietors  of  Westmin- 
ster in  1760  were  "Captain  Michael  Gilson  and  Susannah  Gilson." 
From  this  farm  Charles  F.  Gilson  .came  to  College  in  1849.  His 
grandfather  had  a  brother,  Zachariah,  six  years  younger,  both  born 
in  Groton,  Massachusetts,  who  was  in  the  disastrous  siege  of  Fort 
William  Henry  at  Lake  George  in  1757,  who  bore  on  his  shoulder 
the  scar  of  the  tomahawk  of  one  of  the  frenzied  Indians  who  attacked 
the  surrendered  soldiers  on  their  egress  from  the  fort. 

Gilson  was  a  tall,  muscular  fellow,  and,  as  he  used  to  say,  "  ached 
with  strength."     In  a  friendly  tussle  with  another  student  as  strong 
2s 


626  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

as  himself,  he  dislocated  a  knee,  and  as  he  was  carried  on  the 
shoulders  of  a  group  of  students  to  Dr.  Hubbell's  office  for  treat- 
ment, he  kept  them  all  in  a  roar  of  laughter  by  the  comicalities  of 
the  situation.  The  knee  was  set,  the  recovery  was  complete,  and 
he  had  almost  forgotten  the  incident,  when  he  went  bathing  in  the 
Hoosac  River,  and,  as  the  phrase  ran  at  the  time,  "  took  cold  "  in 
the  injured  knee,  and  never  afterward  was  able  to  walk  freely  upon 
it,  even  when  he  could  walk  upon  it  at  all.  He  used  a  crutch  or 
crutches  most  of  the  time  for  the  rest  of  his  life.  He  suffered 
much  of  many  physicians,  and  was  nothing  bettered,  but  rather 
grew  worse.  The  inability  to  take  proper  exercise  tightened  the 
hold  of  dyspepsia  upon  him,  which  he  had  contracted  in  early  life 
by  being  compelled  to  eat  salt  pork  (the  steady  diet  of  New  England 
farmers  at  that  time).  He  knew  that  diet  harmed  his  health,  but 
he  succumbed  to  the  taunt  that  he  was  "dainty."  He  was  the  son 
of  a  father's  old  age,  who  was  stern  and  unreasonable  and  querulous. 
The  son  found  but  little  respect  for  the  father  either  living  or  dead. 
He  attended  the  funeral  perfunctorily,  and  read  "  Carlyle  "  in  the 
cars  both  going  and  coming.  It  should  be  stated  in  candor  that 
young  Gilson  was  naturally  self-willed  and  imperious.  He  was  con- 
scious of  being  well-endowed  by  a  recorded  ancestry,  Essex  County, 
England,  whose  first  American  representative,  Joseph  Gilson,  was 
married  in  Chelmsford,  Massachusetts,  Nov.  18,  1660,  to  Mary 
Caper.  The  family  moved  to  Groton,  where  Joseph's  son,  John, 
was  born  in  1674.  John's  son,  Michael  (the  elder),  was  born  in 
Groton  in  1702,  as  were  also  his  own  two  sons,  Michael  and  Zacha- 
riah,  born  there  in  1731  and  1737  respectively.  The  elder  Michael 
was  a  soldier  in  the  line  of  forts  in  the  old  French  war,  as  his  two 
sons  were  in  the  last  French  war. 

Gilson  often  said  to  the  writer  in  substance,  that  nothing  short 
of  his  lifelong  physical  pains  and  disabilities  could  probably  have 
reduced  him  to  proper  terms  of  docility  and  Christian  meekness. 
Be  that  as  it  may,  he  made,  with  God's  blessing,  the  most  of  him- 
self, disabilities  and  all.  After  graduation  he  taught  for  a  while 
in  Hancock,  and  knit  permanent  relations  and  affections  in  the 
family  of  Silas  Gardner,  of  the  college  class  of  1822.  In  1856  he 
went  to  Germany  for  purposes  of  health  and  study,  and  remained 
three  years,  spending  most  of  the  time  in  Heidelberg.  He  taught 
German  in  College  for  a  single  term  in  1861,  and  was  appointed 
later  an  instructor  in  Latin  and  modern  languages ;  but  was  shortly 
forced  to  forego  the  position  on  account  of  illness.  In  1865  he  went 
to  Germany  again,  and  spent  nearly  a  year  in  the  mountains  of 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  627 

Saxony  and  Bohemia.  Three  years  later  he  was  elected  Professor 
of  Modern  Languages  and  Literature,  and  held  the  post  with  great 
credit  for  thirteen  years,  until  his  death.  Whenever  and  wherever 
he  had  health  to  meet  classes  in  any  continuity,  he  gained  their 
confidence  at  once  and  held  it  thereafter  as  with  hooks  of  steel.  He 
was  a  kindly,  masterful,  and  most  successful  teacher.  He  had  the 
hearts  of  his  colleagues  also,  because  he  respected  them  and  trusted 
them  and  loved  them.  He  was  an  Israelite  indeed  without  guile. 
He  stood  (alas !  his  time  was  but  short)  in  the  first  rank  among  the 
best  teachers  Williams  College  employed  during  her  first  century. 
He  had  a  deep  and  fruitful  Christian  experience,  which  helped  to 
make  intercourse  with  him  profitable  in  a  high  degree,  though  he 
was  prone  to  speak  out  of  this  experience  rather  than  of  it.  He 
was  a  faithful  friend  in  all  things. 

Professor  Sanborn  Tenney  was  graduated  at  Amherst  in  1853; 
after  a  considerable  and  successful  experience  in  teaching  elsewhere, 
he  was  appointed  Professor  of  Natural  History  at  Williams,  and 
served  nine  years,  until  his  death  in  harness  in  1877;  and  he  was 
the  first  professor  on  this  ground  who  had  been  graduated  elsewhere, 
to  take  and  hold  as  such  a  place  in  that  front  rank  which  was 
accorded  just  above  to  Professor  Gilson.  He  lost  no  time  in  taking 
firm  hold  of  the  work  in  his  department,  as  it  had  been  left  by  his 
immediate  predecessor,  Professor  Chadbourne.  He  did  not  appar- 
ently spend  one  moment  in  looking  about  him  in  order  to  criticise 
his  new  colleagues,  to  find  points  of  contrast,  or  even  of  compari- 
son, as  between  Williams  and  Amherst,  least  of  all  to  enter  into  any 
intrigue  with  others  to  find  a  place  for  himself  as  a  leader  before  he 
had  earned  his  own  place  as  a  colaborer.  He  was  generously  wel- 
comed by  all,  and  made  a  thoroughly  generous  response  to  all.  And 
he  proved  himself  throughout,  in  all  the  essentials  of  service,  to  be  a 
truer  son  of  the  College  than  some  have  done  in  like  circumstances 
who  have  borne  its  regular  diplomas. 

The  illustrated  lectures  in  natural  history,  which  Tenney  had 
given  in  some  form  in  the  normal  schools  of  the  State  and  in  Vassar 
College,  were  attractive  from  the  first  to  the  students  here,  as  was 
also  the  lecturer  himself.  His  open  face  was  an  index  to  the  trans- 
parent teacher.  He  carried  about  with  him  no  mysteries,  he 
attempted  no  surprises,  and  he  made  no  pretences.  He  liked  his 
classes,  and  his  classes  liked  him.  He  loved  nature,  and  intro- 
duced them  into  that  fascinating  realm.  They  followed  with 
alacrity,  and  were  rewarded  manyfold.  He  was  perhaps  but  the 
second  of  the  professors  at  Williams  who  taught  his  subject  out  of 


628  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

a  text-book  of  his  own  construction.  This  is  always  a  moral  advan- 
tage to  both  teacher  and  taught,  provided  the  text-book  be  but  fresh 
and  original.  It  is  understood  that  the  plates  in  Professor  Ten- 
ney's  books  were  drawn  under  his  own  selection  and  supervision, 
and  that  the  text  was  in  substance  the  lecture  he  had  been  publicly 
giving  for  years.  The  sudden  death  of  Professor  Tenney  in  middle 
life  was  a  shock  to  the  College,  and  particularly  to  the  class  then 
under  his  hand,  the  class  of  1879  in  their  Junior  year.  Cyrus  W. 
Field,  of  that  class,  was  particularly  attached  to  Professor  Tenney, 
and  at  his  instance  and  mainly  at  his  expense,  the  class  put  a  memo- 
rial window  into  the  chapel,  the  first  that  found  place  there,  which 
does  much  more  credit  to  the  genuine  affection  of  the  class  toward 
their  teacher  than  it  does  to  the  then  state  of  American  art  in 
memorial-window  building. 

A  day  or  two  after  the  death  of  Professor  Dodd,  the  editor  of  the 
Williams  weekly  requested  Professor  Perry  to  write  a  brief  notice 
of  him  for  the  pages  of  that  college  periodical.  He  did  so;  and  the 
paragraphs  subjoined,  without  the  altering  of  a  word,  subserve  as 
well  the  present  purpose  also. 

CYRUS  MORRIS  DODD.  —  Professor  Dodd  would  have  been  graduated  in  the 
Class  of  1848,  had  he  possessed  the  pecuniary  means  needful  to  conclude  his 
college  studies  with  the  class  in  which  he  commenced  them.  As  it  was,  he 
withdrew  from  college  and  devoted  himself  to  teaching  for  four  or  five  years, 
and  then  returned  to  be  graduated  in  the  Class  of  1855.  This  was  in  some 
respects  unfortunate  for  him  ;  for  he  never  felt  fully  at  home  in  the  new  class 
relations,  partly  because  he  was  much  older  than  most  of  the  rest,  and  partly 
for  the  general  reason  that  such  delicate  relations  as  those  of  classmateship  once 
snapped  can  never  be  in  the  nature  of  things  perfectly  reknit.  The  Class  of 
1855,  however,  proved  itself  to  contain  an  unusual  number  of  distinguished 
men,  two  United  States  senators  and  one  United  States  representative,  six 
doctors  of  Divinity,  four  prominent  college  professors,  and  two  noteworthy 
foreign  missionaries ;  and  Professor  Dodd  by  no  means  was  lacking  in  pride  of 
his  ultimate  college  classmates. 

He  himself  passed  up  in  1861  from  what  are  commonly  reckoned  the  lower 
forms  of  teaching  to  become  professor  of  Latin  Language  and  Literature  in  Jef- 
ferson College ;  five  years  later  to  be  professor  of  Mathematics  and  Latin  in  the 
State  University  of  Indiana ;  and  then  in  1870  to  be  professor  of  Mathematics  in 
his  Alma  Mater  —  a  position  he  held  with  credit  for  twenty-seven  years.  The 
reader  of  this  brief  record  of  life  work  will  notice,  that  he  gradually  passed  over 
from  the  studies  of  his  first  professorship,  Latin,  exclusively  to  the  studies  of  his 
last  professorship,  Mathematics.  This  seems  to  have  been  a  second  unfortunate 
turn  in  his  whole  college  career ;  for,  while  at  his  graduation  he  received  as  an 
honor  the  mathematical  oration,  thus  indicating  high  proficiency  and  facility  in 
that  branch  of  knowledge,  a  glance  at  his  library  and  the  privilege  of  close  con- 
versation when  he  came  hither  in  1870,  revealed  the  fact  that  his  real  enthusi- 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  629 

asm  as  a  scholar  and  teacher  lay  along  the  lines  of  Literature  both  classical  and 
modern. 

Among  the  strongest  of  the  reasons  that  led  him  to  Williamstown  in  middle 
life,  and  into  a  department  of  instruction  that  did  not  wholly  satisfy  him  were 
the  relations  of  his  family  with  that  of  Captain  Isaac  Latham,  a  prominent  and 
excellent  citizen  here.  While  these  relations  were  in  some  respects  a  help  to 
him  in  his  new  position,  they  became  in  other  respects  disappointing  and  per- 
plexing and  discouraging.  His  freedom  of  choice  and  action  both  pecuniary 
and  otherwise  became  hampered.  No  one  can  begin  to  understand  Professor 
Dodd  in  his  course  at  Williams  without  reference  to  these  circumstances  which 
certainly  reflect  no  discredit  upon  him. 

By  inheritance,  by  early  training,  and  on  mature  conviction,  Professor  Dodd 
was  extremely  conservative.  This  tendency  appeared  in  his  class-room,  in  all 
his  talk,  and  in  his  whole  attitude  toward  current  questions  in  Church  and 
State.  His  methods  of  teaching  were  the  old  methods.  He  never  changed 
them,  mainly  because  his  own  point  of  view  towards  that  which  he  taught  never 
changed.  He  was  not  a  natural  mathematician  in  the  sense  of  being  a  growing 
mathematician.  All  things  continued  as  they  were.  This  imparted  a  monotone 
to  the  exercises  in  his  room,  apt  to  be  distasteful  to  the  quick  and  eager  mathe- 
matical minds  in  the  division.  On  the  other  hand,  the  slow  and  dull  (always 
the  majority)  knew  exactly  what  was  required  of  them,  and  most  by  patient 
work  could  compass  it,  and  never  failed  to  receive  quick  recognition  and  ap- 
proval of  even  their  partially  successful  effort.  He  bore  with  the  feeble,  who 
tried  and  did  their  best,  with  astonishing  and  reiterated  patience.  He  would 
give  them  his  time  at  special  hours  over  and  over  again.  He  was  discriminating 
and  faithful  and  patient  to  the  last  degree.  By  such  means  as  these,  he  carried 
scores  and  scores  of  young  men  through  his  mathematical  courses,  who  would 
never  have  gotten  through  at  all  under  (perhaps)  better  mathematical  men  and 
methods.  This  is  the  crowning  merit  of  Professor  Dodd  as  a  teacher.  Those 
duller  ones  whom  he  stimulated  and  helped  through,  esteemed  him  very  highly 
in  love. 

Professor  Dodd  was  a  courteous,  almost  courtly,  gentleman.  He  was  a  well- 
read  and  all-round  scholar.  He  was  attractive  to  strangers  and  dear  to  his 
friends.  He  drew  confidence  easily,  and  never  betrayed  it.  His  conversation 
and  conduct  to  all  were  above-board  and  honorable.  Subterraneanism  he 
despised.  The  older  of  his  colleagues  in  the  Faculty  knew  him  best,  and 
valued  him  highest.  More  perhaps  than  any  of  the  rest  he  worshipped  at  the 
shrine  of  Nature.  He  held  communion  with  her  visible  forms.  He  was  a  per- 
sonal friend  and  guest  of  Bryant,  and  familiar  with  many  of  the  latter's  local 
haunts.  According  to  his  lights,  which  were  of  the  ancient  pattern,  he  was  a 
conscientious  and  consecrated  Christian.  He  did  not  indeed  know  the  joy  of 
Hack  and  Hew  in  the  Lord's  name.  He  took  too  little  of  the  risks  for  Right- 
eousness. But  he  has  done  a  good  work.  We  shall  never  see  his  like  again. 

Franklin  Carter,  a  native  and  resident  of  Waterbury,  Connecticut, 
entered  the  class  of  1862  at  Williams  from  Yale  College,  where  he 
had  passed  the  first  half  of  his  course,  and  where  he  had  been  over- 
taken by  severe  bleeding  at  the  lungs.  He  had  shown  himself 


630  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

remarkably  competent  in  his  preparatory  studies  at  Andover,  and 
quite  as  remarkably  competent  at  New  Haven  in  the  position  at  or 
near  the  head  of  the  class  of  1859.  He  was  a  boy  extraordinarily 
self-conscious  and  extraordinarily  ambitious.  His  physician  did 
not  deem  it  safe  for  him  to  resume  his  studies  in  any  class  at  New 
Haven,  but  thought  he  might  venture  to  resume  them  in  the  Berk- 
shire hills  after  two  or  three  years  of  general  recuperation.  He 
came  accordingly  to  Williamstown  to  pursue,  if  possible,  his  studies 
here  equivalent  for  the  last  two  years  at  New  Haven.  With  some 
precautions  as  to  health,  wisely  taken  on  his  own  part,  with  some 
privileges  properly  accorded  him  by  the  faculty,  and  with  at  least 
one  pronounced  interruption  of  his  studies,  through  the  recurrence 
of  his  malady,  he  was  able  to  graduate  with  the  class  of  1862.  It 
was  a  large  class  for  Williams,  comprising  an  unusual  proportion  of 
able  and  (later)  distinguished  men.  As  a  rule,  its  members  did  not 
seem  to  be  very  well  acquainted  with  Carter  at  graduation,  nor 
were  they  very  generally  drawn  toward  him  as  a  classmate.  His 
character  was  by  no  means  simple,  nor  did  he  present  himself  to 
differing  men  in  the  same  aspects  and  relations.  It  is  always  a 
disadvantage  to  a  student  to  enter  a  college  class  so  late  as  the 
Junior  year ;  because,  naturally,  persons  and  things  get,  on  the  one 
hand,  pretty  well  shaken  together,  or,  on  the  other,  repelled  from 
each  other,  during  the  first  two  years.  Carter  never  fairly  belonged 
to  the  general  current  type  of  the  Williams  student;  nor  was  he 
ever  fairly  aware  that  there  was  a  peculiar  prevailing  type  of  stu- 
dent, both  at  New  Haven  and  Williamstown,  derived  from  college 
traditions  and  from  the  more  usual  modes  and  places  of  fitting,  and 
from  the  popular  characteristics  of  the  main  localities  of  student- 
supply.  He  was  fond  of  saying  at  the  time  and  ever  afterward, 
that  he,  as  a  student,  had  found  Williams  College  "provincial." 
Precisely  what  he  meant  by  that  he  never  explained.  It  was  not 
of  much  matter  to  anybody  but  himself  what  he  meant  by  it.  He 
meant  by  it  something  derogatory  to  the  College  to  which  it  was 
applied  as  an  epithet.  The  manner  in  which  he  pronounced  it 
was  invariably  supercilious.  In  his  "Life  of  Mark  Hopkins," 
published  in  1892,  Carter  repeated  his  favorite  saying,  that  the 
College  was  "provincial"  in  his  own  student  days;  but  he  ve- 
hemently asseverated  that  Dr.  Hopkins  was  never  "provincial" 
in  any  of  his  attitudes  toward  the  College  or  the  public.  As 
he  manifested  much  concern  to  shield  the  president  from  the 
charge  of  "provincialism,"  and  as  the  president  was  the  undis- 
puted leader  in  all  directions,  it  is  not  easy  to  see  just  what  the 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE    TILL   THE    CENTENNIAL.  631 

provincialism  was  or  where  it  came  in.  Nor  is  it  worth  while  to 
try  to  see. 

It  was  the  phrase  of  an  inflated  boy,  no  doubt  derived  from  his 
reading  of  Caesar's  "Gallic  War."  Gaul  was  a  province.  Rome 
was  the  capital  city.  Carter  was  a  Connecticut  boy  with  all  that 
that  implies,  and  a  Yale  student  at  a  time  when  the  average  number 
of  graduates  was  a  little  more  than  twice  as  large  at  Yale  as  at 
Williams.  For  the  five  years  1856-60  the  graduates  were  104  a 
year  at  Yale :  at  Williams  for  the  same  five  years  a  fraction  over 
50  a  year;  but  Yale  had  been  running  just  a  decade  more  than 
twice  the  decades  of  Williams :  ergo  Yale  was  Eome,  and  Williams 
was  Gaul.  Williams,  however,  had  abolished  tutors  in  1853;  and 
for  seven  years  thereafter  none  but  full-fledged  professors  taught  in 
any  Williams  class-room.  Yale  kept  up  a  full  quota  of  tutors  in 
1860,  and  the  bulk  of  all  the  instruction  of  Freshmen  and  Sopho- 
mores was  given  by  inexperienced  and  usually  short-lived  fledg- 
lings. Perhaps  this  was  a  point  of  contrast  that  made  Williams 
in  Carter's  eye  "provincial." 

Seriously,  and  to  the  vast  advantage  of  each  of  the  two  colleges, 
there  were  ineradicable  differences  between  them,  the  source  of 
which,  the  value  of  which,  and  the  depth  of  which,  it  was  never 
given  to  Carter's  mind  either  as  boy  or  man  to  perceive  or  appre- 
ciate He  saw  differences,  anybody  could  see  them;  he  supposed 
they  were  superficial  and  transmissible ;  and  he  even  thought  his 
own  weak  hands  could  transpose  them.  His  mind  had  been  care- 
fully trained  in  the  niceties  of  the  two  so-called  classical  languages, 
and  not  at  all  in  the  immutabilities  of  an  historical  development. 
A  single  line  of  one  of  Emerson's  rather  mechanical  poems,  if  Carter 
had  ever  put  his  mind  on  it  in  its  grounds  and  reaches,  would  have 
done  more  to  make  him  a  man  and  an  educator  than  all  his  languages 
and  all  his  f  ussings  and  turnings  put  together,  —  "  Not  the  gods  can 
shake  the  past ! "  Yale  College  was  what  it  was  in  1860,  partly 
because  John  Davenport  was  what  he  was  and  where  he  was  in 
1638 ;  partly  because  James  Pierpont,  whose  wife  was  Davenport's 
granddaughter,  gathered  some  books  and  named  eleven  trustees  in 
1700 ;  partly  because  in  1717  its  first  building  was  lifted,  170  feet 
long  and  22  feet  wide,  and  Elihu  Yale  endowed  the  school  with 
£400  sterling ;  partly  because  the  first  Timothy  D wight  was  a  great- 
grandson,  and  Theodore  D.  Woolsey  was  a  great-great-grandson  of  that 
same  James  Pierpont ;  and  partly  because  Jonathan  Edwards,  him- 
self standing  genealogically  between  Pierpont  and  Dwight,  was  of 
the  Yale  class  of  1720,  and  David  Brainerd,  "  whose  religious  char- 


632  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

acter  was  of  a  high  order,"  was  of  the  class  of  1741 ;  and  more  par- 
ticularly because  Jeremiah  Day  and  Benjamin  Silliman  and  James 
L.  Kingsley  and  Chauncey  A.  Goodrich  and  James  Hadley  spent 
their  useful  lives  there  as  professors.  Williams  College  was  what 
it  was  in  1860,  partly  on  account  of  the  settlement  of  Eobert  Wil- 
liams in  Eoxbury  in  1638,  the  same  year  in  which  John  Davenport 
settled  in  New  Haven ;  partly  on  account  of  a  line  of  descent  from 
him,  mostly  bearing  his  name,  soldiers  and  statesmen  and  preachers 
and  educators,  one  of  them  Elisha  Williams,  rector  of  Yale  College, 
at  one  time  a  chaplain  in  the  expedition  against  Louisburg  and  a 
colonel  in  the  invasion  of  Canada,  and  described  as  "a  man  of 
splendor  "  who  spoke  Latin  freely  and  delivered  orations  gracefully 
and  with  animated  dignity ;  besides  this  Williams  line,  direct,  and 
bearing  the  Williams  name,  wanting  in  no  generation  its  distin- 
guished members,  and  closing  even  now  in  Bishop  Williams  of  Con- 
necticut, the  oldest  bishop  in  service  on  the  American  Episcopal 
bench,  Mark  Hopkins  and  all  the  Dwights  of  southern  Berkshire 
were  in  the  direct  line  of  Ephraim  Williams,  Senior;  partly  on 
account  of  local  campaigns  of  the  old  French  and  Indian  wars  pass- 
ing back  and  forth  through  the  narrow  valley  of  the  upper  Hoosac, 
calling  for  the  location  of  forts  and  towns ;  and  particularly  on 
account  of  such  professors  as  Amos  Eaton  and  Chester  Dewey  and 
Ebenezer  Kellogg  and  Albert  Hopkins,  who  gave  their  lives  to  the 
broadening  and  uplifting  of  young  men's  minds  and  characters  in 
William  stown.  Yale  College  was  what  it  was  on  account  of  its 
pregnant  past  and  present  environment:  Williams  was  what  it 
was  by  means  of  a  past  more  fixed  in  locality,  more  strenuous  and 
continental  in  significance,  quite  as  firm  and  distinctive  and  indepen- 
dent in  its  development  and  environment.  Even  pristine  Williams- 
town  had  its  considerable  and  continued  contentions  as  between  the 
men  of  the  Bay  and  the  men  of  the  Sound. 

Franklin  Carter  was  not  the  first  nor  the  only  person  who  made 
the  mistakes  and  encountered  the  moral  defeats  of  a  lifetime  by 
ignoring  the  persistent  powers  of  origin  and  the  peculiarities  hard- 
ened by  tradition  and  usage  and  longtime  adjustment.  He  came 
northward  as  a  student,  not  from  choice  but  by  medical  necessity. 
He  came  from  Connecticut,  which  meant  something ;  he  came  from 
Yale,  which  meant  more;  he  had  never  apparently  roughed  it  with 
other  boys  of  similar  age  in  the  public  school  and  on  the  village 
playground,  and  learned  there  the  invaluable  lesson  that  rights  are 
equal  to  rich  and  poor,  and  that  a  boy  can  keep  of  any  kind  of 
advantage  just  what  he  can  fairly  win  and  hold,  and  not  a  fraction 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  633 

further ;  he  came  as  a  chronic  invalid,  not  without  impending  fears 
of  a  consumptive's  death,  which  gained  him  instant  sympathy  from 
all,  and  a  sort  of  welcome  never  perhaps  accorded  to  any  student 
here  before ;  he  took  rooms  and  board  for  the  course  in  the  Mansion 
House,  the  sole  hostelry  in  the  village  —  to  another  instance  of  the 
like  the  memory  of  the  College  ran  not  back;  he  was  reputed  rich, 
and  the  style  of  expenditure  confirmed  the  report ;  private  rooms 
in  a  public  house  were  unfavorable  to  college  acquaintance ;  he  soon 
showed  good  scholarship  in  those  lecture-rooms  which  he  attended, 
and  manifested  a  deep  interest  in  the  religious  condition  of  the 
College  and  in  the  personal  welfare  of  certain  classmates  and  others. 
It  cannot  be  truthfully  said,  however,  that  his  entering  Williams 
under  these  circumstances  increased  the  happiness  of  his  class  or 
the  strength  of  the  College  in  any  way.  He  knew  nothing  whatever 
of  the  past  of  the  College,  or  of  the  inspiring  region  round  about,  of 
the  strenuous  men  and  true  who  had  created  and  who  were  perpetu- 
ating the  atmosphere  of  struggle  and  service  which  was  then  at  any 
rate  more  or  less  the  distinctive  environment  of  Williams.  Young 
Carter  could  not  forget  that  he  had  come  from  Yale,  which  was  a 
large  college,  that  he  had  been  fitted  under  Samuel  Taylor,  a  strict 
disciplinarian  and  a  classical  scholar  polished  to  the  nail ;  and  he 
did  not  even  try  to  conceal  the  condescension  with  which  he  stooped 
to  certain  studies  and  certain  teachers  and  certain  college  usages. 
He  did  not  seem  to  entertain  any  special  scorn  for  the  younger 
teachers  who  were  then  just  buckling  on  their  armor.  Years  after- 
ward he  asserted  with  emphasis  to  the  present  writer,  "  When  I  was 
in  college,  the  instructions  of  Dr.  Hopkins  in  philosophy  did  not 
amount  to  anything." 

Thirty-five  years  after  their  graduation,  that  one  of  his  classmates 
most  likely  to  be  informed  of  the  other's  bearing  toward  the  Senior 
volunteer  literary  work  for  the  good  of  the  College,  such  as  writing 
for  the  College  magazine,  and  the  one  also  who  actually  did  the  most 
of  this  work,  said  distinctly  and  verbally :  "  Carter  was  chosen  one 
of  the  editors  of  the  magazine,  and  used  sometimes  to  come  into  the 
room  where  we  worked,  and  patronized  us,  and  said  it  was  all  a  good 
thing  to  do,  but  he  never  wrote  an  article  for  us,  nor  did  one  thing 
to  help  us  out.  His  nose  icas  up  ivhen  he  entered  our  class,  and  he 
never  got  it  down  so  long  as  he  was  in  our  class.  It  was  all  good 
enough  for  us,  but  it  was  not  good  enough  for  him." 

The  writer  ventures  to  put  down  in  this  place  a  list  of  the  fourteen 
most  distinguished  men  in  the  class  of  1862.  He  makes  no  claim 
to  infallibility  of  judgment  in  a  matter  so  impalpable  and  change- 


634  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

able  as  public  reputation.  But  one  other  of  their  old  college 
teachers  is  still  alive  to  approve  of  or  dissent  from  the  present  list, 
whose  judgment,  if  it  could  be  obtained,  would  doubtless  be  pre- 
ferred to  the  writer's  by  the  living  members  of  the  class. 

HENRY  ANSTICE  SAMUEL  C.  ARMSTRONG 

FRANKLIN  CARTER  JOHN  H.  DENISON 

EDWARD  H.  GRIFFIN  ARCHIBALD  HOPKINS 

GEORGE  F.  MILLS  CHARLES  P.  H.  NASON 

MASON  NOBLE  GEORGE  L.  RAYMOND 

JOSEPH  E.  SIMMONS  FRANCIS  H.  SNOW 

JAMES  F.  SPALDING  EDWARD  W.  SCHAUFFLER 

In  the  summer  vacation  following  the  graduation  of  the  class  of 
1862  was  closed  the  remarkably  active  and  useful  life  of  Professor 
Lincoln,  and  he  was  the  first  professor  to  be  buried  in  the  new  college 
cemetery.  His  death  made  a  vacancy  in  the  Latin  department, 
which  was  transiently  filled  by  his  brother-in-law,  the  beloved  Pro- 
fessor Phillips,  Professor  of  Greek.  In  the  course  of  1863,  an 
arrangement  was  made  between  President  Hopkins  and  Franklin 
Carter,  by  which  the  latter  assumed  the  vacant  professorship,  and 
it  was  understood  at  the  time  that  the  service  was  to  be  voluntary 
(in  part  at  least)  so  far  as  the  salary  was  concerned.  He  thus 
entered  the  faculty  with  all  the  auspices  in  his  favor,  with  no 
prejudices  against  him  in  any  quarter,  but  also  of  course  under  pre- 
cisely the  same  conditions  as  to  success  and  control  of  all  other 
professors.  There  could  be  no  special  privileges  of  any  kind  on  the 
ground  of  health  or  of  fortune.  There  were  then  already  in  suc- 
cessful service  by  his  side  three  young  professors,  Phillips  and 
Bascom  and  Perry,  of  whom  Carter  himself  wrote  afterward,  they 
"  were  among  the  truest  men  and  the  most  conscientious  teachers  to 
be  found  in  any  of  our  colleges."  It  is  not  difficult  to  classify  the 
conditions  of  success  (or  failure)  among  the  professors  at  Williams 
during  the  first  century  of  the  College.  Some  of  the  conditions 
are  more  general  and  more  vital  and  more  observable  than  others, 
but  a  careful  and  continued  analysis  and  induction  will  surely  dis- 
cover them,  and  safely  guide  in  their  application  to  particular 
instances.  Nothing  of  much  consequence  in  the  happenings  of  a 
college  is  ever  the  result  of  accident.  A  college  building  may  burn 
down  in  consequence  of  the  careless  placing  of  a  block  of  wood  on 
the  fireplace,  but  a  solid  college  influence  and  reputation  was  never 
yet  built  up  or  broken  down  by  any  series  of  accidents.  Nor  was 
such  influence  ever  established  by  the  direct  choice  and  exertions  as 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    CENTENNIAL.  635 

toward  that  end  of  the  man  mainly  concerned  in  the  premises.  Still 
less  was  such  influence  and  reputation  ever  undermined  or  perma- 
nently weakened  by  secret  and  hostile  machinations  of  one  or  a 
clique.  Here,  if  anywhere  on  the  footstool  of  God,  we  are  in  the 
region  of  moral  forces  acting  in  the  open  and  toward  the  ends  of 
righteousness.  Concealment  of  any  kind  is  out  of  the  question. 
Self-aggrandizement  is  impossible.  Cause  and  effect,  action  and 
reaction,  on  a  small  theatre  and  under  argus-eyes. 

It  may  not  be  presumptuous  to  attempt  to  classify  in  this  place 
the  conditions  of  success  in  college  positions  here  during  the  last 
century.  At  this  point  there  is  no  essential  difference  between  a 
president  and  a  professor.  Success  to  both  hinges  on  the  same  moral 
causes.  Just  so  far  as  a  condition  of  success  is  vital,  its  absence 
conditions  a  failure. 

1.  A  man  must  be  in  mental  and  moral  and  historical  adjustment 
to  his  place. 

2.  A  man  must  deem  his  present  duties  worthy  of  his  best  powers, 
and  perform  them  with  satisfaction  for  their  own  sake,  not  making  these 
a  stepping-stone  for  another  place. 

3.  A  man  must  remember  that  students  are  fellow-beings,  endowed 
precisely  as  he  is,  and  practically  endowed  with  omniscience  so  far  as 
his  own  motives  and  methods  are  concerned  toward  them.     On  this 
point  they  read  him  like  a  book,  while  he  is  spelling  them  out  one  by  one. 
It  is  not  fit  that  he  should  ask  them  to  trust  him  one  hair  farther  than  he 
is  willing  to  trust  them. 

4.  A  man  must  know  and  practise  on  it,  that  the  ivord  and  thing 
College  involves  colleagues,  and  that  he  at  his  best  estate  is  only  a  small 
part  of  a  large  whole  ;  and  that  the  best  interest  of  all  is  his  own  inter- 
est. 

5.  A  man  subserves  the  best  interest  of  all  by  primarily  minding  his 
own  business,  and  never  reaching  out  to  broader  ends  except  as  the 
authorised   agent   of  the  whole ;    intrigues  and   cabals,   accordingly, 
whisperings  and  back-bitings  within  the  body,  are  always  hostile  if  not 
fatal  to  the  welfare  of  each  and  all. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  and  one  within  the  possible  knowledge  of  any 
competent  and  patient  inquirer,  it  may  be  safely  said  that  no  man 
has  ever  succeeded  in  Williams  College  except  by  a  general  concur- 
rence in  these  five  conditions,  and  also  that  numbers  of  persons 
have/cw7ed  in  each  generation  by  running  counter  to  them. 

The  campaigns  of  the  Civil  War,  1861-65,  had  comparatively 
little  effect  on  the  regular  proceedings  of  the  College.  Consider- 
able numbers,  indeed,  left  their  classes  to  join  in  the  distant  fray, 


636  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

and  made  good  record  for  themselves  in  camp  and  field;  but  prob- 
ably quite  as  many  came  on  to  fill  their  places  on  account  of  inter- 
ruptions to  business  and  the  then  uncertainties  of  the  future.  One 
young  man,  however,  is  deserving  of  our  especial  notice,  inasmuch 
as  he  gained  a  great  and  astonishingly  rapid  military  promotion  in 
the  course  of  the  war  and  directly  after  its  close,  namely,  Eanald 
Slidell  Mackenzie  of  the  class  of  1859.  He  was  born  in  New  York 
in  July,  1840,  fitted  for  college  at  Sing  Sing,  took  a  good  rank  in 
his  college  class  till  about  the  middle  of  the  Junior  year,  when  he 
was  appointed  a  cadet  at  the  United  States  military  academy  at 
West  Point,  where  he  was  graduated  in  1862.  He  was  a  frank  and 
popular  student  here,  and  everybody  was  sorry  to  have  him  leave 
for  West  Point,  nobody  in  January,  1858,  having  any  premonition 
of  that  which  was  to  come.  He  was  sent  at  once  from  school  to 
field,  became  a  major  in  1863,  lieutenant-colonel  in  1864,  brigadier- 
general  in  the  regular  army  in  1865,  and  in  the  same  month  major- 
general  of  volunteers.  After  the  close  of  the  war,  in  which  he 
had  been  three  times  severely  wounded  in  battle,  when  the  new 
military  department  of  Texas  and  the  Southwest  was  established, 
he  was  put  in  command  of  it,  with  headquarters  at  Santa  Fe,  and 
with  the  rank  of  major-general.  Not  so  young  a  man  had  ever 
borne  such  high  ranks  in  the  regular  army.  He  must  have  been 
born  an  extraordinary  military  genius;  for  he  filled  each  succeeding 
position  with  great  credit,  and  also  received  the  following  incidental 
eulogium  from  General  Grant,  who  was  asked  by  Thomas  Murphy 
at  Long  Branch,  who  reported  the  conversation  at  the  time,  in 
1870:  — 

"'Whom  would  you  put  in  command  of  a  great  army,  say  50,000 
men,  should  it  become  necessary?'  The  General,  without  hesi- 
tating a  second,  said,  'Sheridan.' 

"  'Next  to  Sheridan?  '  The  General  answered,  *  Miles  or  Macken- 
zie ' ;  and  after  puffing  away  at  his  cigar  two  or  three  minutes,  he 
decided  on  Mackenzie."  The  present  writing  is  at  midsummer  of 
1897,  and  the  "  Miles  "  of  this  conversation  is  now  in  succession  to 
the  great  Three  as  senior  major-general  of  the  army  of  the  United 
States,  and  has  just  been  to  England  to  represent  his  country,  and 
that  organization  in  particular,  at  the  Jubilee  of  Queen  Victoria, — 
the  passing  of  the  sixtieth  anniversary  of  her  accession  to  the  throne. 
The  brilliant  Mackenzie,  in  consequence  of  wounds  and  exposures 
and  anxieties  on  the  Mexican  frontiers  and  from  hostile  Indians, 
became  unsettled  in  mind  in  1883,  and  was  taken  to  the  Blooming- 
dale  Asylum  for  treatment.  In  1886  he  was  removed  to  Staten 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  637 

Island,  where  he  was  tenderly  cared  for  by  his  sister  till  his  death 
in  1889. 

Another  graduate  of  the  College  in  the  period  under  review,  whose 
public  career  in  certain  respects  reminds  one  of  Mackenzie,  particu- 
larly in  the  rapidity  of  advancement  to  very  high  places  of  authority, 
may  be  briefly  characterized  at  this  point.  This  is  John  James 
Ingalls,  of  the  class  of  1855.  He  was  born  in  Haverhill  in  Decem- 
ber, 1834,  and  was  carefully  and  religiously  trained  by  excellent 
parents,  who  sent  here  also  a  younger  son,  Francis  Theodore  Ingalls, 
of  the  class  of  1864,  who,  after  graduating  with  the  valedictory 
oration,  studied  theology  at  Princeton  and  Andover,  and  was 
ordained  to  the  ministry  in  1870 ;  and  thereafter  for  eighteen  years 
became  a  prominent  pastor  in  Kansas,  which  was  the  home  also  of 
the  elder  brother;  when  the  younger  accepted  the  presidency  of 
Drury  College  at  Springfield,  Missouri,  arid  wrought  a  grand  work 
in  that  position  until  his  death  in  1892.  Both  the  college  and  sub- 
sequent careers  of  the  two  brothers  were  extremely  divergent.  The 
elder  one  is  remembered  on  college  ground  as  insubordinate,  defiant, 
irreligious,  and  devil-may-care.  Nothing  seemed  to  be  sacred  to 
him.  At  that  time  students  worshipped  on  Sunday  with  the  people 
of  the  town,  the  president  preaching  one-third  of  the  time.  Most 
of  the  preaching  was  not  attractive  to  the  students,  and  compara- 
tively few  paid  much  attention  to  it,  while  Ingalls  often  passed  the 
hour  conspicuously  reading  from  some  book  brought  in  his  pocket. 
"Whether  his  college  teachers  as  such  were  worthy  of  his  respect  or 
not,  it  is  certain  that  he  did  not  respect  them,  and  equally  certain 
that  they  did  not  expect  much  from  him  in  after  life.  He  studied 
law  and  was  admitted  to  the  bar  in  1857,  and  in  the  fall  of  the  next 
year  removed  to  Kansas,  which  was  then  in  the  throes  of  its  fren- 
zied birth ;  he  became  a  member  of  the  Constitutional  Convention  of 

1859,  which  framed  at  Wyandotte  a  constitution  prohibiting  slavery, 
which  constitution  was  ratified  by  a  popular  vote  of  nearly  two  to 
one.     Ingalls  put  in  good  work  down  at  the  very  roots  of  the  state- 
hood of  Kansas.     He  was  Secretary  of  the  Territorial  Council  in 

1860,  and  of  the  State  Senate  in  1861.     He  was  State  Senator  in 
1862,  and  the  three  following  years  rendered,  as  major,  lieutenant- 
colonel,  and  judge  advocate,  efficient  services  in  the  Kansas  State 
Volunteers. 

All  this,  and  much  besides,  paved  the  way  for  that  political  influ- 
ence in  Kansas  which  enabled  Ingalls  to  be  elected  for  three  terms 
in  succession  to  the  Senate  of  the  United  States.  What  is  in  some 
sense  more,  he  was  repeatedly  elected  by  the  Kepublican  majority 


638  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

of  that  body  to  be  President  of  the  Senate  pro  tempore,  with  all  the 
exalted  contingencies  then  and  now  connected  with  that  office.  A 
candid  historian  must  add,  that  in  this  long  period  of  public  service 
in  high  station,  he  made  no  mark  as  a  legislator  nor  any  valuable 
contribution  to  the  political  thought  of  his  country.  The  only  prose 
phrases  of  his  that  will  go  down  to  posterity  in  any  connection  are 
the  already  famous  and  infamous  sentences  expounding  modern 
political  ethics. 

The  purification  of  politics  is  an  iridescent  dream.  Government  is  force. 
Politics  is  a  battle  for  supremacy.  Parties  are  the  armies.  The  Decalogue  and 
the  golden  rule  have  no  place  in  a  political  campaign.  The  object  is  success. 
To  defeat  the  antagonist  and  expel  the  party  in  power  is  the  purpose.  In  war 
it  is  lawful  to  deceive  the  adversary,  to  hire  Hessians,  to  purchase  mercenaries, 
to  mutilate,  to  kill,  to  destroy.  The  commander  who  lost  a  battle  through  the 
activity  of  his  moral  nature  would  be  the  derision  and  jest  of  history.  This 
modern  cant  about  the  corruption  of  politics  is  fatiguing  in  the  extreme.  It  pro- 
ceeds from  the  tea-custard  and  syllabub  dilettanteism,  the  frivolous  and  desul- 
tory sentimentalism,  of  epicenes. 

Ingalls  also  wrote  a  notable  sonnet  on  "  Opportunity,"  which  may 
survive,  for  it  has  a  fine  form  and  considerable  literary  merit,  while 
it  is  as  godless  in  every  line  as  the  prose  extract  but  just  quoted  is 
destitute  of  any  sense  of  moral  obligation.  It  follows,  exactly  as 
published  by  him. 

OPPORTUNITY 

Master  of  human  destinies  am  I ; 

Fame,  love  and  fortune  on  my  footsteps  wait. 

Cities  and  fields  I  walk ;  I  penetrate 

Deserts  and  seas  remote,  and,  passing  by 

Hovel  and  mart  and  palace,  soon  or  late, 

I  knock  unbidden  once  on  every  gate. 

If,  sleeping,  wake  ;  if  feasting,  rise  before 

I  turn  away  ;  it  is  the  hour  of  fate, 

And  they  who  follow  me  reach  every  state 

Mortals  desire,  and  conquer  every  foe 

Save  death  ;  but  those  who  doubt  or  hesitate, 

Condemned  to  failure,  penury  and  woe, 

Seek  me  in  vain  and  uselessly  implore  ; 

I  answer  not,  and  I  return  no  more. 

An  outline  of  the  history  of  the  College  from  about  the  time  of 
the  ending  of  the  Civil  War  until  the  close  of  the  College  century, 
will  crowd  the  conclusion  of  the  present  chapter.  The  mass  of 
material  is  abundant;  the  task  of  selection  is  difficult;  to  throw 
into  a  narrative  form  that  shall  prove  somewhat  attractive  to  the 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL. 


639 


readers  of  a  future  time,  which  itself  is  sure  to  be  thronged  with 
interesting  events  and  persons,  enough  detail  of  past  events  with 
sketches  of  the  characters  of  the  chief  actors  already  in  the  past, 
doubtless  overgoes  the  literary  ability  of  the  writer.  But  what  he 
had  the  boldness  to  undertake,  he  must  now  muster  the  courage  to 


STUDENT-SOLDIERS   MONUMENT. 
Dedicated  on  the  Campus,   1868. 


complete.  The  original  motive  to  the  undertaking  was  the  desire 
to  be  useful  to  some  of  those  coming  after;  the  concomitant  encour- 
agement as  each  stage  of  the  work  progressed  has  been  the  same; 
and  not  for  the  pleasure  of  it  to  himself,  nor  primarily  to  impart 


640  TVILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

pleasure  to  others,  will  the  concluding  pages  be  written.  Some 
help,  some  profit,  some  impulse  and  guidance,  to  those  who  shall  be 
called  on  to  upbuild  the  town  and  to  develop  and  solidify  the  Col- 
lege, this  mainly  has  been  the  pushing  force  and  will  be  the  shining 
goal. 

In  the  interval  of  time  between  1863  and  1868,  causes  and  events 
were  maturing,  which  gave  in  general  a  novel  and  sinister  turn  to 
the  course  of  the  College,  which  has  not  even  yet  rectified  itself 
altogether.  The  lesson  of  this  turn  is  too  instructive  to  let  go  by. 
If  Franklin  Carter,  when  he  became  a  member  of  the  faculty  under 
somewhat  peculiar  circumstances,  had  followed  the  usual  and  only 
wise  course  of  young  men  beginning  college  instruction  alongside  of 
more  experienced  men,  it  would  have  been  happier  for  him  and 
more  fortunate  for  all.  That  course  is  (1)  to  take  a  modest  view  of 
one's  own  position;  (2)  to  learn  thoroughly  and  perform  quietly  the 
duties  heretofore  attached  to  that  position ;  (3)  to  get  acquainted  as 
soon  as  convenient  with  the  individual  students  coming  under  him, 
and  gain  their  confidence  by  fellow-feeling  and  a  mutual  good  under- 
standing; (4)  to  assume  that  there  are  some  crooked  things  that 
cannot  be  made  straight ;  (5)  to  take  for  granted  that  the  past  of  a 
college  exerts  a  powerful  influence  on  its  present;  (6)  to  respect  and 
trust  older  colleagues  until  positive  reasons  appear  for  the  opposite; 
(7)  to  learn  to  wait  for  influence  and  leadership  in  the  body  till  these 
are  'earned  by  long  and  proved  service ;  (8)  to  secure  influence  and 
control  in  his  own  class-room  so  as  not  to  have  to  appeal  to  the  body 
for  help  in  daily  management;  and  (9)  to  suppose  that  the  body 
as  a  whole  knows  at  least  as  much  as  the  newcomer  about  college 
evils  and  the  way  to  handle  them. 

With  many  excellent  traits  of  private  character,  Carter  began  and 
continued  his  public  life  as  a  teacher  with  such  drawbacks  as  proved 
to  be  inexorable  mainly  because  he  himself  did  not  perceive  and 
implore  them.  Probably  no  young  man  ever  commenced  professor 
in  a  New  England  college  with  so  small  a  knowledge  of  human 
nature  in  general,  and  of  his  own  weaknesses  in  particular.  As 
has  been  said  already,  the  circumstances  of  his  youth  and  his  own 
idiosyncrasies  were  alike  unfavorable  to  the  attainment  of  self- 
knowledge,  and  of  those  conditions  under  which  alone  in  all  social 
relations  men  get  on  together  with  a  minimum  of  friction  and  of 
hostile  feeling.  Carter  never  possessed  instinctively  nor  acquired 
reflectively  a  good  sense  of  proportion  as  between  himself  and  others, 
—  as  between  what  was  due  from  him  to  them  and  from  them  to 
him.  Closely  allied  with  this,  if  not  a  part  of  this,  was  a  constant 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE    TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  641 

overestimation  of  what  he  was  familiar  with  and  respected,  as  com- 
pared with  what  others  were  familiar  with  and  respected.  He 
maximized  the  one  and  minimized  the  other.  This  quality  of  judg- 
ment appeared  so  soon  as  ever  he  began  to  teach.  It  prevented  him 
from  fairly  taking  the  usual  and  useful  initiation  into  the  mysteries 
of  the  proper  relations  of  an  inexperienced  teacher  with  college 
classes,  and  of  the  relations  of  a  new-fledged  colleague  with  men 
older  and  wiser.  In  consequence  of  this,  he  soon  came  into  hot 
water  with  his  classes,  and  sometimes  into  very  hot  water.  He 
attributed  this  unpleasantness  to  the  general  laxity  of  discipline  in 
the  College.  It  is  true  that  the  discipline  was  lax,  as  compared 
with  that  in  the  fitting  school  at  Andover  and  with  that  in  the  college 
at  New  Haven ;  and  it  is  also  true  that  at  least  seven  of  the  Williams 
professors  at  that  time,  in  spite  of  the  admitted  laxity  in  general, 
were  carrying  forward  in  their  own  lecture-rooms  pleasant  and  effi- 
cient and  appreciated  teaching.  These  had  gained  the  confidence 
of  their  classes  in  the  usual  way,  namely,  by  granting  confidence  to 
them  in  advance,  and  by  manifesting  in  their  places  (because  hav- 
ing) no  motives  except  reciprocally  conveying  and  receiving  instruc- 
tion and  impulse.  These  had  no  occasion  to  bring  weekly  complaints 
to  the  faculty  meeting  of  absence  and  negligence,  although  all  were 
willing  and  desirous  of  strengthening  the  cords  of  discipline  for  the 
sake  of  each  and  all,  by  any  means  not  issuing  in  the  disturbance 
and  weakening  of  the  College  as  a  whole. 

Carter  knew  nothing  of  what  had  happened  in  1860.  He  knew 
nothing  of  the  delicacy  and  the  difficulty  under  the  then  circum- 
stances of  lessening  in  any  way,  or  trying  to  lessen,  the  influence 
and  control  of  President  Hopkins;  especially  as  the  latter  had  a 
well-thought-out  theory  of  college  government,  and  honestly  pro- 
claimed it  on  all  proper  occasions;  and  also  because  he  almost 
invariably  treated  the  faculty  openly,  very  rarely  attempting  any- 
thing of  general  interest  without  their  well-considered  cooperation. 
Before  he  had  fairly  gotten  a  moral  mastery  over  his  classes  (which 
always  takes  time),  Carter  began  to  busy  himself,  as  if  he  alone 
were  possessed  of  the  knowledge,  with  telling  his  colleagues  in  what 
a  bad  condition  things  were,  and  how  necessary  it  was  that  there 
should  be  rules  of  the  faculty  in  particular  controlling  the  matter 
of  absences  from  recitations.  In  his  own  cautious  and  inimitable 
tones,  the  president  said  repeatedly  to  those  in  whom  he  had  confi- 
dence, "Professor  Carter  finds  things  pretty  bad  here !"  Members 
of  the  faculty  listened  to  Carter's  talks  patiently,  agreed  with  him 
partly,  and  wondered  all  at  his  youthful  presumption  in  putting 
2x 


642  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

himself  forward  as  a  leader  in  renovating  the  College.  It  was  quite 
too  soon,  to  say  the  very  least  of  it,  for  him  even  to  look  forward  to 
any  such  position.  He  was  not  yet  master  of  himself.  He  was  not 
yet  master  of  his  individual  class.  He  had  not  yet  gotten  a  glimpse 
of  the  fundamentals  of  college  government.  He  still  supposed  that 
a  written  rule,  mechanically  enforced,  could  enmesh  college  students 
and  land  them  in  his  boat  without  a  slip.  So  far  as  is  known,  the 
only  one  of  his  colleagues  whom  he  frankly  consulted  about  his  own 
want  of  success  in  handling  his  classes  in  his  recitations  was  Pro- 
fessor Phillips ;  and  he  was  the  best  one  of  all  to  consult,  for  he 
was  kindness  and  good  judgment  and  experience  combined.  Carter 
profited  by  the  sweet  advice  thus  given,  and  was  grateful  for  it, 
and  spoke  warmly  of  Phillips  ever  after;  and  this  little  incident  it 
is  pleasant  to  record,  amid  matters  of  an  opposite  cast,  which  it  is 
necessary  to  make  mention  of. 

Men  and  things  worried  along  in  these  general  directions  until 
1868.  In  that  interval  of  time,  a  few  of  the  departments  became 
considerably  strengthened,  and  one  of  them  at  least  enjoyed  an 
unusual  triumph,  of  which  perhaps  something  may  be  said  by  and 
by.  Carter  was  still  very  desirous  to  secure  a  faculty  rule  relating 
to  absences  from  recitations ;  and  at  length  in  a  full  faculty  meeting 
the  whole  subject  was  discussed,  and  a  committee  appointed  to  frame 
such  a  rule,  and  to  report  it  at  a  subsequent  meeting.  Bascom  and 
Carter  were  the  chief,  if  not  the  sole,  members  of  the  committee. 
It  was  generally  known  in  College  that  some  rule  toward  that  effect 
had  long  been  in  contemplation,  and  was  now  in  course  of  prepara- 
tion, and  that  Professor  Carter  was  the  main  mover  and  agent  in  the 
whole  matter.  Dr.  Hopkins  was  present  and  presided  at  the  faculty 
meeting  when  the  subject  was  discussed  and  the  committee  to  draft 
the  rule  appointed ;  but  he  was  out  of  town  and  at  a  long  distance 
from  home  at  the  time  of  the  regular  faculty  meeting  when  the 
report  of  the  committee  was  naturally  but  unfortunately  presented, 
and  it  was  adopted  unanimously.  This  was  in  the  first  week  of 
November,  1868.  The  rule  thus  adopted  and  promulgated  was  worded 
as  follows :  — 

Each  absence  from  any  recitation,  whether  at  the  beginning  of  or  during  the 
term,  whether  excused  or  unexcused,  will  count  as  zero  in  the  record  of  stand- 
ing. In  cases,  however,  in  which  attendance  shall  be  shown  by  the  student  to 
have  been  impossible,  each  officer  shall  have  the  option  of  allowing  the  recita- 
tion to  be  made  up  at  such  time  as  he  shall  appoint ;  and  no  mark  shall  be  given 
to  such  recitation  unless  it  shall  amount  to  a  substantial  performance  of  the 
work  omitted. 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  643 

It  is  not  without  significance  that  this  rule  was  almost  verbally 
the  one  then  and  long  in  vogue  in  Yale  College.  While  it  indicated 
on  the  part  of  all  the  members  of  the  faculty  a  decided  dissatisfac- 
tion with  the  prevailing  laxity  of  government,  it  was  couched  in 
terms  and  breathed  a  spirit  foreign  to  the  past  as  well  as  to  the  then 
present  of  the  College.  It  put  an  emphasis  on  the  marking  system 
as  a  means  to  moral  ends  such  as  that  system  never  deserved.  The 
rule  itself  exalted  mechanical  means  of  discipline  in  a  way  contrary 
to  the  sober  sentiment  of  most  of  the  men  who  voted  for  it.  But 
they  were  in  a  sort  of  despairing  mood  in  that  particular,  and  they 
took  what  was  offered  to  them  by  the  men  chosen  by  themselves. 
In  the  absence  of  Dr.  Hopkins,  Professor  Bascom  as  the  senior  in 
point  of  time  of  graduation  and  as  the  officer  of  the  Senior  class, 
took  the  brunt  of  responsibility  for  its  passage  and  promulgation. 
He  had  a  slight  hand  in  its  formation.  But  it  could  never  have 
been  adopted  but  for  his  influence  on  the  committee,  and  but 
for  his  influence  in  the  faculty.  Its  promulgation  at  the  time 
and  under  the  circumstances  created  intense  opposition  and  indig- 
nation among  the  students ;  and  Bascom's  refusal,  as  the  nominal 
head  of  the  College,  to  call  a  special  faculty  meeting  to  consider 
their  eminently  fair  proposition  to  delay  the  enforcement  of  the 
rule  until  the  president's  return,  increased  the  excitement  and  indig- 
nation. For  this  refusal  Bascom  had  the  general  consent  of  the  pro- 
fessors, while  the  responsibility  for  it  was  more  his  than  theirs ;  and 
a  very  considerable  injustice  was  done  to  Professor  Carter  by  the 
general  judgment  of  the  students,  that  he  was  chiefly  responsible  for 
the  passage  and  promulgation  and  non-postponement  of  the  rule. 
The  instinct  of  students  in  such  matters  is  usually  unerring.  It  is 
true  that  his  insistence  and  urgency  originated  the  movement  for 
some  such  rule.  It  is  true  also  that  he  furnished  out  of  his  New 
Haven  experience  the  substance  of  the  rule.  But  it  is  not  true  that 
he  had  anything  more  to  do  with  the  passing  of  the  rule  at  a  most 
unfortunate  time,  or  with  the  refusal  to  put  off  for  a  few  days  its 
execution  at  the  respectful  request  of  the  students,  than  any  other 
of  the  leading  members  of  the  faculty.  If  any  one  were  to  be  singled 
out  as  a  special  target  at  the  time  for  the  ill-feeling  of  the  students, 
John  Bascom  and  not  Franklin  Carter  should  have  been  that  man. 
The  faculty  stood  together  in  the  right  and  in  the  wrong  of  the 
whole  matter,  and  shared  the  responsibility  alike.  It  should  be 
said,  nevertheless,  that  Bascom's  phlegmatic  temperament  allowed 
him  to  stand  throughout  the  entire  crisis  without  the  manifestation 
of  any  feeling  whatever ;  while  the  mercurial  temperament  of  Carter 


644  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

kept  him  on  the  go  and  on  the  buzz  during  the  whole  interval,  — 
thus  betraying  to  the  students  and  to  all  his  deep  personal  interest 
and  anxiety  as  to  the  outcome ;  and  it  is  remembered  by  one  of  the 
faculty  that  the  former  took  pains  to  avoid  as  far  as  possible  for 
the  time  the  society  and  conversation  of  the  latter. 

In  this  way  was  brought  on  the  first  and  only  rebellion  of  the 
body  of  students  against  constituted  authority  in  the  history  of  the 
College.  The  students,  too,  were  unanimous  in  their  action.  They 
thought  themselves  to  be  in  the  right  by  quite  as  deep  and  serious 
conviction  as  did  the  faculty.  Their  resolutions,  which  follow,  in 
two  successive  college  meetings,  were  temperate  in  their  tone,  even 
if  mistaken  in  their  scope. 

Whereas  the  faculty  of  Williams  College  have  imposed  on  us,  students  of  said 
college,  a  rule  to  the  effect  that  each  absence  from  recitation,  excused  or  inex- 
cused,  shall  receive  a  zero  mark  in  the  record  of  standing ;  and  it  is  left  with 
each  officer  of  the  college  to  act  his  option  as  to  whether  he  will  hear  necessary 
absentees  in  their  lost  lessons  ;  and  said  officer  shall  act  his  option  as  to  giving 
any  credit  for  such  recitation  ;  and 

Whereas  we,  students  of  Williams  College,  regard  the  imposition  of  this  rule 
as  a  blow  aimed  at  our  personal  honor  and  manhood,  therefore 

Resolved,  That  we  students  of  said  college  protest  against  said  rule,  and  call 
upon  the  faculty  of  Williams  College  to  annul  it. 

Whereas,  our  petition  presented  to  the  Faculty  of  said  Williams  College, 
November  6,  1868,  for  the  repeal  of  the  above-mentioned  rule,  has  been  disre- 
garded, therefore 

Resolved,  that  we  students  of  said  Williams  College  declare  our  connection 
with  said  college  to  cease  from  this  date,  until  the  authorities  of  said  college 
shall  repeal  the  above-mentioned  rule. 

Resolved,  That  we,  as  a  body  of  young  men,  agree  to  remain  in  this  neighbor- 
hood and  abstain  from  all  objectionable  conduct,  until  the  final  settlement  of 
our  difficulties. 

On  Saturday,  November  14,  President  Hopkins  returned  from  Ohio, 
whither  he  had  gone  to  preach  an  anniversary  sermon  at  Marietta. 
He  found  the  town  quiet,  and  the  College  disbanded.  He  preached 
as  usual  the  next  morning  in  the  college  chapel,  to  the  faculty  and 
their  families  and  to  those  students  who  chose  to  come  in.  It  is 
still  remembered  as  a  dreary  service  by  one  who  sympathized 
strongly  with  the  president  in  what  must  have  been  a  heavy  duty 
under  all  the  circumstances  of  the  case.  At  the  close  of  the  service 
he  invited  those  present,  and  through  these  the  entire  College,  to 
meet  him  the  next  morning  in  the  same  place.  All  came.  In  a 
calm  and  dispassionate  way,  but  as  one  conscious  that  he  was  master 
of  the  situation  and  of  all  legitimate  situations  in  which  he  might 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    CENTENNIAL.  645 

be  placed,  he  spoke  from  the  platform  for  nearly  half  an  hour,  not 
separating  himself  in  the  least  degree  from  the  faculty,  whose  head 
he  was,  and  whose  action  in  his  absence  had  caused  all  this  trouble. 
His  first  point  was,  to  demonstrate  the  untenableness  of  the  position 
assumed  by  the  students  in  their  resolutions,  namely,  that  any 
student  can  dissolve  his  connection  with  college  by  his  own  act,  and 
particularly  in  combination  with  other  students  in  the  way  of  a 
threat  as  against  college  authorities.  Each  student  on  entrance  is 
matriculated.  Matriculation  is  a  formal  contract.  It  cannot  be 
broken  by  the  party  of  the  second  part,  without  conjoint  action  of  the 
party  of  the  first  part.  If  any  student  at  any  time  be  dissatisfied 
with  the  rules  of  the  College,  and  wish  to  break  his  connection  with 
it,  he  may  ask  for  an  honorable  dismission,  which  will  always  be 
granted.  So  now,  you  are  all  in  college  as  much  as  you  ever  were  or 
ever  can  be.  And  if  any  of  you,  after  a  return  to  duty  and  so  an 
acknowledgment  of  the  authority  of  college,  wish  to  leave  it,  asking 
for  letters  of  dismission  in  a  proper  way,  you  shall  receive  them. 

His  second  point  was,  that  the  faculty  governed  the  institution, 
and  must  govern  it ;  and  that  any  rule  formulated  by  them  must  be 
the  law  for  the  time  being,  until  the  rule  be  reconsidered  and  changed 
or  annulled.  While  in  force,  any  combination  against  a  rule  of  the 
College  is  resistance  to  the  government  of  the  College,  and  cannot  be 
tolerated  for  a  moment.  If  this  rule  for  regulating  absences  from 
recitations,  against  which  you  have  taken  such  unprecedented  action, 
be  not  the  best  rule  possible,  it  can  be  changed  for  such  a  rule.  At 
any  rate,  the  faculty  desire  the  best  possible  rule  for  the  purposes 
intended.  The  same  authority  that  made  the  rule,  and  no  other 
authority,  may  amend  or  rescind  it. 

This  consummate  address,  here  but  rudely  outlined  from  recollec- 
tion, was  listened  to  in  breathless  attention,  not  because  it  was  elo- 
quent, but  because  it  was  logical  and  penetrating  and  comprehensive, 
and  did  not  leave  the  students  any  the  least  justification  of  the 
mode  of  expressing  their  disapprobation  of  the  rule  adopted.  The 
address  was  fair  throughout.  The  need  of  some  such  rule  was 
strongly  affirmed.  Absences  from  recitations  were  too  many,  and 
must  be  curbed.  But  this  particular  rule  may  not  be  in  the  best 
form.  If  not,  it  may  be  changed.  The  right  of  the  students  to 
judge  in  such  matters  was  not  denied,  nor  sought  in  any  way  to  be 
curtailed.  Nor  was  their  right  to  make  respectful  representations 
to  the  faculty  in  any  way  questioned.  But  their  right  to  take  any 
such  action  into  their  own  hands  as  was  then  pending  was  lucidly 
shown  to  be  impossible.  One  simple  preliminary  to  discussion  even 


646  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

was  shown  to  be  indispensable,  namely,  the  return  of  the  students 
to  duty,  —  their  acknowledgment  in  that  way  of  the  authority  of 
the  College.  The  meeting  was  then  dismissed.  No  specific  action 
of  any  kind  was  asked  for. 

In  the  afternoon,  the  president  went  out  upon  the  street,  and  was 
warmly  accosted  by  all  the  students  whom  he  casually  met,  and 
frankly  said  to  them  that  he  himself  was  not  in  favor  of  the  word- 
ing of  the  rule  as  it  stood,  and  that  if  the  students  came  back  to 
their  recitations  (the  sooner  the  better),  the  rule  would  certainly  be 
reconsidered  by  the  faculty,  and  would  probably  be  altered  in 
certain  respects.  At  the  four  o'clock  recitations  that  afternoon,  the 
students  as  a  body  were  back  in  their  places  in  their  respective 
class-rooms,  and  the  Eebellion  of  1868  was  over.  Up  to  this  point 
the  management  by  Mark  Hopkins,  after  his  return,  of  an  exceed- 
ingly difficult  and  delicate  crisis,  w^as  able  and  skilful  and  perfect. 
The  supreme  difficulty  was  yet  to  come. 

Every  member  of  the  faculty  was  present  at  the  faculty  meeting 
Wednesday  evening.  It  was  a  quiet  and  memorable  scene.  All 
were  agreed  that  the  rule  should  be  changed.  How  ?  Either  by 
the  president  alone,  or  by  him  after  consultation  with  some  others, 
it  was  proposed  to  alter  but  a  single  phrase  of  the  wording  of  the 
rule,  and  to  substitute  for  words  as  definite  as  language  can  be  made 
another  short  phrase  capable  of  a  double  construction.  Professor 
Perry  was  then  the  oldest  professor  in  time  of  full  and  active 
service.  He  had  just  entered  upon  the  sixteenth  year  of  his  pro- 
fessorship. He  probably  understood  better  than  any  other  man  in 
the  room  the  strong  points  and  the  weak  points  of  the  president, 
and  also  the  actual  state  of  feeling  as  between  the  trustees  and  the 
president,  and  as  between  the  students  and  the  College.  He  had  had 
nothing  whatever  to  do  with  the  obnoxious  rule,  except  to  vote  for  it 
on  its  passage.  In  the  students'  minds,  he  was  not  connected  with 
the  rule  in  one  way  or  the  other.  In  the  interim  of  the  suspension 
of  college  duties,  those  students  whom  he  met  spoke  freely  to  him 
and  he  to  them  on  all  indifferent  topics.  He  was,  therefore,  nearer 
in  the  attitude  of  impartiality  on  the  point  at  issue  than  any  other 
active  member  of  the  faculty.  Moreover,  while  honoring  the  presi- 
dent above  all  other  living  men,  he  had  always  noticed  the  con- 
stitutional and  consuetudinal  tendency  in  him  to  escape  from  any 
transient  difficulty  through  the  door  of  some  verbal  ambiguity.  In 
the  address  on  Monday  there  had  not  appeared  the  least  trace  of 
this  tendency ;  but  now  on  Wednesday  evening  it  came  out  again  to 
Perry's  mind  clearly  enough.  He  saw,  or  thought  he  saw,  that  the 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE  TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  647 

students  would  construe  the  new  phrase  in  one  way  and  regard  them- 
selves as  having  gained  a  real  victory  in  their  contest,  while  those 
who  had  set  their  hearts  on  the  rule  as  it  stood  would  construe  it 
another  way.  The  words  were  ambiguous ;  and  ambiguity  in  speech 
was  ever  an  abomination  to  this  man.  He  took  no  part  in  the  brief 
discussion,  for  it  was  not  his  business  to  do  so ;  but  when  the  point 
was  put  to  vote,  and  every  man  in  the  room  besides  voted  aye,  and 
the  contrary  was  called  for,  he  voted  no.  He  did  not  explain  the 
ground  of  his  vote,  nor  was  an  explanation  called  for,  —  the  majority 
was  too  overwhelming. 

In  the  course  of  the  next  week  the  first  case  under  the  changed 
rule  came  up  for  adjudication.  The  student  claimed  of  course  the 
construction  of  the  rule  more  favorable  to  himself  and  his  fellows 
(leave  students  alone  for  that ! ),  and  the  president  allowed  that  con- 
struction, and  so  the  precedent  was  inflexibly  set.  In  the  faculty 
meeting  next  following,  the  application  of  the  rule  to  this  case  was 
unfolded  to  the  surprise  of  some,  and  to  the  disgust  at  least  of  one. 
"  If  I  had  supposed"  exclaimed  Professor  Carter  with  warmth  to  the 
president,  "that  the  changed  rule  was  capable  of,  and  would  have 
been  given,  this  twist,  I  should  have  voted  last  week  with  Professor 
Perry" 

Here  also  is  a  small  key  that  unlocks  a  considerable  cabinet  of 
historical  curiosities.  The  various  issues  of  the  rebellion  were  not 
very  nearly  to  the  mind  of  anybody.  Parturiunt  monies  nascetur 
ridiculus  mus.  The  man  who  deserved  and  derived  the  most  credit 
from  it,  and  who  had  the  most  reason  on  the  whole  to  be  satisfied 
with  the  outcome  of  it,  was  Mark  Hopkins.  He  had  shown  himself 
throughout  portentous  difficulties  to  be  a  great  man.  He  had 
demonstrated  again,  and  for  the  last  time,  that  he  was  the  master- 
spirit of  the  institution.  And  he  had  done  this,  not  in  any  sense  by 
setting  himself  up  as  over  against  the  gentlemen  of  the  faculty,  but 
by  linking  them  to  himself  and  himself  to  them  more  publicly  and 
unreservedly  than  ever  before.  And  yet  he  could  not  help  asking 
himself,  nor  could  others  help  asking  in  regard  to  him,  why  did  the 
rebellion  take  place  at  all  ?  Did  it  spring  up  out  of  the  ground  in 
the  night  like  a  toadstool  ?  He  probably  could  not  help  feeling, 
and  it  is  almost  certain  that  he  did  feel,  that,  somehow  or  other, 
both  away  back  and  at  the  present,  he  was  more  responsible  for  the 
state  of  things,  out  of  which  the  rebellion  had  but  very  gradually 
emerged,  than  any  other  man.  He  was  getting  old.  The  grand 
climacteric  in  human  life  is  usually  placed  at  sixty-three,  but  he 
had  already  reached  sixty-six  in  the  February  last  past.  And  then 


648  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

again,  some  members  of  the  faculty  had  always  thought  him  too 
patient  of  absentees,  remiss  in  watchfulness,  too  lax  in  general 
restraint,  and  had  told  him  so  frankly  and  kindly.  His  brother 
Albert  had  just  then  given  up  his  long-kept  active  professorship  for 
what  was  really  a  nominal  one,  and  his  advice  to  his  brother  was 
clear  that  he  had  better  do  something  similar  pretty  soon.  Accord- 
ingly the  four  years  from  1868  to  1872,  when  the  president  became 
seventy  years  old  and  resigned  the  presidency,  was  not  a  period  of 
much  vigor  in  administration,  was  rather  a  time  of  taking  in  sail 
preparing  to  enter  a  quiet  harbor. 

It  scarcely  needs  be  told  that  those  who  had  been  most  strenuous 
for  a  strong  rule  relating  to  college  absences,  and,  in  particular, 
Professor  Carter,  took  little  satisfaction  in  the  rule  as  amended, 
and  began  to  turn  their  thoughts  in  other  directions.  The  four 
years  just  indicated  were  the  period  of  the  Greek  professorship  of 
William  Reynolds  Dimmock,  of  the  class  of  1855.  He  had  been 
fitted  for  college  at  the  Boston  Latin  School,  and  had  been  teaching 
the  classics  for  several  years  in  that  renowned  institution,  when  he 
was  summoned  here,  in  1868,  to  take  the  place  of  the  beloved  Pro- 
fessor Phillips.  Now  fell  the  best  opportunity  that  ever  came  to 
make  the  two  classical  languages  the  leading  study  in  the  College. 
Carter  was  now  relieved  of  the  French  branch  of  his  professorship, 
and  was  to  give  his  sole  attention  to  the  Latin.  Dimmock  was  pro- 
fessor of  Greek  only.  Natural  science  had  been  the  leading  study 
in  the  College  throughout  the  first  third  of  the  century,  mental  and 
moral  science  had  occupied  that  place  quite  as  decidedly  during  the 
second  third  of  the  century;  and  now  had  dawned  a  golden  oppor- 
tunity for  the  classics  to  become  first.  The  two  young  professors 
had  been  thoroughly  trained  in  these  studies,  they  excelled  in  them, 
and  were  justly  proud  of  their  attainments  in  them.  No  hindrance 
from  any  quarter  opposed  either  of  them  in  the  developing  of  their 
departments  in  their  own  time  and  way.  If  the  conditions  of  ad- 
mission to  college  in  the  classics  were  too  low,  as  doubtless  they 
were,  it  was  within  their  functions  to  raise  them  gradually  and 
patiently  to  any  point  not  inconsistent  with  the  general  position 
and  patronage  and  historical  past  of  the  College.  If  the  College 
needed  raising  in  general  scholarship  and  culture,  as  doubtless  it 
did,  theirs  was  the  chance  and  the  privilege  to  unite  with  their 
younger  colleagues,  at  least  equally  so  disposed  with  themselves, 
quietly  and  persistently  to  push  things  upward  along  the  lines 
already  open.  All  this  would  take  time,  but  would  insure  ultimate 
success.  The  one  thing  that  the  College  could  not  arid  would  not 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  649 

allow,  was  to  have  its  existing  walls,  reared  by  the  painstaking  and 
self-denial  of  the  older  builders,  levelled  to  the  ground  in  order  to 
make  room  for  novel  constructions  by  inexperienced  artificers  after 
models  alien  to  the  place. 

This  providential  opportunity  for  the  classical  languages  to  take 
for  once  and  in  their  turn  their  rightful  place  in  the  forefront  of  the 
curriculum  was  not  improved  by  the  two  men  who  held  the  whole 
disposal  in  their  own  hands.  Both  were  graduates  of  the  College, 
but  did  either  ever  become  a  true  son  of  the  College?  Sonship 
implies  a  line  of  descent.  It  implies  limitations  and  directions 
imposed  by  predecessors.  It  implies  some  conditions  that  cannot  be 
disregarded.  It  implies  a  name  and  something  also  which  that 
name  connotes.  Steeped  in  notions  derived  from  fitting  schools  in 
Andover  and  Boston  and  from  colleges  in  New  Haven  and  Cam- 
bridge, these  young  men  became  mutual  colleagues  here  in  1868  in 
cognate  departments,  and  neither  of  them  was  willing  to  recognize 
the  rights  of  their  Alma  Mater  in  her  honorable  past  and  reputable 
present  to  practically  control  them  in  their  new  relations  to  her. 
They  had  thrown  themselves  out  of  adjustment  with  the  old  College, 
and  were  unwilling  to  readjust  themselves  heartily  to  the  inevitable 
conditions  involved  in  the  very  life  and  growth  of  an  original  and 
independent  institution.  They  were  half  ashamed  to  be  professors 
in  a  college  so  much  out  of  date  and  so  provincial.  If  they  had 
wisely  chosen  to  accept  the  material  at  hand  and  the  limitations  as 
they  existed,  which  indeed  was  all  involved  in  the  acceptance  of 
their  places,  and  had  adapted  their  teaching  to  the  needs  of  the  hour, 
carrying  their  classes  along  with  them,  quietly  pointing  the  way  to 
something  better  in  the  future,  and  so  helping  others  to  bring  in  that 
something  better  in  a  progress  self-respecting  and  general  and  in 
accordance  with  the  nature  of  things  and  the  scope  of  the  times, 
they  would  have  served  their  generation  better  than  they  did,  and 
left  an  easier  task  to  any  truthful  historian  of  the  College. 

When  he  was  in  college,  Professor  Dimmock  had  belonged  to 
the  Sigma  Phi  Society,  one  of  four  or  five  so-called  secret  fraterni- 
ties then  existing,  and  the  only  one  then  possessing  a  building  and 
home  of  its  own  for  society  purposes.  This  building  was  erected 
on  Spring  Street  in  1857,  under  the  impulse,  and  largely  at  the 
expense,  of  Charles  Stoddard,  of  the  class  of  1854.  Several  of  the 
previous  professors  had  belonged  to  one  or  another  of  these  societies 
as  students,  particularly  the  Kappa  Alpha  Society,  which  was  the 
oldest  and  most  prominent  of  them  all ;  but  it  had  not  been  usual 
for  these  professors,  as  such,  openly  to  fraternize  with  their  younger 


650  \VILLIAMSTO\VN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

brethren,  the  student  members.  Dimmock  was  perhaps  the  first 
professor  to  do  this  without  restraint,  and  so  to  introduce  a  new 
social  custom  of  doubtful  utility  on  the  whole.  According  to  his 
own  statements,  he  felt  it  to  be  his  duty  to  try  to  elevate  the  scholar- 
ship and  moral  tone  of  the  young  men  standing  in  these  relations  to 
himself  in  social  ways,  and  so  on  stated  evenings  he  would  sit  and 
smoke  with  them  till  midnight.  When  it  came  to  class-room  instruc- 
tion of  boys,  four-fifths  of  whom  had  been  but  half  prepared  for 
college  in  Greek,  instead  of  teaching  them  as  best  he  could  forms 
and  constructions  and  attainable  translations,  which  were  the  only 
points  they  could  possibly  take  with  profit  and  in  progress,  he 
would,  for  example,  in  a  Greek  play,  do  all  the  translating  himself 
in  a  splendid  fashion,  and  require  them  to  learn  and  recite  the 
variorums  in  the  Greek  text.  He  seemed  to  think  that  his  own 
voluntary  transference  from  a  school  to  a  college  was  but  a  personal 
opportunity  to  do  high  teaching  in  a  university  way.  It  was  not  a 
success ;  and  he  threw  the  blame  upon  the  College.  He  contrasted 
it  with  the  Boston  Latin  School,  as  did  also  his  classical  colleague, 
in  a  similar  way,  Phillips  Academy,  Andover.  The  true  and  only 
practicable  remedy  for  this  state  of  things  in  the  College  was  wholly 
in  their  hands.  It  involved  time  and  labor.  It  involved,  too,  some 
present  secondary  work  on  their  part,  which  should  have  been,  and 
could  have  been,  soon  thrown  off  upon  the  fitting  schools  tributary 
to  Williams.  It  involved,  also,  a  union  in  spirit  and  effort  with 
other  colleagues  of  more  penetration  and  experience  and  practical 
power  than  they  themselves  possessed. 

The  precise  form  of  the  remedy  for  a  disagreeable  college  con- 
dition, which  these  two  professors  concocted  with  more  or  less  com- 
pleteness as  between  themselves,  is  no  longer  of  any  historical 
interest.  The  proof  is  abounding,  and  some  of  it  will  shortly  be 
given,  that  some  such  scheme  existed,  and  was  sought  to  be  put  into 
force,  and  that  its  ultimate  thwarting  and  collapse  caused  both  these 
gentlemen  extreme  chagrin. 

As  the  four  years  ending  in  1872  ebbed  way,  everybody  came  to 
know  that  Dr.  Hopkins  was  about  to  resign  the  presidency,  and  so 
that  a  prominent  vacancy  in  the  College  was  about  to  be  filled  by 
somebody.  There  were  only  two  persons  in  the  faculty  who  were 
thought  of,  or  at  least  talked  of,  as  candidates  for  the  position ;  and 
these  were  Professor  Chadbourne  and  Professor  Bascom.  The  latter 
had  been  a  professor  in  the  department  of  rhetoric  for  nearly  twenty 
years.  This  department  did  not  fully  call  out  his  powers,  nor  sat- 
isfy his  ambitions.  His  large  abilities  and  forceful  character  were 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    CENTENNIAL.  651 

well  displayed  nevertheless  in  his  own  lecture-room  and  from  the 
College  pulpit  and  by  a  number  of  able  books  written  from  time  to 
time.  His  preaching,  however,  excited  more  or  less  in  the  mind  of 
Dr.  Hopkins  the  odium  theologicum.  His  orthodoxy,  according  to 
the  supposed  standards  of  the  time  and  place,  was  properly  enough 
distrusted.  Dr.  Hopkins  was  not  by  any  means  a  heresy  hunter  in 
the  common  acceptation  of  that  term,  though  he  was  naturally  sensi- 
tive as  to  the  theological  sentiments  to  be  held  by  his  own  successor, 
and  there  were  those  in  the  Board  of  Trustees  at  that  time  who  were 
offensively  narrow  and  bigoted  theologically.  This  alone  cut  off  all 
chance  of  Bascom's  preferment,  and  there  were  other  minor  grounds 
of  opposition  to  him. 

Paul  A.  Chadbourne,  of  the  class  of  1848,  had  become  a  Professor 
of  Botany  and  Chemistry  in  1853,  and  in  1859  of  Natural  History, 
though  he  was  at  no  time  resident,  except  for  a  portion  of  the  col- 
lege year.  He  was  employed  in  various  other  colleges  a  good  deal 
as  a  lecturer,  particularly  at  Bowdoin  and  at  the  Agricultural  Col- 
lege at  Amherst,  of  which  last  he  was  twice  president  for  brief 
periods.  He  was  an  open  and  outspoken  and  agreeable  man,  a  good 
observer  and  facile  lecturer  in  botany  and  other  branches  of  natu- 
ral history,  stirring  and  restless,  fickle-minded,  ambitious  of  place 
and  power,  fond  of  money,  overestimating  his  own  abilities  and  the 
commercial  worth  of  his  services,  and  thinking  himself  to  be  a  good 
business  man  and  a  good  executive  officer  when  he  was  neither.  He 
was  born  in  Berwick,  Maine,  in  1823,  of  Methodist  parentage,  but 
his  early  training  in  Arminian  views  of  theology  he  discarded  for 
extreme  Calvinistic  views  superficially  taken  up  and  very  narrowly 
held.  He  attended  for  a  few  months  the  theological  seminary  at 
East  Windsor  Hill,  now  Hartford,  teaching  in  an  academy  there  at 
the  same  time ;  and  he  was  accustomed  to  say  in  after  life  in  refer- 
ence to  some  of  the  deepest  problems  of  human  life  and  destiny, 
"  /  settled  all  those  questions  when  I  was  in  the  seminary."  As  an  in- 
stance of  the  profundity  of  his  reasoning  in  matters  of  biblical  inter- 
pretation may  be  given  his  word  in  relation  to  the  first  chapter  of 
Genesis,  "  Those  verses  must  have  been  divinely  and  verbally  inspired, 
because  otherwise  no  man  could  have  knotvn  ivhat  was  the  order  of  the 
creation." 

Professor  Chadbourne  successfully  led  natural  history  expedi- 
tions in  1855  to  Newfoundland,  in  1857  to  Florida,  and  in  1861  to 
Greenland.  In  1859  he  visited  Europe,  giving  his  time  mainly  to 
the  Scandinavian  countries,  and  becoming  a  member  of  the  Eoyal 
Society  of  Northern  Antiquities  at  Copenhagen.  For  twelve  years 


652  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

he  gave  a  course  of  chemical  lectures  in  Mount  Holyoke  Seminary; 
for  three  years  he  lectured  in  the  Berkshire  Medical  College ;  and 
he  gave  a  single  course  of  lectures  in  Western  Reserve  College.  In 
1860  he  published  four  lectures  on  natural  history,  previously  deliv- 
ered at  the  Smithsonian  Institute;  and  he  delivered  a  course  of  lec- 
tures before  the  Lowell  Institute  on  natural  theology,  which  were 
subsequently  published.  He  dabbled  also  in  politics  a  little,  but 
not  deeply ;  and  was  a  member  of  the  Massachusetts  Senate  for  two 
years.  The  first  winter  he  determined  that  nothing  should  escape 
him;  he  was  always  in  his  seat  in  the  hall  and  in  committee-rooms; 
he  seconded  motions  that  by  usage  required  no  seconding;  and  he 
made  a  number  of  respectable  speeches  from  his  seat,  without  pre- 
vious preparation,  on  current  topics  of  legislation,  and  one  admi- 
rable eulogy  upon  a  member  deceased.  The  second  winter  he  tired 
of  the  whole  business;  on  about  one-half  of  the  session  days  he  was 
not  in  his  place  at  all,  and  when  he  was  in  attendance  it  was  with 
his  books  of  science  in  his  hand,  which  he  often  read  the  whole  ses- 
sion through.  It  is  superfluous  to  add  to  this  account  that  Chad- 
bourne  was  remarkably  versatile  throughout  his  busy  life,  that  he 
did  many  things  pretty  well  and  nothing  very  well,  and  that  he 
scarcely  realized  in  his  own  mind  the  difference  between  well  done 
and  fairly  done.  He  became  president  of  the  State  University  of 
Wisconsin  in  1869,  and  performed  what  was  regarded  on  the  ground 
as  good  work  in  that  capacity  for  about  three  years. 

Chadbourne  early  acquired,  and  naturally  improved  by  intercourse 
with  all  sorts  of  men  in  many  climes,  a  good  judgment  of  his  fellow- 
men,  of  their  salient  tendencies  and  radical  character.  This  was 
one  of  the  strongest  features  of  the  man.  He  seemed  to  know  others 
better  than  he  seemed  to  know  himself.  Less  than  is  common  he 
judged  others  by  himself.  His  verdicts  in  general  were  charitable 
and  correct.  He  made  sharp  and  courageous  distinctions  between 
what  he  deemed  right  and  wrong,  clean  and  foul ;  but  he  did  not 
distrust  others  until  he  saw  firm  reasons  for  distrusting  them.  As 
is  far  safer  and  more  rational  in  a  world  like  this,  he  was  rather  an 
optimist  than  a  pessimist.  Like  Professor  Lincoln,  whom,  in  some 
respects,  he  much  resembled,  he  was  born  and  bred  a  Democrat  in 
politics,  and  continued  strong  in  the  faith  of  equal  rights  for  all  and 
special  privileges  under  the  law  for  none,  until  the  Civil  War  broke 
out  and  confused  for  a  long  time  the  political  schools  of  Jefferson 
and  Hamilton.  He  was  broad  in  his  sympathies  as  toward  the 
rights  of  individuals,  both  in  college  and  in  town ;  and  he  was  usu- 
ally open  and  earnest  in  his  methods  of  contriving  and  conducting 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    CENTENNIAL.  653 

means  to  ends.     Examples  of  this  general  rule  will  pretty  soon  be 
given,  as  well  as  two  or  three  notable  exceptions  to  it. 

Not  very  long  after  Chadbourne  became  a  professor  here,  in  1853, 
he  had  a  considerable  misunderstanding  with  President  Hopkins, 
and  at  that  time  spoke  freely  to  some  of  his  colleagues  (certainly  to 
one),  of  what  he  deemed  and  what  was  one  of  the  chief  defects  in 
the  latter's  character.  His  words  were,  "  The  only  way  to  influence 
Dr.  Hopkins  is  to  flatter  him."  The  statement  was  true  in  the  sense 
in  which  he  made  it,  and  did  credit  to  his  general  penetration  into 
character.  Hopkins  was  aware  of  this  transient  alienation,  and  re- 
ferred to  it  in  conversation  with  other  parties  many  years  later,  at 
a  time  when,  it  is  to  be  feared,  Chadbourne  acted  upon  his  previous 
estimate  in  his  own  behoof.  President  Hopkins  was  sincerely 
desirous  that  the  College  should  be  continued  and  perpetuated  along 
the  intellectual  and  theological  lines  to  which  he  had  been  instru- 
mental in  bringing  it;  and  this  was  not  only  natural  in  the  circum- 
stances, but  praiseworthy  also;  and  furthermore  he  claimed,  as  a 
sort  of  right  that  he  had  earned,  the  privilege  of  naming  his  own 
successor;  and  there  was  no  one  then  inclined  to  contest  this-  claim, 
and,  besides,  it  would  have  been  useless  to  contest  it.  This  was  a 
purely  personal  claim  of  his  own,  and  it  did  not  rest  on  any  induc- 
tion of  particulars  either  here  or  elsewhere.  Indeed,  the  principle 
that  an  outgoing  president  should  have  any  special  say  about  his 
own  successor  has  been  practically  controverted  on  this  ground,  and 
proven  to  be  evil.  Hopkins's  own  predecessor  as  president  stoutly 
opposed  his  succession,  yet  it  prospered  beyond  all  previous  limits. 
That  predecessor  came  in  in  1821  without  any  influence  as  toward 
that  end  of  his  predecessor;  and  Dr.  Moore  was  scarcely  known, 
much  less  favored,  by  the  original  president,  Ebenezer  Fitch.  Even 
the  insistence  by  Mark  Hopkins  on  the  privilege  of  naming  his  suc- 
cessor did  not  issue  in  his  own  comfort  or  peace  of  mind,  but 
quite  the  reverse ;  and  so  far  as  that  successor  exerted  any  control 
over  the  election  of  the  one  to  follow  him,  it  proved  a  disappoint- 
ment to  him  and  his  coadjutors.  If  we  may  take  a  single  instance 
from  another  college,  to  strengthen  the  generalization  that  seems  to 
be  justified  by  an  induction  from  the  particulars  at  Williams,  let  it 
be  from  Dartmouth  at  the  beginning  of  the  century.  The  crucial 
troubles  at  Hanover,  which  almost  extinguished  the  college,  though 
at  the  same  time  incidentally  making  it  celebrated,  came  very 
largely  from  the  determination  of  Eleazer  Wheelock,  founder  and 
first  president,  to  make  at  all  hazards  his  son  and  assistant,  his 
successor  in  the  presidency.  College  presidents  had  best  have 


654  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

very  little  to  say  one  way  or  the  other  about  their  successors  in 
office. 

Undoubtedly  the  main  reason  that  weighed  on  the  mind  of  Mark 
Hopkins,  inducing  him  to  throw  all  his  weight  in  favor  of  Chad- 
bourne  rather  than  of  Bascom,  was  his  conviction  that  the  former 
pronounced  and  would  pronounce  his  religious  shibboleths  both  in 
class-room  and  from  the  pulpit  more  in  accordance  with  what  had 
been  usual.  So  justly  confident  was  he  that  the  majority  of  the 
trustees  were  possessed  of  the  same  conviction,  and  would  follow 
his  lead  in  the  election  coming  on  in  the  summer,  that,  in  the  spring, 
when  Chadbourne  came  to  Williamstown  to  preach  the  funeral  ser- 
mon of  his  brother,  Professor  Albert  Hopkins,  he  virtually  promised 
the  succession  to  Chadbourne.  It  was  said,  and  it  is  wholly  credible, 
that  Chadbourne  confidentially  communicated  this  promise  at  the 
time  to  Postmaster  Taft,  with  whom  he  was  always  very  intimate 
both  politically  and  otherwise.  As  the  time  of  the  election  drew 
on,  it  was  impressed  on  the  minds  of  most  of  the  older  professors  as 
a  foregone  conclusion,  that  Chadbourne  would  be  the  man ;  and  that 
prospective  issue  was  on  the  whole  agreeable  to  them.  Neverthe- 
less, Bascom  was  led  by  circumstances  to  believe,  that,  if  he  had  the 
support  of  the  majority  of  the  faculty,  he  might  after  all  be  chosen. 
With  this  feeling,  he  requested  his  special  friend,  Professor  Perry, 
to  invite  to  his  study  for  an  informal  conference  the  members  of  the 
faculty  indiscriminately.  Perry  said  to  him  frankly  that  such  a 
step  would  do  no  good  practically,  that  Chadbourne  would  surely  be 
elected ;  but  as,  011  the  other  hand,  it  could  do  no  harm,  and  since 
he  wished  it,  the  invitations  should  be  given.  Nearly  every  member 
of  the  faculty  then  in  town  convened  at  the  appointed  time  and 
place,  when  they  encountered  such  a  sudden  surprise  as  has  rarely 
or  never  fallen  to  the  lot  of  that  body. 

Perry's  study  was  then  on. the  second  floor  of  his  house,  and  as  he 
heard  some  one  a  trifle  belated  coming  up  the  stairs,  he  stepped 
forward  to  the  door  to  open  it  and  to  greet  him ;  when  Professor 
Carter  stepped  inside  and  said  in  a  low  voice,  but  one  loud  enough  to 
be  heard  by  all  present,  "lean  take  no  part  in  this  meeting,  for  I  am  a 
candidate  myself"  —  and  immediately  withdrew.  The  announcement 
was  instantaneously  bewildering.  Carter  had  scarcely  more  than 
reached  the  outside  door  below,  when  every  person  in  the  study 
rose,  and,  without  uttering  a  single  word,  descended  the  stairs. 
Bascom,  who  was  the  last  to  go  out,  expressed  his  surprise  to  his 
friend  in  a  single  phrase  in  passing,  and  the  latter  was  now  left 
alone,  when  the  comical  element  in  the  whole  scene  struck  him,  and 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    CENTENNIAL.  655 

he  remembers  sitting  down  and  indulging  in  a  hearty  laugh.  If  we 
may  judge  of  this  single  sentence  quickly  pronounced  by  its  instant 
effect  in  dissolving  a  conference  that  had  not  yet  begun  to  confer,  it 
may  perhaps  be  said  that  it  was  the  most  powerful  sentence  that 
Carter  ever  uttered  in  his  life ! 

Nothing  could  have  been  more  honorable  on  his  part  than  the  time 
and  place  of  publicly  announcing  his  candidacy,  and  nothing  could 
have  been  more  unsuitable  than  the  candidacy  itself.  It  was  a  nomi- 
nation not  fit  to  be  made,  —  still  less  to  be  self-made.  Its  unsuit- 
ableness  is  best  indicated  by  the  fact  that  he  himself  was  not  aware 
of  its  unsuitableness  at  all.  This  was  his  first  demonstration  in  the 
sight  of  all  men  of  a  radical  deficiency  in  his  moral  make-up,  des- 
tined later  to  be  exhibited  011  this  ground  scores  of  times,  namely,  a 
lack  of  any  proper  sense  of  proportion  as  between  what  was  due  to  him- 
self and  the  other  men,  and  as  between  some  things  and  other  things  on 
a  scale  of  mental  measurement  as  to  their  relative  importance.  A 
part  of  this  lack  was  due  to  his  ignorance  of,  and  consequent  under- 
estimation of,  the  historical  past.  He  saw  no  incongruity  in  his 
becoming  the  immediate  successor  of  Mark  Hopkins,  under  whose 
instruction  (1830-72),  1620  graduates  had  passed  out  of  the  Col- 
lege, nearly  three-fourths  of  whom  were  then  living,  and  whom 
nearly  every  living  man  of  these  respected  and  revered,  and  stood 
ready  to  help  forward  still  in  his  official  work  as  president.  Carter 
had  been  but  ten  years  out  of  college,  and  knew  very  few  indeed  of 
the  alumni  graduated  before  1862.  His  college  course  had  been 
fragmentary  at  best,  and  had  been  still  further  interfered  with  by 
sickness.  He  knew  most  of  those  graduated  in  the  ten  years'  inter- 
val, and  these  were  acquainted  with  him  also,  and  did  not  entertain 
for  him  the  respect  and  admiration  that  almost  all  graduates  cher- 
ished for  Mark  Hopkins.  Not  indeed  so  striking  in  these  particu- 
lars was  the  contrast  between  Franklin  Carter  and  John  Bascom. 
But  Bascom  had  been  twenty-three  years  out  of  college  after  a  full 
course  of  four  years,  and  was  known  and  honored  by  most  of  all  the 
alumni  since  1849,  was  known  to  be  highly  gifted  by  nature  and 
broadly  educated  theologically  at  Andover  and  Auburn,  and  was 
already  recognized  as  the  best-read  and  most  roundly  developed  phil- 
osophical student  and  writer  that  had  ever  been  graduated  at  the 
College.  Besides  this,  he  had  been  already  teaching  consecutively  in 
the  College  for  seventeen  years,  was  known  to  be  desirous  of  succeed- 
ing to  the  presidency,  and  was  conscious  (partly  by  trial  of  some  of 
them)  of  the  several  abilities  needful  to  success  in  that  office. 

Carter  was  no  theologian  and  no  preacher,  had   never   had  any 


656  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

training  or  facility  in  those  directions ;  and  yet  lie  had  no  scruple  to 
set  himself  up  as  a  more  eligible  candidate  for  the  presidency  of 
Williams  College  than  John  Bascom.  It  is  true,  he  was  free  from 
any  suspicion  of  aberrations  from  the  then  current  standard  of  ortho- 
doxy, and  no  doubt  he  regarded  this  as  one  coign  of  advantage  that 
he  possessed  over  the  other;  but  this  did  not  avail  him  one  particle 
as  over  against  the  other  more  open  candidate,  Professor  Chadbourne. 
Chadbourne  was  effusively  if  not  offensively  orthodox.  He  had  also 
a  wide  public  reputation  as  a  teacher  and  lecturer,  he  had  already 
been  president  of  two  well-known  colleges  and  had  quitted  both  for 
reasons  growing  out  of  his  precarious  health,  and  the  public  East  and 
West  was  in  no  way  surprised  by  his  election  as  president  at  Williams, 
where  he  had  been  the  valedictorian  of  his  class  twenty-four  years 
before.  He  had  taken  his  many  previous  honors  easily,  had  sepa- 
rated himself  from  them  readily  one  by  one,  and  now  seemed  ready 
without  much  break  or  friction  to  assume  the  final  step  of  ascent. 
Carter,  of  course,  since  he  was  an  avowed  candidate,  made  efforts 
that  may  well  be  characterized  as  desperate,  to  persuade  some  of 
the  trustees  at  least,  that  he  himself  was  the  proper  man  for  the 
place.  The  trustees  did  not  know  him  very  well ;  the  alumni  as  a 
body  scarcely  knew  him  at  all ;  he  had  no  public  reputation  of  any 
kind,  and  had  never  said  or  done  anything  to  acquire  that  boon ; 
and  it  was  well  known  that  Dr.  Hopkins  favored  the  election  of 
Chadbourne. 

There  was  something  of  the  irony  of  fate  in  the  inimitable  tones, 
partly  of  sarcasm  and  partly  of  satisfaction,  in  which  Dr.  Hopkins 
announced  over  and  over  again  to  different  friends,  after  his  return 
to  Williamstown,  the  result  of  the  balloting  of  the  trustees.  His 
words  were  these :  "  One  vote  was  blank,  one  vote  for  Professor  Carter, 
and  all  the  rest  for  Professor  Chadbourne."  He  also  let  it  be  known 
that  the  blank  vote  would  have  been  cast  for  Carter,  if  there  had 
been  any  the  least  chance  for  his  election.  He,  himself,  regarded 
that  candidacy  as  both  unsuitable  and  ridiculous.  After  all  the 
president's  mind  was  not  altogether  at  ease  in  the  result  of  the 
election.  He  remembered  the  even  then  long-ago  misunderstanding 
with  Chadbourne,  and  he  suspected  that  one  or  two  of  the  older 
members  of  the  faculty  remembered  it  too.  When  it  became  time 
for  the  faculty  to  make  the  arrangements  for  the  inauguration  at  the 
Commencement  approaching,  he  expressed  his  desire  in  the  faculty 
meeting  that  Professor  Perry  be  chosen  to  make  the  public  address 
"in  behalf  of  the  faculty,"  and  he  was  accordingly  chosen  unani- 
mously. But  Perry  remembered  only  too  well  what  Chadbourne 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    CENTENNIAL.  657 

had  told  him  repeatedly  about  the  president's  liability  to  influence 
by  flattery  ;  and  a  subtle  instinct  led  him  to  foresee  that  the  two  men 
would  not  get  on  well  together  very  long  in  their  positions  now  about 
to  be  reversed,  and  he  did  not  like  to  be  a  public  party  to  a  relation 
which  he  somehow  believed  would  end  in  their  mutual  repulsion. 
Accordingly,  he  firmly  declined  the  appointment  of  the  faculty, 
giving,  of  course,  no  reasons ;  and  Professor  Bascom  was  then 
chosen  to  perform  the  duty,  and  accepted  it. 

A  couple  of  days  afterward  the  president  came  to  Perry's  house, 
and  urged  him  to  reconsider  his  refusal  to  represent  the  faculty  in 
the  inauguration  exercises,  and  to  consent  to  make  the  address,  say- 
ing that  Bascom  did  not  care  particularly  about  the  service.  It  was 
not  very  clear  why  he  was  so  persistent  about  such  a  small  matter ; 
and  his  interlocutor,  feeling  still  the  full  force  of  his  original  reason, 
and  the  additional  weight  of  Bascom's  formal  choice  by  the  faculty, 
declined  to  make  any  change.  The  two  fell  then  into  some  desultory 
discussion  about  the  course  the  election  had  taken ;  and  the  professor, 
while  raising  no  specific  objection  to  Chadbourne,  for  he  felt  none, 
referred  the  president  to  the  latter's  many  and  facile  changes  of  posi- 
tion in  contrast  to  the  steadiness  and  general  weight  of  Bascom's 
course.  Nine  years  afterward,  when  Perry's  memory  had  pretty 
much  let  drop  the  items  of  this  conversation,  Hopkins,  referring  to 
it,  said  to  him,  "  You  said,  that  John  Bascom  could  put  twenty  Chad- 
bournes  in  his  breeches  pockets  and  walk  off  and  not  know  it."  "  Very 
well,"  said  the  other,  "  I  say  so  now."  Either  at  this  interview  or 
another  at  the  same  place  a  day  'or  two  after,  Dr.  Hopkins  showed 
himself  to  be  nervous  over  insinuations  made  elsewhere,  that  he  had 
overpassed  his  prerogative  in  throwing  all  his  influence  in  favor  of 
Chadbourne ;  and  still  more  nervous  over  his  fear  lest  Chadbourne 
should  not  in  the  future  remember  and  requite  this  great  service. 
Finding  his  interlocutor  quite  reticent  on  this  second  point,  he  at 
last  asked  him  outright,  whether  he  remembered  anything  about  their 
former  disagreements,  or  had  heard  Chadbourne  say  any  words  about 
them  ?  To  this  question,  the  other  responded  frankly,  as  in  duty 
bound,  but  kindly  ;  and  the  reply  evidently  pained  the  questioner, 
and  foreshadowed  what  actually  happened  afterward.  So  soon  as 
the  result  of  the  election  was  promulgated  in  Williamstown,  both 
Carter  and  Dim  mock  resigned  at  once  their  respective  professorships, 
the  one  to  take  a  professorship  of  German  at  Yale,  and  the  other  to 
become  master  of  the  Adams  Academy  at  Quincy.  The  separate 
informal  leave-taking  of  these  gentlemen  with  Dr.  Hopkins,  at  both  of 
which  the  writer  chanced  to  be  present,  was  discourteous  to  him  on 
2u 


658  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

the  part  of  both  the  professors,  and  emphatically  and  gratuitously 
so  on  the  part  of  Professor  Dimmock. 

The  inauguration  of  President  Chadbourne,  July  27,  1872,  was  a 
memorable  occasion.  Its  most  distinctive  feature  was  the  address  of 
the  late  president,  after  holding  the  office  for  thirty-six  years,  and 
his  formal  act  of  passing  over  the  keys  of  the  College  to  his  successor. 
The  present  pages  should  hold  of  right  the  introduction  to  this 
address,  and  also  its  central  paragraphs,  as  follows  :  — 

Why  do  I  resign  my  present  position  ? 

One  reason  is,  that  it  may  not  be  asked  why  I  do  not  resign. 

Another  is,  that  it  is  safe  to  go  by  averages.  The  average  man  of  my  age  is 
not  equal  to  the  burden  of  the  office  as  I  have  borne  it ;  and  to  lay  down  the 
burden  and  keep  the  office  would  not  benefit  the  institution. 

A  third  reason  is,  that  whatever  power  I  have  had  to  draw  students  here  is 
diminished  and  diminishing.  I  am  now  three  score  and  ten  years  old.  From 
my  having  been  here  so  long  it  is  generally  supposed  that  I  am  much  older.  A 
young  man  entering  College  knows  that  he  would  not  come  under  my  instruction 
for  three  years,  and  I  know  that  the  impression  in  regard  to  my  age  has  worked, 
and  would  continue  to  work  increasingly,  against  the  College.  A  change  must 
come  soon.  I  see  nothing' that  could  be  gained  by  delay,  while,  in  the  present 
state  of  the  institution  and  of  educational  movements,  much  might  be  lost  to  my 
successor.  A  guiding  and  vigorous  hand  that  is  to  hold  the  helm  for  some  time 
to  come  is  now  needed. 

Other  reasons  might  be  given.  I  will  only  add,  that  while  I  have  regretted  to 
go  counter  to  the  wishes  of  the  trustees  expressed  a  year  ago,  when  I  gave  notice 
of  my  purpose  to  resign,  and  also  to  the  opinion  of  friends  whom  I  honor,  yet 
that  I  have  not  taken  this  step  without  the  advice  of  those  nearest  me ;  and  it 
will  be  of  weight  with  many  when  I  say  that  my  brother  strongly  advised  it. 

But  buildings,  grounds,  apparatus,  funds,  are  but  instruments.  What  have 
we  done  in  teaching  and  in  forming  men  ?  We  have  first  increased  the  teaching 
force.  Thirty-six  years  ago  there  were  but  three  full  professorships.  Now  there 
are  nine.  Then  we  have  changed  the  character  of  the  teaching.  For  a  long  time 
part  of  the  instruction  was  given  by  tutors.  Now  there  are  no  tutors.  To  have 
professors  only  was  a  great  step,-  involving  the  essential  thing  in  a  College.  A 
College  is  like  a  lighthouse.  The  structure  may  be  vast,  but  if  the  light  at  its 
top  be  dim  it  is  good  for  nothing.  So  the  value  of  a  College  depends  on  its 
teaching  and  formative  power,  and  these  will  depend  more  on  right  methods  of 
instruction,  including  the  arrangement  of  studies,  and  on  having  the  right  men, 
than  on  any  thing  that  money  can  buy.  Money  can  even  buy  teaching  power, 
which  many,  with  knowledge  enough,  have  not ;  but  good,  common  sense,  and 
weight  of  character,  and  the  power  of  inspiration,  and  unselfish  devotion  to  the 
higher  interests  of  the  young  men,  money  cannot  buy ;  and  without  these  the 
best  results  of  a  College  will  be  far  from  being  reached.  At  present  the  College 
is  rightly  constituted,  and  approximates,  more  nearly  than  I  had  expected  to  see 
it  what  I  had  steadily  labored  for,  that  is,  the  power  to  do  for  young  men  in 
giving  them  a  liberal  education  ;  and,  in  forming  them  to  a  right  character,  all 
that  can  be  done  in  four  years.  For  this  its  surroundings  are  most  favorable, 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  659 

and,  even  as  now  endowed,  I  do  not  believe  it  is  excelled  in  this  respect  by  any 
institution  in  the  country. 

There  is  a  false  impression  in  regard  to  the  benefit  to  undergraduates  of  the 
accumulation  of  materials  and  books,  and  of  a  large  number  of  teachers.  It  is 
not  by  the  amount  of  food  in  the  larder  that  might  be  eaten,  or  by  tasting  a  little 
of  a  great  variety  of  dishes  that  a  strong  constitution  is  built  up.  It  is  from  these 
that  dyspepsia  comes.  .  What  is  needed,  and  all  that  is  needed,  is  enough  of  the 
very  best  food  so  provided  as  to  meet  the  changing  wants  of  the  system  and  then 
appetite,  and  digestion,  and  assimilative  power  ;  and  that  is  the  best  institution, 
physically  or  mentally,  where  there  is  the  most  of  these.  I  should  say,  also,  that 
for  the  best  ends  of  an  undergraduate  course,  the  average  number  of  this  College 
for  the  last  twenty  years  is  quite  sufficient  and  better  than  more. 

The  inaugural  address  of  Dr.  Chadbourne  was  able  and  noteworthy 
throughout.  Its  introduction  and  three  of  its  more  significant 
paragraphs  will  soon  be  reproduced  as  they  were  spoken  and  printed. 
As  Dr.  Hopkins  took  pains  to  express  at  length  the  grounds  of  his 
confidence  in  his  successor,  also  to  make  an  implied  apology  for 
what  seemed  to  most  the  latter's  changeableness,  and  also  to  give 
him  in  passing  a  few  words  of  caution,  —  a  handsome  reference  to 
his  distinguished  predecessor  which  it  is  not  needful  to  quote  here, 
it  is  fit  that  these  points  also  should  be  added  to  those  already  quoted 
above. 

From  the  time  he  had  entered  this  College,  coming,  as  I  remember,  partic- 
ularly commended  to  me,  I  have  known  the  President  elect,  or  known  of  him, 
as  a  student,  as  a  tutor,  as  a  professor  in  this  and  other  Colleges,  as  a  preacher 
and  public  lecturer,  as  a  business  man,  as  a  member  of  our  State  Senate,  as 
President  of  the  University  of  Wisconsin,  as  an  author,  and  have  known  that 
what  he  has  done  in  each  of  these  positions  and  relations  has  been  a  decided 
success.  Doing  many  things,  he  has  done  them  all  well,  and  in  some  has  gained 
high  distinction  ;  and  if,  in  doing  many  things,  he  has  changed  often,  it  has 
always  been  for  the  better,  and  so  is  no  evidence  that  he  is  changeful.  This 
success  he  owes  to  a  remarkable  combination  of  executive  power  with  the  power 
of  investigation  and  of  teaching  ;  his  power  of  investigation  having  been  shown 
in  his  published  works,  that  do  honor  to  the  College  and  to  the  country,  and 
his  power  of  teaching  in  the  enthusiasm  awakened  in  his  classes.  I  know  him 
as  thoroughly  in  sympathy  with  the  College  in  the  spirit  of  what  has  already 
been  done  —  its  objects  and  its  methods  ;  and  also  with  that  system  of  religious 
truth  which  has  been  held  here. 

With  this  knowledge  then,  and  also  with  a  high  personal  regard  and  esteem, 
I  rejoice  to  commit  to  you,  sir,  the  office  which  I  now  formally  resign,  and  of 
which  these  keys  are  the  emblem,  and,  by  the  authority  of  its  trustees,  to 
constitute  you,  as  I  now  do,  President  of  Williams  College. 

In  doing  this,  your  attachment  to  the  College  as  one  of  its  Alumni  and  your 
wide  experience  in  this  and  other  Institutions,  preclude  a  call  for  any  words  of 
exhortation  or  advice  from  me.  I  will  only  say  that,  in  executing  the  trust  thus 
committed  to  you,  you  will  need  not  only  authority  but  influence ;  not  only 


660  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

wisdom,  but  the  "meekness  of  wisdom"  ;  not  only  strength,  but  the  forbear- 
ance which  conscious  strength  gives.     For  these  you  know  where  to  look. 

The  form  of  Dr.  Chadbourne's  introduction  is  made  to  seem  more 
appropriate,  when  one  remembers  that  the  special  studies  of  his  life- 
time had  been  in  the  general  field  of  natural  history. 

It  is  the  order  of  nature,  in  both  the  vegetable  and  animal  kingdoms,  that  all 
growth  shall  be  marked  by  periods.  The  time  of  growth  is  preceded  by  apparent 
quiet,  —  in  the  outward  activity  at  least,  — a  preparation  season,  when  material 
is  collected  and  energy  garnered,  until  the  fixed  period  of  development,  or  some 
accidental  condition,  calls  them  into  activity.  The  grain  of  corn  sends  up  its 
folded  blade  of  green,  and  the  century-plant  its  massive  trunk  and  wealth  of 
flowers,  from  their  slowly  garnered  materials  —  extreme  types  of  that  periodic 
growth,  which  marks  the  change  of  field  and  forest,  and  to  a  greater  or  less 
degree,  the  varied  forms  of  animal  life.  In  many  kinds  of  the  animal  kingdom, 
the  change  is  almost  magical.  The  old  form  is  broken,  deserted  or  moulded  into 
a  higher  type,  as  the  being  passes  on  to  a  higher  life.  Then  in  this  transition 
state,  is  the  time  of  hope  and  fear  for  the  progressive  being.  Then  new  possibili- 
ties and  new  manifestations  of  power  give  hope,  and  the  daring  use  of  untried 
powers  invites  the  destroyer,  and  not  unfrequently  leads  their  possessor  to 
destruction.  Then  is  the  time,  when  Natural  Selection  manifests  its  agency,  as 
large  numbers  disappear  and  the  favored  few  survive  to  perform  and  enjoy  all 
that  their  highest  power  and  capabilities  permit. 

I  should  be  doing  violence  to  my  own  convictions,  to  my  high  sense  of  respect 
and  regard  for  the  Trustees,  who  have  administered  the  affairs  of  this  Col- 
lege, and  for  the  men  who  have  composed  its  Faculty,  if  I  hesitated  to  declare 
that  in  my  judgment,  the  instruction  in  Williams  College  has,  upon  the  whole, 
afforded  as  true  a  type  of  high  education  as  that  in  any  College  of  our  land.  If 
she  has  not  made  as  accurate  scholars  in  all  departments,  she  has  made  as  able 
men,  as  any  other  institution.  The  position  of  the  Williams  Alumni  in  the  pro- 
fessional schools,  and  every  department  of  human  activity,  is  better  proof  of  her 
work  than  any  words  of  mine.  She  has  lacked  means,  and  she  has  been  far 
from  perfect,  as  her  best  friends  are  ready  to  allow.  But  if  her  Alumni  have 
had  occasion  to  regret  her  deficiencies,  it  is  because  she  gave  them  so  much  of 
solid  education,  that  they  understood  their  own  wants  as  well  as  the  wants  of 
the  College.  They  went  out  with  an  eagerness  to  labor,  and  with  habits  of  inde- 
pendent thought,  that  soon  carried  them  to  a  position  where  the  best  College 
education  seems  ridiculously  meagre,  if  not  sadly  defective.  The  work  they 
have  done  for  themselves  and  the  world,  shows  that  they  went  forth  with  eager, 
healthful,  well-trained  minds,  a  far  better  preparation  for  life  than  special 
knowledge,  without  system  or  living  power  of  growth. 

We  propose,  then,  for  Williams  College  no  revolution,  no  reform  even,  in  its 
aim,  for  that  we  believe  to  be  right.  We  have  nothing  in  its  system  to  root  up. 
We  are  to  cultivate  a  vineyard  that  has  been  well  planted,  pruning  wherever  a 
dead  or  superfluous  branch  may  be  found,  plucking  up  every  brier  and  thorn  as 
it  appears,  digging  deep,  enriching  and  preparing  the  soil,  that  the  fruit  may  be 
more  abundant,  delighting  every  friend  of  the  College,  and  blessing  the  world. 
The  College  is  to-day  like  the  householder,  and  her  voice  is  heard,  and  will  be 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE    CENTENNIAL.  661 

heard  every  hour  of  the  day,  calling  first  of  all  to  her  Alumni,  her  own  children, 
"  Go,  work  to-day  in  my  vineyard." 

A  College  is  simply  an  agency  for  distributing.  It  is  a  Trust  Institution 
where  the  State  and  the  rich  put  funds  for  the  benefit  of  all  who  desire  them  in 
the  form  the  College  is  appointed  to  give.  When  the  College  has  funds  it  is  the 
community,  the  poor  especially,  who  have  so  much  on  deposit,  to  be  drawn  in 
the  form  of  the  best  education.  The  Colleges  discount  every  year,  to  the  extent 
of  their  funds,  to  every  poor  boy  who  applies  for  admission.  It  is  the  commu- 
nity that  suffers,  as  the  College  has  lack  of  funds.  Probably  there  is  no  College 
in  the  country,  which  is  not  compelled  to  withhold  advantages  from  its  students, 
from  a  lack  of  money.  Certainly  they  nearly  all  withhold  from  their  Professors, 
what  their  services  would  rightfully  entitle  them  to  receive,  and  they  are  all 
compelled  to  do  it  to  such  an  extent  that  a  Professor's  work  in  many  of  our 
Colleges,  becomes  missionary  work.  In  consequence  of  the  demands  made  upon 
Professors  and  the  moderate  pay  they  receive,  it  becomes  more  difficult  to  secure 
the  men  that  are  needed.  Those  who  have  special  love  for  the  work,  or  are 
already  in  the  harness,  will  submit  to  labor  for  less  than  they  could  obtain 
elsewhere,  but  the  filling  of  new  chairs  with  competent  men  is  exceedingly 
difficult  now,  and  will  become  more  so,  if  the  present  disparity  between  College 
salaries  and  the  pay  from  other  employments  continue.  We  can  point  to  men, 
whose  names  are  known  to  all  the  people,  who  have  spent  twenty,  and  even 
forty  years,  in  College  work,  and  have  not  received  enough  from  the  College 
treasury  to  pay  the  needful  expenses  of  their  families.  Such  men  are  often 
spoken  of  as  working  for  the  College.  They  ARE  THE  COLLEGE,  so  far  as  it  is 
an  active  agency.  They  are  working  for  the  community,  and  are  entitled  to 
a  fair  support. 

The  address  "  in  behalf  of  the  Alumni "  was  given  by  James  A. 
Garfield,  then  sixteen  years  from  his  graduation  at  the  College,  an 
interval  of  time  filled  up  by  him  with  distinguished  services  both 
military  and  civil.  He  often  returned  to  the  College  in  those  days 
at  the  commencement  time,  and  was  always  warmly  greeted,  and 
sometimes  instrumental  in  showing  up  some  weak  place  in  the 
college  ongoings.  His  address  is  herewith  given  in  full. 

MR.  PRESIDENT:  You  have  accepted  the  symbols  of  authority,  from  yonr 
predecessor  in  office ;  you  have  received  the  official  congratulations  of  the  Board 
of  Trustees  by  whom  you  were  elected  ;  you  have  been  welcomed  by  the  Faculty 
with  whom  you  are  to  labor,  and  by  the  undergraduates  for  whose  benefit  the 
College  exists.  There  is  still  another  constituency  to  whom  the  solemn  and 
impressive  ceremonies  of  this  hour  are  of  the  deepest  interest.  They  are  the 
graduates  of  the  year  and  of  former  years  —  the  Alumni  of  the  College.  Here, 
more  than  half  a  century  ago  —  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  American 
Colleges  —  the  peculiar  relations  of  graduates  to  their  Alma  Mater,  was  recog- 
nized by  the  founding  of  a  Society  of  Alumni.  Its  first  object  was  to  renew  and 
perpetuate  the  memories  and  associations  of  College  life  ;  to  drink  again  at  the 
fresh  fountain  of  youth  whose  inspiration,  at  the  best,  dies  all  too  soon.  But 
recently  the  Alumni  have  been  received  into  nearer  and  still  more  important 


662  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

relations  to  the  College.  They  now  select  one-third  of  the  whole  number  of 
Trustees  and  appoint  committees  to  examine  the  financial  condition  of  the 
College,  to  attend  the  examination  of  its  classes,  and  to  report  to  the  Society  its 
condition  and  prospects.  This  Society,  which  drew  its  life  and  inspiration  from 
the  College,  is  now  returning  to  the  College  its  tribute  of  affection  and  support. 

The  Alumni  have  directed  me  to  present  their  greetings,  and  to  tender  you 
their  cordial  support. 

We  cannot,  if  we  would,  and  if  we  could  we  will  not,  transfer  to  any  other 
the  profound  reverence,  the  deep  affection  with  which  we  cherish  the  name  and 
fame  of  the  retiring  President.  His  title  to  these  is  inalienable  and  imperishable. 
He  is  and  will  continue  to  be  our  President  of  Williams  College.  He  is  also 
yours;  but,  in  loving  him,  we  shall  none  the  less  love  the  College  with  the  true 
loyalty  of  grateful  children.  Its  success  and  glory  in  the  future  will  be  to  us  no 
less  precious  than  in  the  past.  To  its  sacred  memories  will  be  added,  we  trust, 
the  rich  harvest  of  our  hopes. 

To  you,  sir,  as  one  of  our  number,  sharing,  as  we  doubt  not  you  do,  our 
hopes  and  aspirations  for  its  future  —  to  you  and  your  associates  we  look  for  the 
energy  and  intelligence,  guided  by  wisdom,  which  will  lead  the  College  onward 
and  still  upward  in  its  high  career  of  usefulness. 

We  recognize  the  difficulty  of  the  work  you  undertake  as  the  head  of  the 
College  —  a  work  always  great,  always  difficult,  but  now  made  doubly  so  by  the 
example  of  him  who  has  so  long  and  so  nobly  trodden  the  path  which  you  now 
enter.  We  will  not  ask  you  to  bend  the  bow  of  our  Ulysses.  Let  it  here  remain 
unbent  forever  as  the  sacred  symbol  and  trophy  of  victories  achieved.  But  we 
do  expect  you  to  confront  the  future  with  its  new  and  difficult  problems  —  in  the 
spirit  of  fearlessness  and  truth  —  in  a  spirit  conservative  to  save  all  the  garnered 
wisdom  which  experience  has  purchased  —  and  courageous  to  adopt  and  lead  all 
true  reforms,  and  to  work  manfully  by  the  light  of  each  new  rising  sun. 

Working  in  this  spirit,  and  with  these  aims,  success  will  be  secure  ;  and,  what 
is  still  greater  and  better,  it  will  be  deserved. 

In  that  work  you  will  have  the  cordial  support  of  the  Alumni.  They  are  an 
army  seventeen  hundred  strong,  deployed  along  all  the  outposts  and  taking  part 
in  all  the  battles  of  life.  While  you  and  your  associates  are  here,  unfolding  the 
principles  of  science,  we  are  out  in  the  many  fields  of  active  life,  testing  the  work 
which  has  been  done  for  us  here,  and  bringing  back  from  year  to  year  our  sug- 
gestions and  contributions.  But  going  out  or  returning,  sharing  whatever  fortune 
life  may  bring,  we  shall  bear  in  our  hearts  the  deepest  love  for  the  College  and 
our  most  earnest  wishes  for  its  continued  prosperity. 


Next  in  its  independence  and  pertinency  and  comprehensive  wis- 
dom to  the  address  of  Mark  Hopkins,  and  in  certain  respects  supe- 
rior even  to  that,  was  the  address  on  this  occasion  of  John  Bascom 
"in  behalf  of  the  Faculty."  It  is  just  a  quarter  of  a  century  since 
those  words,  which  will  now  be  printed  in  their  entirety,  were  deliv- 
ered ;  and  there  is  not  a  line  of  them  that  is  not  as  appropriate  and 
as  forcible  and  as  worthy  of  practical  heed,  as  on  that  day.  The 
subsequent  spurning  of  the  spirit  of  these  wise  words  by  one  clothed 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  663 

with  nominal  authority  on  this  ground,  has  imparted  an  emphasis  to 
them,  and  given  them  a  sort  of  prophetic  power,  which  they  could 
not  otherwise  have  possessed,  and  renders  it  probable  that  this  ad- 
dress will  survive  in  a  living  way  so  long  as  any  words  survive  ever 
spoken  here  011  any  inaugural  occasion.  The  address  of  Dr.  Hopkins, 
a  portion  of  the  address  of  Dr.  Chadbourne,  and  these  words  of 
Dr.  Bascom,  combined,  present  a  complete  outline  of  the  theory  and 
practice  of  a  successful  New  England  college.  Time  has  not  altered 
the  conditions  of  such  a  success,  and  it  never  will  essentially  alter 
them.  Time  may  indeed  outgrow  the  college  altogether,  and  bestow 
upon  the  world  something  new  and  even  better  in  its  place ;  but  so 
long  as  a  genuine  college  continues,  it  will  be  a  body  of  colleagues ; 
the  president  will  be  "  a  leader  among  equals "  [Bascom] ;  "  the 
Faculty  are  the  College,  so  far  as  it  is  an  active  agency"  [Chad- 
bourne]  ;  and  all  College  officials  will  "  need  not  only  authority  but 
influence,  not  only  wisdom  but  the  meekness  of  wisdom,  not  only 
strength  but  the  forbearance  which  conscious  strength  gives  "  [Hop- 
kins]. The  current  of  prejudice  against  Bascom  at  the  time  of  this 
inauguration,  mainly  on  theological  grounds,  but  subordinately  also 
on  account  of  his  outspoken  independence  of  character  and  judgment, 
did  not  permit  those  more  especially  interested  to  perceive  the  radi- 
cal harmony  of  his  words  with  all  the  rest  that  was  significantly  said 
on  that  occasion.  Even  Chadbourne  was  so  far  deluded  as  to  say 
that  Bascom  stood  there  before  him  "with  a  chip  on  his  shoulder"  ; 
and  good  old  Parson  John  Todd  of  Pittsfield,  one  of  the  trustees, 
who  offered  the  inaugurating  prayer,  said,  that  "  all  of  those  speeches 
might  have  been  made  in  heaven,  —  except  Professor  Bascom' s  !  " 

PAUL  A.  CHADBOURNE,  President  of  Williams  College — By  the  wish  of  the 
Faculty  of  this  College,  and  in  their  behalf,  I  meet  you  here  at  the  threshold  of 
your  new  duties  to  bid  you  welcome,  and  to  assure  you  of  their  cordial  support 
in  every  effort  for  the  well-being  of  our  common  Alma  Mater. 

The  interest  which,  as  a  Faculty,  we  feel  in  Williams  College,  and  in  your 
administration  of  it,  is  not  unknown  to  you.  There  are  no  men,  nor  body  of 
men,  that  are  by  interest,  service  and  love  so  deeply  pledged  to  a  College  as  its 
Faculty  ;  no  men,  nor  body  of  men,  have  had  the  same  opportunities  to  under- 
stand its  wants,  or  the  same  occasion  to  desire  that  they  shall  all  be  fully  met; 
none  who  actually  are  rendering,  or  can  be  expected  to  render  it,  the  same  degree 
of  self-denying  service.  An  educational  institution  is  what  its  Faculty  make  it 
to  be,  neither  less  nor  more.  The  guardians  and  friends  of  a  College  who  fail  to 
see  this  are  in  error. 

There  are  two  conditions  on  which  able  and  independent  men  —  such  as  are 
the  Faculty  of  Williams  College,  and  such  as  should  be  the  Faculty  of  every 
College  —  on  which  able,  independent  and  right-minded  men  will  cordially 


664  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

labor ;  first,  that  they  shall  have  the  ordering  of  the  forms  and  conditions  of 
their  own  work ;  second,  that  they  shall  have  influence  in  that  general  control 
which  includes  their  own  work  with  that  of  others.  Under  the  first  of  these 
particulars  we  gladly  mention  the  generosity,  and,  as  we  believe,  the  wisdom  of 
the  administration  which  has  just  closed,  one  which  has  covered  so  many  halcyon 
days  of  the  College. 

Nor  can  we  turn  from  you,  sir,  who  have  so  long  been  the  honored  President 
of  this  Institution,  to  a  new  incumbent  without  bidding  you  an  adieu  that  gathers 
tenderness  from  memories  scattered  entirely  through  our  College  life,  without 
recalling  obligations  that  began  early  in  our  history  as  students,  and  have  since 
been  often  renewed. 

As  Professors  we  have  been  wont  to  do  each  in  his  own  department  what  was 
right  in  his  own  eyes,  and  he  who  has  the  power  to  teach  must  find  this  liberty 
his  first  condition  of  success.  He  who  requires  dictation  is  unfit  for  instruction. 
We  do  not  see  how  the  public,  or  any  portion  of  it,  shall  say  to  a  College  pro- 
fessor what  or  how  he  shall  teach,  what  opinions  he  shall  hold,  and  when  and 
where  he  shall  express  them,  unless  they  wish  to  degrade  a  branch  of  knowl- 
edge, or  make  its  impartation  contemptible.  When  one  is  called  to  a  professor- 
ship these  subsidiary  questions  are  settled,  and  he  is  then  accepted  in  the  freedom 
and  integrity  and  totality  of  his  manhood. 

The  second  point  is  scarcely  less  important.  It  matters  little  how  skilful 
may  be  subordinate  service,  if  the  vessel  itself  is  to  be  run  on  a  rock.  The 
value  of  the  life-work  of  every  professor  is  dependent,  in  the  first  instance,  on 
his  own  skill,  in  the  second  instance  on  the  able,  successful  administration  of 
the  College  to  which  he  belongs.  It  is  not  strange,  then,  that  he  should  covet 
the  right  to  be  heard  in  its  concerns,  since  these  concerns  are  his  concerns,  in  a 
most  immediate  and  weighty  sense.  He  cannot  prosper,  he  cannot  gain  the 
rewards  of  well-doing,  unless  the  College  prosper,  unless  his  services  and  self- 
denials  are  made  effective  by  the  enterprise  and  wisdom  of  that  system  in  which 
they  are  inclosed.  Petty  tyrannies,  absolute  powers,  secret  counsels  belong  to 
an  army  or  to  a  man-of-war,  in  which  the  barbarous  creed  of  force  still  prevails, 
not  to  a  College. 

There  is  no  room  here  for  jealousies,  for  assertion  of  slight  authority.  The 
College  is  intrusted  to  the  concord  and  wisdom  of  grave  and  unimpassioned 
men.  The  President  is  a  leader  among  equals,  the  weight  of  whose  words  is 
more  that  of  wisdom  than  of  authority.  We  know,  sir,  your  independence  and 
ability,  and  accept  these  qualities  as  your  tacit  pledge,  that  you  are  ready  to 
respect  the  same  endowments  in  others,  and  understand  well  the  conditions 
they  call  for. 

Again,  therefore,  we  welcome  you,  and  pledge  you,  and  through  you  the  Col- 
lege, the  loyalty  which  is  consistent  with  the  higher  loyalty  we  owe  to  ourselves 
and  the  truth. 

Good  men  and  great  men  have  gone  before  you  in  your  office,  greatness  and 
goodness  will  be  confidently  expected  of  you,  and  we  shall  not  stint  the  labor, 
nor  withhold  the  sympathy  that  shall  aid  you  in  meeting  this  demand,  a  demand 
fitted  to  search  your  own  resources,  and  the  resources  of  those  who  shall  work 
with  you. 

We  remember  your  services  here  in  times  past,  the  attachment  you  have 
always  shown  to  the  place  and  the  College,  the  vigorous  spirit  you  have  been 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  665 

wont  to  bring  to  your  undertakings,  and,  with  the  hope  and  buoyancy  born  of 
resolve,  we  welcome  you  to  the  crowning  labor  of  a  patient,  considerate  and 
efficient  presidency,  waiting  on  the  conditions  of  a  divine  favor  that  underlie  all 
successful  human  action. 

Special  difficulties  confronted  President  Chadbourne  when  he 
assumed  the  charge  of  the  College,  besides  those  which  always  sur- 
round a  new  president,  whether  he  be  thoroughly  familiar  with  the 
institution  or  not,  and  these  must  be  borne  in  mind  before  a  just 
judgment  can  be  pronounced  upon  his  success  or  the  want  of  it. 
(1)  The  sudden  vacancies  in  two  important  professorships,  caused 
by  the  resignation  of  Carter  and  Dimmock,  which  must  of  course  be 
filled  before  college  work  could  begin  in  the  fall,  made  a  quick 
demand  upon  his  resources.  Taken  all  in  all,  the  College  was  fortu- 
nate in  the  men  then  secured  for  these  places :  Edward  H.  Griffin,  of 
the  class  of  1862,  for  the  Latin  department,  and  0.  M.  Eernald,  a 
graduate  of  Harvard,  for  the  Greek  department.  Griffin,  oldest  son 
of  the  former  professor  of  that  name,  had  been  a  tutor  for  one  year 
shortly  after  his  graduation,  and  then  had  been  settled  in  the  Con- 
gregational ministry  in  Burlington.  He  had  no  special  interest  in 
the  Latin  language  and  literature,  though  he  was  competent  in  them, 
and  found  his  teaching  duties  burdensome,  while  his  classes  found 
them  monotonous.  It  is  vividly  remembered  by  some,  that,  in  a 
faculty  meeting,  when  Chadbourne  chanced  to  be  absent,  Griffin, 
with  great  frankness  (which  was  not  common  with  him),  contrasted 
the  ministry  with  a  professorship  to  the  extreme  disadvantage  of  the 
latter  in  point  of  pleasure  and  opportunity.  It  is  also  remembered 
that  Ira  Eemsen,  Professor  of  Physics  and  Chemistry,  who  came 
into  the  faculty  at  the  same  time  with  Griffin  and  Fernald,  took  up 
the  cudgels  on  the  contrary  in  behalf  of  a  professorship.  Griffin 
continued  with  the  Latin  for  nine  years,  until  the  accession  of  Pres- 
ident Carter,  but  along  a  relatively  low  plane  of  impulse  and  influ- 
ence for  a  man  of  his  talents  and  culture,  when  he  was  transferred 
to  the  department  of  Rhetoric,  which  he  liked  much  better,  and  in 
which  he  did  work  more  stimulating  to  the  students.  In  1886  he 
took  from  the  enfeebled  hands  of  Mark  Hopkins  the  chair  of  Moral 
and  Intellectual  Philosophy,  which  he  occupied  with  fair  success  for 
about  three  years,  when  he  resigned  it  to  take  a  somewhat  similar 
professorship  in  Johns  Hopkins  University.  It  cannot  be  truthfully 
said  that,  during  these  seventeen  years  of  changing  work  at  Williams, 
Griffin  made  any  very  deep  impression  upon  the  college  life,  and 
during  the  last  part  of  this  period  he  voluntarily  came  under  circum- 
stances almost  fatal  to  a  genuine  college  influence.  It  will  be  a  duty 


666  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

somewhat  further  on  in  these  pages  briefly  to  unfold  these  circum- 
stances. It  is  enough  here  to  add,  that  a  common  and  just  judgment 
of  his  classes  and  colleagues  was  that  Professor  Griffin  was  not 
always  in  plain  sight.  There  was  a  pretty  general  distrust  of  his 
sincerity  in  talk  and  action. 

Professor  Fernald  came  to  the  College  on  call  from  the  high  school 
at  Springfield.  T.  M.  Brown  of  that  city,  of  the  class  here  of  1859, 
was  the  main  instrumentality  in  securing  this  removal.  He  entered 
at  once  with  alacrity  and  industry  upon  the  duties  of  his  place. 
Things  seemed  strange  and  loose  to  him,  particularly  in  contrast 
with  the  strict  rules  of  a  Massachusetts  high  school.  His  prede- 
cessor had  demoralized  the  department  more  or  less,  as  has  been 
shown  above,  and  the  whole  college  was  more  or  less  demoralized  in 
the  transition  from  Hopkins  to  Chadbourne.  Fernald  was  intelligent 
and  conscientious  and  faithful ;  but  he  did  not  readily  and  strongly 
orient  himself  in  relations  with  his  colleagues  or  his  classes  ;  no  com- 
plete stranger,  as  he  was,  could  have  compassed  these  points  in  any 
very  brief  time  of  service ;  and  the  structure  of  his  mind  and  the 
habits  of  his  life  thus  far  were  unfavorable  to  any  speedy  personal 
adaptation  to  his  new  conditions.  Consequently  he  drifted.  He  did 
not  find  any  firm  anchorage  for  a  good  while  thereafter.  Hem  sen,  on 
the  other  hand,  who  came  in  at  the  same  time  an  equal  stranger,  owing 
to  quicker  apprehensions,  a  greater  independence,  and  feeling  less  the 
need  of  a  routine  and  of  external  authority,  gained  a  strong  hold  of 
his  department  and  a  firm  footing  in  the  College,  though  he  stayed 
but  four  years,  and  then  went  to  Johns  Hopkins,  where  he  greatly 
distinguished  himself  along  the  same  lines.  Holding  a  professor- 
ship unusually  extended  in  point  of  time  though  never  rising  into 
the  front  rank  of  Williams  professorships  in  point  of  influence  and 
power,  and  showing  the  qualities  of  a  first-rate  schoolmaster  rather 
than  those  of  an  inspiring  teacher,  Professor  Fernald  always  dis- 
played accurate  Greek  scholarship,  remarkable  assiduity  in  all  his 
work,  patience  and  self-restraint  under  recurring  difficulties,  a  will- 
ingness to  be  useful  wherever  his  help  was  solicited,  and  ever  a 
strange  sense  of  duty  in  serving  the  silly  and  selfish  vagaries  of 
some  of  those  in  authority,  which  last  must  at  times  have  cost  him 
some  loss  of  self-respect,  and  which  certainly  cost  him  some  loss  of 
the  thorough  respect  of  those  about  him. 

(2)  The  religious  condition  of  the  College  at  the  time  of  Chad- 
bourne's  accession  was  the  source  of  peculiar  anxiety  to  him.  Pro- 
fessor Albert  Hopkins  had  been  the  local  religious  leader  for  forty 
years  previous  to  the  resignation  of  his  professorship  in  1868.  The 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL. 


667 


four  years  following  this,  till  his  death  and  the  coming  in  of  Chad- 
bourne,  had  been  somewhat  confused  religiously.  There  had  always 
been,  perhaps  from  the  beginning  of  the  College,  a  weekly  religious 
gathering  for  the  attendance  of  the  faculty  and  students  combined. 
It  had  changed  its  form  somewhat  from  time  to  time,  and  President 
Hopkins  had  made  it  for  many  years  a  short  lecture  on  Saturday 
evenings.  After  1868,  he  justly  felt  that  he  ought  to  be  relieved 


IRA    REMSEN. 
Professor  of  Physics  and  Chemistry,   1872-76. 

from  that  special  service,  and  it  would  naturally  have  fallen  into  the 
hands  of  Professor  Bascom,  if  it  were  to  be  continued  as  a  stated 
lecture ;  but  the  president  had  a  notion  that  it  better  take  the  form 
of  a  conference  meeting  to  be  led  by  three  or  four  of  the  professors 
in  rotation ;  and,  owing  to  some  little  friction  of  some  sort  between 
Bascom  and  the  president,  the  meeting  failed  after  a  time  even  in 
this  easier  form;  and  when  Chadbourne  took  hold,  he  found  the 
College  without  any  general  religious  meeting  in  the  week  of  any 


668  WILLIAMSTCA\7N   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

kind.  This  distressed  him.  He  promptly  asked  Professor  Perry 
to  take  a  college  meeting  for  Monday  evening,  to  conduct  it  in  any 
way  he  thought  proper,  and  to  be  personally  responsible  for  it. 
The  meeting  thus  begun  on  those  terms  continued  for  eleven  years 
without  any  break  whatever,  and  without  any  lessening  of  attend- 
ance or  interest,  until  President  Carter  broke  it  up,  hoping  that 
another  form  of  his  own  choosing  might  prove  more  efficient.  It 
did  not.  The  College  has  now  been  for  many  years  without  any 
weekly  religious  meeting  of  that  kind  in  any  form  (1897).  There 
have  been,  however,  various  substitutes  adopted  from  time  to  time. 
In  another  way  President  Chadbourne  felt  moved  from  the  outset 
of  his  office  to  try  to  promote  the  religious  knowledge  and  activity 
of  the  students.  In  connection  with  Sunday  evening  prayers  in  the 
chapel,  he  made  a  short  address  to  them  on  points  of  personal 
religion.  These  addresses  were  simple  and  direct  and  pertinent  to 
the  time  and  place  and  audience,  and  manifested  (as  those  pro- 
fessors thought  who  heard  them),  the  best  of  motives  and  an  ex- 
cellent spirit  and  judgment  on  his  part  in  the  choice  of  topics  and 
mode  of  treatment.  Whether  it  were,  that  the  students  thought 
that  an  unfair  advantage  was  taken  of  them  in  connection  with 
prayers,  attendance  on  which  was  compulsory,  or  that  they  had  some 
subtle  prejudices  against  the  president  as  a  religious  teacher  and 
leader,  they  did  not  give  good  attention  on  these  occasions,  and  this 
special  service  was  soon  intermitted.  The  president  was  a  warm- 
hearted Christian  man,  and  earnestly  desirous  to  exert  a  wholesome 
and  steady  religious  influence  over  the  College  so  long  as  he  was  at 
the  head  of  it.  How  to  do  this  was  a  question  that  confronted  him 
at  the  outset,  and  continued  with  him  until  his  exit.  But  he  was  at 
no  time  able,  practically,  to  solve  the  problem.  The  students  did 
not,  as  a  body,  really  like  to  hear  him  preach,  and  still  less  to  hear 
him  in  those  occasional  addresses  that  belong  to  the  ongoings  of  a 
religious  college.  On  one  of  the  annual  days  of  prayer  for  colleges, 
that  fell  about  the  middle  of  his  term,  the  president  made  the  first 
brief  address  to  the  assembled  students,  and  Professor  Perry  the 
other.  When  the  former  closed,  there  was  a  distinct  stamping  of 
feet  all  over  the  chapel  floor,  as  in  the  way  of  ordinary  applause ; 
while  the  latter  spoke  and  when  he  closed,  a  more  attentive  and 
reverent  and  apparently  impressed  college  audience  could  not  have 
been  desired.  The  difference  in  the  two  cases  defies  the  writer's 
powers  of  analysis.  It  may  be,  that  the  students  had  in  some  way 
an  inkling  of  what  may  be  called  the  president's  bigotry.  A  pathetic 
instance  of  the  exercise  of  this  narrow  spirit  was  exhibited  toward 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE    CENTENNIAL.  669 

Professor  Gilson,  a  saintly  man  if  there  ever  was  one  in  connection 
with  the  College,  who,  in  one  of  the  Monday  evening  meetings,  had 
expressed  himself  in  devout  language  differing  somewhat  in  tone 
from  the  customary  orthodox  phrases,  and  who  was  told  by  Chad- 
bourne,  at  the  close  of  the  meeting,  that  his  participation  in  the 
religious  meetings  of  the  College  was  not  desired.  Gilson  was  a 
confirmed  invalid,  and  was  even  then  nearing  his  departure.  He 
came  to  the  meeting  with  difficulty,  and  his  heavenly  spirit  through 
unusual  words  bestowed  a  benediction  upon  it.  It  is  believed  that 
Gilson  never  mentioned  this  to  any  one.  Chadbourne  himself  told 
the  writer  of  it  after  Gilson's  death. 

(3)  The  third  incidental  difficulty  experienced  by  Dr.  Chadbourne, 
and  one  more  inescapable  than  either  of  the  others,  was  his  ex- 
traordinary relations  to  Dr.  Hopkins,  who,  though  ceasing  to  be 
president,  continued  to  be  teacher,  and  continued  of  course  to  be  the 
chief  figure-head  of  the  College.  General  Garfield,  speaking  in 
behalf  of  the  alumni,  had  told  Chadbourne  publicly  at  the  inaugura- 
tion that  he  could  never  be  the  president  of  those  whom  he  repre- 
sented on  that  occasion.  Of  course  he  could  not.  Dr.  Hopkins 
thoroughly  occupied  that  field,  because  it  was  his  own  field  by 
emption  and  preemption.  There  was  no  help  for  that.  No  caution 
or  conduct  on  the  part  of  either  or  both  could  possibly  have  pre- 
vented unpleasant  experiences  and  comparisons,  particularly  on 
the  Commencement  stage  and  at  the  alumni  dinner.  To  succeed 
Dr.  Hopkins  as  president  and  still  have  him  on  the  ground  as  a 
vigorous  and  dominant  teacher,  the  semi-idol  of  the  whole  body  of 
living  alumni,  could  have  been  a  present  boon  to  no  man,  no  matter 
how  calm  his  temperament  or  how  high  his  standing. 

But  Chadbourne's  temperament  was  not  calm,  nor  was  his  stand- 
ing high  enough  easily  to  escape  comparisons  the  more  readily 
started  by  the  obvious  contrast  between  his  short  stature  and  no 
way  very  striking  presence  and  the  magnificent  proportions  and 
overshadowing  presence  of  his  predecessor.  Nor  was  this  by  any 
means  all  in  their  relative  relations  that  held  the  menace  of  future 
trouble.  Dr.  Hopkins  claimed  it  as  a  right  of  his  long  and  sur- 
passing service  to  the  College  to  dictate  the  person  of  his  successor. 
He  did  so ;  and  not  in  his  usual  way  of  consultation  and  conciliation 
with  his  colleagues.  Not  a  single  word  was  said  beforehand  to  one 
of  those  faithful  men  on  whose  judgment  he  commonly  placed  so 
much  reliance,  unless  it  were  to  Sanborn  Tenney,  who  perhaps 
deserved  this  distinguishing  mark  of  confidence,  in  case  it  were 
given,  which  is  doubtful.  In  explanation  of  this  reticence,  however, 


670  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

it  should  be  said  that  he  was  well  aware  some  little  time  before  the 
election  was  actually  had  that  Carter  was  an  avowed  and  Bascom 
a  quasi  candidate  for  the  succession.  His  full  and  free  and  repeated 
conferences  with  Perry  after  the  election  had  taken  place  showed 
clearly  enough  that  he  had  lost  no  confidence  in  him  as  one  in 
whose  mind  the  interests  of  the  College  were  foremost.  He  wanted 
it  distinctly  understood  that  he  had  chosen  Chadbourne  as  his  suc- 
cessor, and  that  he  had  practically  brought  about  his  formal  election 
without  any  serious  question  from  any  quarter.  This  was  the  exact 
truth  in  the  premises.  But  it  was  a  truth  not  altogether  satisfactory 
to  either  of  the  main  parties  to  it.  Chadbourne,  now  that  he  was  in, 
had  much  rather  have  come  in  by  the  free  choice  fairly  canvassed  of 
his  colleagues  and  of  the  body  of  the  alumni.  There  is  not  much 
doubt,  if  any,  that  he  could  have  come  in  by  this  open  door.  That 
would  certainly  have  been  the  better  way.  A  conviction  of  this  led 
him  to  belittle  his  obligations  to  his  former  chief ;  and,  besides,  he 
remembered  uneasily  what  he  had  said  many  years  before :  "  The 
only  way  to  influence  Dr.  Hopkins  is  to  flatter  him."  Had  he  him- 
self not  tried  on  his  own  receipt,  and  had  it  not  succeeded  ? 

On  the  other  side,  the  late  president  did  not  quite  relish  all  of  the 
retrospect  and  its  issue.  Was  it  a  sound  principle  for  an  outgoing 
college  president  to  exert  such  a  controlling  influence  as  this  on  the 
choice  of  his  successor  ?  Was  it  treating  just  right  the  real  and 
whole  constituency  of  a  college  ?  Was  it  likely  in  this  case  to  pro- 
mote kindly  and  stable  relations  as  between  promoter  and  promoted  ? 
He  did  not  forget  what  Perry  had  frankly  told  him  on  his  earnest 
request  to  know,  namely,  that  Chadbourne  had  judged  him  very 
accessible  to  personal  praise,  and  that  it  was  quite  possible  that  he 
had  yielded  more  than  was  meet  to  such  influence.  It  would  have 
been  a  miracle  if  two  men  standing  in  such  reciprocal  relations  as 
all  these  had  gotten  on  without  friction  and  mutual  repulsion. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  first  term  had  not  passed  before  Chad- 
bourne  announced  to  his  faculty,  although  not  in  faculty  meeting, 
that  such  friction  existed,  and  some  of  the  grounds  of  it.  It  was, 
however,  at  the  end  of  the  year  and  on  the  Commencement  stage 
that  the  first  open  evidence  appeared  that  their  relations  were 
strained  and  would  be  pretty  certain  to  become  more  so.  The 
valedictorian  of  the  class  of  1873,  in  taking  the  usual  leave  of  the 
president  in  the  name  of  the  class,  was  rather  brief  and  cool,  as 
toward  President  Chadbourne,  and  emphatically  warm  and  extended 
as  toward  ex-President  Hopkins,  who  sat  beside  him.  This  was 
perfectly  natural  on  the  part  of  the  speaker,  for  Hopkins  had  been 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  671 

the  president  during  three-fourths  of  the  college  course  of  the  class, 
and  besides  had  been  their  principal  teacher  throughout  the  Senior 
year  just  ended.  Hopkins  was  in  no  sense  whatever  to  be  blamed, 
for  he  knew  nothing  of  it  beforehand,  though  of  course  it  was  very 
grateful  to  him.  Neither  the  valedictorian  himself  nor  the  Pro- 
fessor of  Bhetoric,  who  had  passed  upon  his  piece,  saw  anything  out 
of  plumb  in  its  closing  passages.  But  Chadbourne  manifested  his 
displeasure  on  the  spot.  If  the  reader  will  but  put  himself  in 
the  president's  place,  he  will  see  that  there  were  grounds  for 
displeasure.  Still,  the  displeasure,  especially  as  extended  after 
the  event,  was  disproportioned  to  its  occasion.  He  was  incensed 
against  the  valedictorian,  against  the  rhetorical  professor,  and  even 
against  the  entire  class.  He  saw  to  it  effectually  that  nothing  of 
the  sort  ever  took  place  again. 

It  is  in  no  sense  worth  the  while  to  follow  in  detail  the  causes 
and  occasions  of  the  further  and  deeper  alienation  as  between  these 
two  men.  The  hardest  place  for  them  to  get  over  was  the  annual 
alumni  dinner  at  Commencement  time,  at  which  both  were  ex- 
pected to  speak  in  succession ;  at  which  it  was  impossible  for  the 
younger  man  to  gain  the  attention  and  applause  freely  accorded  to 
the  older  one,  for  the  simple  reason  that  he  excited  the  more  inter- 
est as  having  done  and  even  doing  the  greater  work.  After  two 
or  three  years  of  this,  Chadbourne  took  the  bull  by  the  horns,  and 
said  at  the  opening  of  his  speech :  "  It  is  often  said  to  me,  t  You 
have  a  big  pair  of  shoes  to  Jill ! '  I  have  never  proposed  to  fill  any- 
body's shoes  but  my  own.  /  am  trying  my  best  to  Jill  my  own 
shoes  ! "  The  burst  of  applause  that  followed  this  sally,  the  most 
he  was  ever  able  to  elicit  on  such  an  occasion,  showed  that  the 
alumni  appreciated  the  immense  difficulty  he  was  laboring  under, 
and  approved  his  independence  of  spirit  and  expression.  There- 
after, Dr.  Hopkins  avowedly  confined  himself,  in  his  always  wel- 
comed speech,  to  personal  matters  and  points  of  reminiscence,  and 
left  the  College  to  be  reported  on  by  the  president  proper.  But 
no  precautions  and  no  forbearance  on  either  side,  or  both  sides, 
could  make  the  stream  run  smooth  which  starts  out  amid  rocks 
with  sharp  points,  and  continued  to  run  through  and  past  the  same. 
Neither  of  the  men  was  happy  in  contact  and  association  with  the 
other;  and  it  came  at  last  to  merely  casual  speaking  relations, 
when  these  could  not  be  easily  avoided.  Attention  has  already 
been  called  to  the  more  obvious  lesson  to  be  drawn  from  this  un- 
fortunate state  of  things,  namely,  that  an  outgoing  college  president 
should  have  little  or  nothing  to  say  in  the  choice  of  his  successor.  This 


672  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

lesson  conies  again  with  redoubled  emphasis  from  the  experience 
next  following  his  of  1872,  that  is  to  s&y,  that  of  1881. 

The  query  may  here  be  raised,  while  no  answer  will  now  be 
attempted,  whether  it  would  not  have  been  better,  for  the  peace 
of  mind  of  Dr.  Hopkins  in  his  last  years,  for  his  permanent  post- 
humous reputation,  and  for  the  general  good  of  the  College  even, 
if  he  had  resigned  his  teaching  functions  when  he  resigned  his 
presidency  in  1872 ;  if,  when  he  gave  up  most,  he  had  also  given 
up  all,  so  far  as  Williams  was  concerned  ?  He  had  then  had  forty- 
two  consecutive  years  of  teaching  at  home;  lecturing  away  from 
home  would  have  been  still  even  more  open  to  him.  There  are 
two  strong  sides  to  this  question.  More  and  later  light  must  fall 
upon  it  before  a  rational  judgment  can  be  entered. 

The  expectation  of  the  trustees,  and  of  the  alumni,  and  of  the 
public  naturally  was,  that  Chadbourne  would  enter  at  once  upon 
efforts  to  recruit  the  funds  of  the  College;  for  he  had  some  repu- 
tation as  a  business  man,  and  his  associations  had  lately  been  with 
some  of  the  leading  capitalists  of  the  county  and  of  the  State. 
Most  of  the  colleges  of  New  England  had  already  reaped  a  large 
harvest  out  of  the  fortunes  so  easily  made  during  and  after  the 
Civil  War  by  manufacturers  and  contractors  and  large  operators 
generally,  assisted,  as  those  were,  by  the  inflated  prices  caused  by 
greenback  money  declining  in  value.  Mark  Hopkins  could  not 
have  been  expected  at  his  age,  and  with  his  past,  to  join  in  the 
college  scramble  for  a  share  in  these  largely  factitious  gains.  The 
college  funds  fell  relatively  much  behind  in  this  interval  of  time. 
Chadbourne's  accession  to  the  presidency  was  facilitated  and  wel- 
comed on  the  ground  that  he  would  probably  make  up  lost  time 
by  addressing  himself  at  once  to  this  task.  As  Hopkins  continued 
to  teach  much  as  of  old,  and  as  the  vacated  professorships  were 
well  filled,  Chadbourne  could  have  been  absent  from  college  on 
this  errand  a  good  deal,  probably  without  weakening  its  stated  on- 
goings at  all.  If  it  had  been  understood  that  he  were  away  for 
that  purpose,  he  would  probably  have  held  and  gained  popularity 
among  the  students  much  more  than  it  was  possible  for  him  to  do 
by  settling  down  to  a  certain  routine  of  executive  work  not  at  all 
to  be  appreciated  by  them.  Bascom  and  Perry  were  then  in  their 
prime,  both  of  them  having  been  active  and  successful  in  their 
places  for  about  twenty  years,  and  both  of  them  having  much 
influence  with  the  students.  But  Chadbourne  reasoned  in  another 
direction.  As  he  explained  to  one  of  these  professors,  he  wanted 
to  get  all  things  into  good  shipshape  before  he  went  out  to  beg. 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE    TILL   THE    CENTENNIAL.  673 

And  he  wanted  to  increase  the  number  of  students  first.  This  was 
not  very  logical  reasoning,  and  it  did  not  work  well  in  practice. 
When  everything  is  in  good  working  order,  and  the  attendance 
increasing,  there  would  seem  to  be  less  point  in  an  appeal  for  help. 
At  any  rate,  such  an  appeal  was  not  made.  Nor  were  the  numbers 
in  attendance  increased,  on  the  whole.  The  average  number  of 
graduates  during  the  first  five  years  under  Chadbourne  was  thirty ; 
the  average  during  the  last  five  years  under  Hopkins  had  been 
thirty-seven.  The  time  never  came  during  his  nine  years'  service, 
when  it  seemed  best  to  him  to  make  a  steady  and  persistent  effort 
to  increase  the  endowment  funds.  In  justice  to  him,  however,  it 
should  be  said,  that  his  first  year  of  service  was  by  much  the  most 
favorable  of  any  that  fell  during  his  term,  for  such  a  purpose  as 
that.  In  1873  there  commenced  a  commercial  depression,  that 
continued  without  much  intermission  till  the  resumption  of  specie 
payments  in  1879. 

Nor  was  Dr.  Chadbourne  fortunate  in  either  of  the  college  build- 
ings that  rose  during  his  presidency  and  under  his  instance.  Good- 
rich Hall,  built  in  1864,  contained  a  la*ge  gymnasium  which  became 
in  the  course  of  years  on  many  accounts  unsatisfactory ;  and  the 
agitation  for  a  smaller  and  more  manageable  one  continued  till  the 
last  year  of  Chadbourne's  office,  when  he  proceeded  to  plan  for  and 
build  another.  It  was  of  wood,  and  was  placed  a  little  to  the  south- 
west of  West  College,  a  location  inconvenient  and  unpopular  to 
the  students  rooming  on  the  East  College  campus.  It  was  unsightly 
also,  and  had  a  transient  look  that  soon  justified  itself  by  its  entire 
disappearance.  The  alumni  dinner  was  held  in  it  in  1882.  That 
Commencement  was  signalized  by  the  appearance  of  the  new  presi- 
dent, Franklin  Carter,  at  all  its  public  exercises  in  the  scholastic 
cap  and  gown.  This  innovation,  proper  enough  in  itself,  was  not 
pleasing  to  most  of  the  alumni,  and  they  made  endless  fun  of  it  in 
private.  Near  the  close  of  the  speaking,  which  always  followed  the 
dinner,  a  harmless  gibe  indulged  in  by  one  of  the  professors  at  the 
new  robe  and  head-gear  brought  out  vociferous  applause.  The  next 
year,  1883,  the  dishes  had  already  been  laid  for  the  dinner  in  the 
same  place  as  before,  and  the  day  before,  when  a  terrific  wind  swept 
through  the  valley  and  brought  the  roof  and  a  large  part  of  the 
frame  of  the  gymnasium  to  the  ground.  The  dishes  of  course 
shared  the  same  fate  as  the  building,  and  helped  to  make  the  whole 
accident  ludicrous.  One  was  about  as  fragile  as  the  other.  The 
dinner  was  seasonably  provided  for  in  the  gymnasium  in  Goodrich 
Hall.  The  class  of  1833  was  holding  its  jubilee  gathering  at  the 
2x 


674 


WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 


time,  and  Martin  I.  Townsend,  their  leader  and  spokesman,  fur- 
nished most  that  was  hilarious  in  the  after-dinner  speaking  of  1883. 
His  discourse,  in  part  at  least,  was  on  the  pertinent  topic  of 
"  Wind."  This  old  gymnasium  room  continued  till  the  erection 
of  the  elegant  Laselle  Gymnasium  in  1886  as  the  current  place  of 
exercise  for  the  students. 

The  only  other  new  college  building  for  which  Dr.  Chadbourne 
stood  in  any  sense  as  sponsor  was  the  so-called  Clark  Hall.     This 


GOODRICH    HALL. 
Built  in  1864. 

building  is  interesting  as  occupying  the  alternate  site  chosen  by 
the  original  trustees  of  the  Williams  Free  School  to  that  on  which 
they  actually  reared  their  first  building  in  1790,  now  the  West 
College.  They  chose  provisionally  two  sites,  subject  to  an  ultimate 
choice  as  between  them.  The  eastern  option  was  a  point  "  opposite 
to  the  old  lime-kiln."  The  "old  lime-kiln"  —  old  in  1788  —  was 
near  the  site  of  the  Soldiers'  Monument.  Clark  Hall  stands  oppo- 
site that  point  across  the  Main  Street.  Edward  Clark,  of  the  class 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  675 

of  1831,  and  a  trustee  from  1878  till  his  death  in  1882,  a  successful 
lawyer  in  New  York,  offered  to  Chadbourne  to  put  up  at  his  own 
expense  and  under  his  own  supervision,  any  needed  college  building, 
whose  purposes  and  proportions  the  president  might  designate.  It 
is  well  understood  that  there  were  no  limitations  at  all  to  this  offer. 
Here  was  an  opportunity  of  one's  lifetime  for  cautious  deliberation, 
wide  consultation  with  others,  and  an  ultimate  decision  that  should 
have  greatly  honored  both  donor  and  chooser.  Here  was  an  offer 
indicating  large  financial  ability  and  a  willingness  to  spend  freely 
in  the  interest  of  the  Alma  Mater.  Chadbourne  reasoned  it  over 
somewhat  in  this  way:  We  need  two  or  three  college  buildings 
very  much,  —  here  is  a  generous  but  indefinite  offer  to  build, — 
probably  this  man  would  just  as  soon  give  us  three  buildings  at 
$25,000  each,  as  one  big  building  for  $75,000,  —  would  it  not  be 
best  to  lead  him  along  by  one  small  building  first  and  thoroughly 
interest  him  in  the  College  that  he  will  then  build  for  us  one  or  two 
more  ?  Mr.  Clark  was  then  living  in  London,  and  could  not  be 
personally  consulted,  though  he  might  have  been  and  should  have 
been  consulted  by  letter.  Chadbourne  talked  it  over  cursorily  with 
members  of  the  faculty  and  with  members  of  the  Board  of  Trustees, 
and  concluded  to  have  a  relatively  small  building  of  the  local  lime- 
stone put  up  for  the  purpose  mainly  of  housing  the  college  collec- 
tions in  natural  history.  Such  a  building  was  accordingly  put  up 
on  the  best  site  left  accessible  to  the  College  on  its  old  grounds  by 
the  direct  agents  of  Mr.  Clark  under  his  own  supervision  and  in 
accordance  with  a  general  plan  furnished  by  the  College  and  elabor- 
ately wrought  out  by  a  competent  architect.  The  actual  construc- 
tion was  shabbily  done,  and  repairs  have  been  repeatedly  made  at 
large  expense.  This  was  dubbed  Clark  Hall.  It  was  neither  this 
nor  that.  A  part  only  of  the  college  collections  in  natural  history 
was  deposited  in  it.  It  served  no  purpose  adequate  to  its  cost, 
which  was  $25,000,  nor  adequate  to  the  munificent  offer  originally 
made,  nov  to  its  honorable  name.  It  was  only  in  harmony  with 
some  of  the  fundamentals  of  human  nature,  that  Edward  Clark 
promptly  and  positively  declined  the  suggestion  made  to  him  that 
he  invest  more  of  his  money  in  a  building  or  buildings  on  the 
college  campus.  Perhaps  this  issue  might  have  been  antici- 
pated. 

It  was  from  the  University  of  Wisconsin  that  Dr.  Chadbourne 
came,  after  an  interval  of  a  year  or  two,  to  be  president  of  Williams. 
One  of  his  old  students  there,  Burr  W.  Jones,  wrote  of  him  as  fol- 
lows, twenty-five  years  after  the  experience  depicted :  — 


676  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

None  but  those  who  knew  the  University  of  Wisconsin  in  her  dark  days  can 
fully  appreciate  the  changes  which  took  place  during  the  administration  of 
President  Paul  A.  Chadbourne,  from  1867  to  1870.  The  legislature  had  just 
made  an  attempt  to  atone  for  the  neglect  and  wrong  doing  of  many  former 
legislatures ;  they  had  recognized  the  institution  by  an  act  showing  a  proper 
conception  of  the  needs  of  a  State  University,  and  had  even  given  promise  that 
her  inheritance  should  be  no  longer  withheld  or  diverted.  For  years  the  stu- 
dents had  felt  it  their  duty  to  watch  and  wait  in  the  galleries  of  the  legislature, 
and  see  whether  the  University  could  exist  another  year.  When  President 
Chadbourne  came  they  soon  found  that  he  knew  all  about  legislatures,  and  they 
found  they  had  little  time  to  play  the  role  of  lobbyists.  Although  in  physical 
stature  President  Chadbourne  was  of  slender  frame  and  shorter  than  most  of  his 
students,  we  never  feared  that  the  dignity  of  his  place  would  not  be  maintained 
nor  that  his  leadership  in  the  University  was  in  danger.  His  classic  head 
and  face  would  have  attracted  attention  among  any  body  of  men ;  he  had 
not  been  among  us  a  week  before  we  had  learned  that  the  flash  of  his  dark 
eye  and  the  quick  flush  of  his  cheek  indicated  a  temper  that  would  brook  little 
nonsense. 

A  little  gift  of  oratory  in  a  college  president  always  warms  the  cockles  of 
the  student  heart.  President  Chadbourne  had  this  gift,  and  the  enthusiastic 
Western  boys  were  always  glad  to  give  him  audience.  We  supposed  that  he 
had  great  executive  ability  and  we  knew  that  he  was  a  good  teacher.  How- 
ever strange  it  may  seem  in  these  days  of  specialization,  he  seemed  to  us 
equally  at  home  in  his  lectures  on  Natural  Theology,  Botany,  Crystallography, 
and  Moral  Philosophy.  It  is  doubtless  true,  that  the  president  had  touched 
the  world  at  too  many  points,  and  studied  too  many  things  to  be  a  specialist 
of  the  highest  rank ;  but  he  was  a  man  eminently  fitted  for  the  stirring, 
practical  duties  of  those  days  of  reconstruction  when  the  lax  methods  of  the 
old  college  were  to  be  given  up  forever.  He  was  a  strict  disciplinarian,  and 
knew  how  to  inspire  enthusiasm  among  his  faculty  and  students,  and  how  to 
create  confidence  among  the  people  of  the  State.  He  was  able  to  see  the 
great  possibilities  of  the  little  struggling  institution  to  which  he  had  come, 
and  at  once  bent  his  energies  to  the  planning  of  different  colleges  and 
courses. 

Another  pupil  at  Madison,  contemporaneous  with  Mr.  Jones,  and 
this  time  a  woman,  gives  us  a  few  fine  touches  of  Dr.  Chadbourne, 
and  of  herself  also,  and  of  those  she  was  fortunate  enough  to  repre- 
sent in  a  critical  phase  of  the  University.  Like  the  other,  it  is 
quotable. 

The  University  officials  took  a  very  radical  step  when,  in  the  fall  of  1871,  they 
introduced  coeducation  into  this  institution.  The  clock  of  the  century  had  not 
then  struck  woman's  hour.  The  crown  of  the  new  woman's  head  had  scarcely 
emerged  above  the  horizon.  That  was  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago.  In  defer- 
ence to  the  feeling  that  the  taxpayers  had  some  claim  upon  the  State  institution 
for  the  education  of  their  daughters  as  well  as  their  sons,  young  women  had 
been  tentatively  admitted  to  a  "Normal  Course."  The  next  step  was  to  dub 


TOWN  AND   COLLEGE  TILL  THE   CENTENNIAL.  677 

this  troublesome  "annex"  "Female  College."  How  utterly  inadequate  and 
unworthy  were  the  advantages  offered,  may  be  inferred  from  my  own  experi- 
ence when  I  entered  the  "College"  in  1869.  I  had  known  only  the  advantages 
of  district  and  select  school. 

With  much  difficulty  I  was  at  last  classified  with  the  Seniors  in  Geology 
and  Political  Economy,  and,  without  any  preliminary  preparation,  with  a 
class  in  Latin  reading  Caesar's  Commentaries  !  Thanks  to  the  kindliness  of  the 
respective  professors,  Daniels  and  Carpenter  and  Allen,  I  still  live  to  tell  the 
tale! 

Without  question,  President  Chadbourne  was  a  scholarly  man  and  a  magnetic 
teacher,  but  old-fashioned  and  unprogressive  to  a  degree  as  far  as  woman's  half 
of  the  world  was  concerned.  But  he  could  not  stem  the  tide  that  was  rising.  The 
climax  came  when  the  Castalians  in  solemn  conclave  decided  that  the  coming 
anniversary  exercises  must  be  held  "down  town."  Since  fools  rush  in,  etc., 
this  writer  was  spokesman  of  the  committee  appointed  to  beard  the  lion  in  his 
den,  inform  him  of  our  wishes,  and,  if  possible,  secure  his  consent  to  our  pro- 
ject. With  such  show  of  courage  as  we  could  muster,  we  made  known  our 
plans,  — to  be  received  with  scant  and  wrathful  courtesy.  "  We  might  do  as  we 
pleased ;  but  as  for  him,  he  wished  us  to  know  that  he  was  unalterably  opposed 
to  the  whole  thing."  With  that  deliverance,  he  turned  his  back  upon  us,  and 
we  considered  ourselves  dismissed.  Nevertheless  we  crossed  "the  Rubicon," 
and  the  crowded  condition  of  the  old  Congregational  Church  on  anniversary 
night  and  the  encomiums  of  the  daily  papers  the  next  day  were  the  testimony  to 
the  success  of  our  bold  exploit.  But  presto !  It  is  the  fall  of  1871.  President 
Chadbourne  is  out  and  President  Twombly  in. 

It  is  not  the  exact  truth  to  say,  that  this  unwelcome  pressure  of 
coeducation  upon  him  as  the  head  of  the  University  caused  the 
resignation  of  Chadbourne  from  Madison ;  but  this  was  one  of  two 
or  three  occasions  in  all,  seized  upon  by  his  native  and  now  over- 
grown restlessness,  to  quit  the  present  and  seek  the  future  post  of 
duty.  Restlessness  was  a  part  of  his  nature,  and  it  had  been  intensi- 
fied, perhaps,  by  a  chronic  disease  in  his  lungs.  He  had  had  severe 
hemorrhages  before  he  came  to  college  from  New  Hampshire ;  they 
recurred  after  longer  and  longer  intervals ;  and  the  menace  of  them 
impended  over  him  so  long  as  he  lived.  It  had  been  his  custom  to 
begin  any  new  enterprise  with  great  energy  and  with  far-reaching 
plans,  as  if  this  certainly  were  to  be  his  life-work.  He  pretty  soon 
grew  tired  of  certain  parts  of  it,  and  sought  change  as  to  those  parts  ; 
and,  by  and  by,  he  would  weary  of  the  whole  of  it,  and  often  find  in 
the  state  of  his  health  the  real,  or  at  least  the  ostensible,  reason  for 
shifting  the  scene.  More  than  once  he  began  to  build  houses  for  a 
permanent  home,  but  it  is  believed  that  he  never  finished  one  of 
them.  When  he  had  gotten  ready  to  fling  up  at  Madison,  he  felt  a 
strong  desire  to  explore  the  Rocky  Mountains,  partly  for  the  sake  of 
his  health,  and  partly  because  he  believed  himself  able  to  tell,  even 


678  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

by  the  looks  of  certain  rocks,  whether  they  were  metalliferous  or  not. 
He  did  not  stay  in  the  Rockies  long  enough  to  enrich  himself,  or 
anybody  else,  in  this  novel  method ;  but  a  sojourn  of  a  few  months 
was  beneficial  to  his  health,  and  added  fresh  material  to  his  knowl- 
edge of  geology  and  earth-building.  In  April,  1872,  he  was  tran- 
siently back  in  Williamstown,  in  order  to  preach  the  funeral  sermon 
of  Professor  Albert  Hopkins ;  and  while  here  at  that  time,  he 
received  the  virtual  assurance  from  Mark  Hopkins  that  he  should 
become  his  successor  at  the  trustee's  meeting  in  July.  This  hap- 
pened in  due  time,  as  has  been  already  narrated. 

It  seemed  for  a  considerable  time  that  Chadbourne  had  now 
reached  the  goal  of  his  ambition.  He  had  been  now  graduated  from 
the  College  twenty-four  years,  1848-72.  He  had  been  back  for  brief 
periods  during  most  of  the  interval  as  tutor,  and  lecturer,  and  pro- 
fessor, and  so  kept  up  his  acquaintance  with  the  personnel  of  the 
College,  particularly  with  the  Hopkins  brothers  who  were  then  the 
main  men  in  the  management  and  instruction.  He  seemed  to  settle 
down  as  if  to  a  life-work.  He  was  then  fifty-one  years  old.  He 
had  already  built  his  family  tomb  in  the  then  new  college  cemetery, 
and  the  body  of  his  eldest  daughter,  Abby,  had  been  the  first  to  be 
deposited  within  the  hallowed  ground.  He  had  not  been  altogether 
pleased,  as  has  been  said,  with  Bascom's  address  in  behalf  of  the 
faculty  at  the  time  of  the  inauguration,  but  he  had  no  real  reason 
to  be  displeased  with  it,  and  he  would  not  have  been  displeased  with 
it  had  he  known  Bascom  as  well  as  some  others  of  his  colleagues 
knew  him.  In  the  course  of  his  second  year,  he  had  a  good  oppor- 
tunity to  show  Bascom  a  kindness  and  an  honor,  and  at  the  same 
time  to  manifest  a  more  than  willingness  that  he  should  leave  the 
faculty  at  Williams.  Things  had  not  settled  down  at  Madison; 
and  one  of  the  regents  of  the  University  came  East  to  procure  a 
president,  and  came  to  Williamstown  to  consult  Dr.  Chadbourne. 
The  latter  recommended  Dr.  Bascom;  and  the  regent,  after  a 
thorough  talk  with  Bascom,  offered  him  the  place.  He  determined 
to  accept  it,  in  case  he  should  ascertain  that  it  was  not  Chad- 
bourne's  desire  that  he  should  remain  here.  A  single  talk  with 
Chadbourne  over  this  point  was  sufficient  to  elucidate  it,  and 
Bascom  went  to  Madison,  where  he  had  a  successful  presidency  of 
fourteen  years. 

This  shift  was  doubtless  equally  fortunate  for  both  of  these  able 
gentlemen ;  for  Bascom  found  at  Madison  not  only  varied  executive 
duties  that  were  agreeable  and  easy  to  him,  but  also  studies  to  teach 
in  the  Senior  class  that  were  exactly  to  his  taste  and  training. 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE    TILL   THE    CENTENNIAL.  679 

These  were  Philosophy,  now  so-called ;  at  that  time  they  were  named 
usually  Metaphysics  and  Ethics.  These  had  been  his  favorite  stud- 
ies in  college,  and  in  the  Theological  Seminary  at  Auburn,  and  they 
had  been  his  main  reading  for  many  years  afterward ;  but  till  now 
he  had  had  no  opportunity  to  teach  in  them.  His  department  at 
Williams  had  been  Ehetoric  and  Elocution,  and  he  had  expressed  in 
a  talk  with  Chadbourne  at  the  latter's  accession  to  the  presidency,  a 
strong  desire  for  a  change,  if  possible,  in  the  nature  of  his  studies 
taught.  Of  course  Dr.  Hopkins  could  not  be  disturbed  in  his  life- 
long teachings  at  Williams,  and  all  these  circumstances  facilitated 
the  transfer  of  Bascom  to  Madison,  where  his  teaching  as  well  as 
his  general  administration  bore  the  happiest  fruits.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  was  better  for  Chadbourne  to  have  Bascom  away  from  here 
during  the  former's  brief  administration  of  affairs,  mainly  for  this 
reason,  the  president's  suspicion  of  Bascom's  theological  opinions. 
Chadbourne  was  narrow  and  Bascom  was  broad,  each  in  his  own 
settled  religious  views  and  constructions ;  while  both  of  them  were 
admirable  practical  Christians.  Perhaps  each  of  them  would  have 
proved  rather  belligerent  than  irenical  in  their  religious  attitude 
toward  each  other,  if  both  had  remained  prominent  in  association 
on  this  ground.  There  might  have  been  friction  at  other  points  also. 
Chadbourne  was  irascible.  Bascom  was  self-controlled.  Each  was 
personally  ambitious  in  the  etymological  and  customary  sense  of 
that  ambiguous  word  even  beyond  the  point  of  wholesome  develop- 
ment and  rational  content. 

In  order  to  judge  fully  and  fairly  of  Paul  Chadbourne  as  a  presi- 
dent of  the  College,  particularly  in  contrast  with  Mark  Hopkins  sus- 
taining the  same  relations,  it  is  well  to  compare  the  two  men  in  one 
respect  in  which  they  were  singularly  unlike.  Like  many  other  men, 
Mark  Hopkins  had  large  sides  to  him,  many  of  them,  and  also,  on 
occasion,  small  sides,  a  plenty  of  them.  When  he  presented  himself 
to  the  students  as  a  body,  or  to  the  public,  he  always  exhibited  one 
or  more  of  his  broad  sides,  —  the  habits  of  his  life  had  been  formed 
in  that  way,  —  and  he  gave  consequently  the  impression  of  doing  all 
things  in  a  large  way.  Chadbourne  too  had  his  broad  sides  and 
narrow  sides ;  but  it  did  not  seem  natural  and  habitual  to  him  to 
exhibit  himself  to  the  students,  and  to  other  bodies  of  men,  to  his 
own  best  advantage.  On  the  contrary,  he  seemed  pretty  uniformly 
to  present  himself  officially  in  one  or  more  of  those  smaller  charac- 
ters which  he  seemed  to  have  at  command,  and  to  make  the  impres- 
sion of  doing  things  in  a  small  way.  For  example,  the  first  thing  he 
busied  himself  upon,  when  he  was  fairly  inducted  into  office,  was 


680  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

the  college  campus,  in  its  walks,  and  green  spots,  and  shrubbery, 
and  trees.  These,  indeed,  needed  his  attention.  They  had  been 
neglected.  Dr.  Hopkins  cared  relatively  for  none  of  these  things. 
Instead  of  calling  a  college  meeting  and  asking  the  cooperation  of 
the  students  as  a  body  in  an  effort  to  improve  the  landscape  garden- 
ing, or  at  least  interesting  the  classes  as  such  in  maintaining  in 
order  each  certain  parts  of  the  campus  as  a  whole,  he  had  warning 
notices  posted  on  all  the  green  spots  in  small  capitals,  —  KEEP  OPT 
THE  GRASS  !  The  traditional  college  delvers  were  hired  to  trim  the 
college  walks,  which  were  in  due  time  gravelled  in  the  ordinary  way  ; 
while,  as  a  harbinger  of  improved  shrubbery  and  shade,  a  line  of 
small  hemlocks  was  set  directly  in  front  of  the  president's  house. 
These  were  small,  and  they  looked  small.  They  made  an  unpleasant 
impression  upon  the  students,  as  if  the  president  were  beginning  at 
the  wrong  end  of  things  to  renovate  and  upbuild.  They  were  all 
torn  up  in  a  night,  and  carried  off  nobody  knew  whither.  The  presi- 
dent said  nothing  about  this,  and  after  a  few  days  other  small 
hemlocks  of  the  same  sort  were  set  in  their  places.  These,  too, 
disappeared  in  the  same  way  in  the  night-time.  Nothing  was  said, 
and  in  a  few  days  similar  hemlocks  were  quietly  reset  in  the  same 
places  by  the  same  hands  in  the  daylight  hours.  These  last  were 
never  disturbed  by  the  students.  The  president  seemed  to  gain  the 
victory  in  this  particular. 

But  he  had  no  stroke  of  policy  to  present  in  any  particular  that 
appealed  to  the  imagination  of  the  students.  He  had  said  in  his 
inaugural  that  he  had  no  reforms  to  propose,  and  no  radical  changes 
to  make.  There  was  not  enough  that  was  new  to  satisfy  the  curi- 
osity of  a  new  set  of  students.  Dr.  Chadbourne  was  a  naturalist 
or  nothing.  In  this  class  of  studies  he  had  distinguished  himself 
as  a  student,  as  a  professor  here  and  elsewhere,  and  as  a  leader  in 
scientific  expeditions,  particularly  to  the  northward.  The  natural 
sciences  had  been  decidedly  the  leading  study  in  the  College  during 
the  first  third  of  the  century.  Mark  Hopkins  had  fairly  brought 
the  philosophical  studies  into  the  first  place  during  the  second  third 
of  that  century,  and  now  there  was  an  inviting  opportunity,  if  Chad- 
bourne  had  chosen  to  embrace  it  and  to  heed  it,  to  bring  back  these 
branches  into  their  former  predominance,  with  the  aid  of  Professors 
Tenney  and  Remsen  and  others,  since  metaphysics  and  ethics  were 
relatively  declining  in  the  now  aging  hands  of  Hopkins.  But  the 
opportunity  was  not  embraced,  and  was  lost  in  favor  of  another  set 
of  studies  entirely,  as  we  shall  see  more  fully  by  and  by.  Chad-- 
bourne now  professed  to  have  lost  interest  in  the  pursuits  of  his 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL    THE   CENTENNIAL.  681 

youth  in  which  he  was  thoroughly  proficient,  and  in  which  coad- 
jutors stood  by  able  to  give  him  an  unquestioned  lead  and  triumph. 
He  professed  to  have  been  weaned  from  these  studies  in  behalf  of 
those  in  which  he  had  feebly  tried  his  hand  at  Madison ;  namely, 
the  metaphysics  and  theologies.  Mark  Hopkins  was  still  too  strong 
to  yield  anything  of  much  account  in  those  realms  of  his  own  win- 
ning, and  the  new  president  contented  himself  for  the  present  in 
teaching  natural  theology,  in  which  he  also  published  a  book  of 
very  considerable  merit. 

Instead,  therefore,  of  exhibiting  to  the  students  and  to  the  public 
his  own  broadest  side,  and  the  broad  aspect  of  all  his  previous  life, 
when  he  became  president  in  succession  to  a  man  much  more  dis- 
tinguished than  himself,  he  rather  presented  himself  as  in  a  state 
of  transition  from  what  was  distinctively  his  own  into  something 
of  which  he  was  not  yet  in  full  possession.  True,  he  had  now  a 
coveted  place,  but  he  had  not  yet  an  assured  position  in  it.  He 
made  no  novel  appeal  to  the  scholarly  instincts  of  anybody.  He 
did  not  even  propose  to  himself  to  enlarge  the  horizon  of  the  Col- 
lege in  any  striking  way  in  accordance  with  the  scientific  tenden- 
cies then  strongly  felt  in  most  of  the  institutions  round  about. 
On  the  contrary,  he  indulged  with  his  intimates,  and  more  or  less 
in  his  classes,  in  a  line  of  college  talk  much  more  connected  with 
the  past  than  with  the  bursting  present  and  the  hopeful  future. 
He  was  fond  of  saying  (and  he  said  it  in  an  interesting  way),  that 
he  himself  could  teach  all  the  branches  usually  taught  in  a  New 
England  college ;  that  he  had  taught  in  nearly  all  of  them  already, 
and  that  he  was  confident  that  he  could  succeed  in  teaching  eco- 
nomics and  politics,  then  newly  coming  forward  as  prominent  studies 
in  some  of  the  colleges,  although  he  had  not  tried  his  hand  in  these. 
Just  as  all  the  college  studies  were  in  an  opening  process  of  spe- 
cialization, this  was  not  helpful  nor  stimulating  talk  to  teachers 
or  students.  It  was  an  anachronism  to  talk  thus.  It  was  self-flat- 
tery in  relation  to  the  speaker,  and  bad  policy  in  relation  to  the 
hearers.  The  promises  of  the  new  college  administration  were  "  in 
their  budding  sere"  There  was  looking  backward  in  plenty,  but  no 
blazing  torch  thrust  forward  by  the  president.  There  was  not 
enough  of  new  proposed  in  any  direction  to  keep  up  his  own  inter- 
est as  an  experimenter  in  college  education.  True  enough,  he  did 
not  interfere  in  the  least  degree  with  the  experiments  and  com- 
parisons entered  upon  by  the  enthusiastic  young  teachers  in  the 
faculty  around  him.  At  this  point  his  conduct  throughout  was 
admirable.  He  deemed  himself  the  head  of  a  body  of  colleagues, 


682  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

whose  rights  to  and  in  their  places  were  as  substantive  as  his  own. 
He  was  ready  with  his  counsel  for  each  and  all  his  associates,  when- 
ever it  was  solicited  by  them ;  but  it  was  never  protruded  unasked, 
as  if  from  a  stool  or  throne.  Every  man  had  his  liberty  of  choice 
and  action  in  his  own  department.  Every  man's  self-respect  as  an 
integral  part  of  the  college  was  respected  by  him.  This  is  great 
praise.  This  is  a  college  president's  chiefest  merit.  Several  de- 
partments of  college  instruction,  accordingly,  were  amplified  and 
solidified  during  the  term  of  Chadbourne's  presidency,  even  while 
he  himself  was  growing  restless  and  discontented,  and  his  own  hold 
on  the  College  was  loosening. 

President  Hopkins  at  the  inauguration  of  his  successor  had 
pointedly  called  the  latter's  attention  to  the  distinction  between 
college  authority  and  college  influence,  affirming  that  he  would 
stand  in  constant  need  of  both  of  these.  As  term  after  term  and 
year  after  year  wore  away,  Dr.  Chadbourne  perceived  clearly  enough 
that  he  was  not  gaining  in  power  of  influence  either  official  or  per- 
sonal over  the  body  of  students.  He  did  not  attempt  to  deceive 
himself  on  this  point,  as  many  another  man  would  have  done  under 
these  circumstances ;  he  was  too  clear-minded  and  honest-hearted 
for  that.  He  knew  as  well  as  any  man  the  immense  practical  dif- 
ference between  the  truth  and  what  is  only  apparently  and  super- 
ficially the  truth,  and  he  talked  these  points  over  frankly  and 
repeatedly  with  Professor  Perry,  the  oldest  in  service  and  the  free- 
est  in  expression  of  his  faculty.  He  seemed  to  have  complete  con- 
fidence in  him.  as  a  personal  friend,  and  as  a  colleague  on  whom 
reliance  could  be  had  in  all  exigencies.  One  such  conversation  he 
brought  to  a  close  in  these  words  of  much  emphasis,  "  You  are  con- 
tented and  lam  not,  AND  THAT'S  THE  DIFFERENCE  ! "  This  was,  indeed, 
one  great  difference  between  the  two  men.  One  consequence  of  this 
difference  was  that  the  professor's  college  influence  and  enjoyment, 
without  any  special  authority  whatever,  was  steadily  increasing  year 
by  year,  while  the  president's  authority,  technically  ample  at  all 
points,  was  not  accompanied  by  a  corresponding  influence.  Many 
a  president  would  have  thrown  the  blame  of  a  contrast  like  this 
upon  the  professor  himself.  But  Chadbourne  did  not.  Here  was 
a  second  great  merit.  He  showed  no  suspicion  nor  jealousy  toward 
a  colleague  who  was  getting  on  in  his  college  work  much  better  than 
he  himself  was  getting  on.  And  he  magnanimously  referred  this 
greater  success  to  one  of  its  chief  causes,  namely,  to  an  entire  con- 
tent in  the  one  case  with  the  conditions  of  work  just  as  it  was. 

As  Dr.  Chadbourne's  absences  from  College  increased  in  number 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  683 

and  duration  in  his  last  two  or  three  years  of  incumbency,  he  always 
left  the  College  in  the  hands  of  Professor  Perry,  sometimes  telling 
him  that  he  was  to  be  away  and  passing  over  the  supervision  with  a 
friendly  grasp  of  the  hand,  and  quite  as  often,  perhaps,  saying  noth- 
ing about  it,  presuming  that  Perry's  presiding  in  the  faculty  meet- 
ings as  the  oldest  professor  in  service  would  carry  along  with  it  the 
needful  care  at  all  points.  When  Chadbourne's  successor  in  the 
presidency  met  the  faculty  for  the  first  time,  Professor  Fernald,  an 
unexceptionable  witness,  volunteered  this  bit  of  information  to  the 
new  official:  "  We  have  always  thought  that  the  College  was  more 
quiet  while  Dr.  Chadbourne  was  away  from  town  than  when  he  was 
present."  About  two  years  before  the  actual  resignation  of  his 
place,  there  occurred  a  quasi  rebellion  in  the  Sophomore  class,  from 
certain  trivial  causes  not  now  worthy  of  recall,  the  expression  of 
which  was  a  refusal  to  attend  college  exercises  on  the  part  of  the 
entire  class.  In  the  course  of  handling  the  business,  the  president 
came  to  Perry,  and  desired  him  to  visit  the  Sophomores,  who  roomed 
in  the  West  College,  and  to  say  to  them  as  individuals,  that  unless 
they  attended  a  specified  exercise  impending,  they  would  be  excluded 
from  their  rooms,  by  force  if  necessary.  As  Perry  had  had  no  con- 
nection of  any  kind  with  their  foolish  movement,  and  had  the  keen- 
est sense  of  its  folly,  he  not  only  executed  his  commission  to  these 
men  in  good  set  terms,  but  also  he  reasoned  it  out  with  them,  like  a 
father.  Very  shortly  after  a  committee  of  the  class  waited  on  the 
president,  and  told  him  they  were  ready  to  make  their  submission  to 
Professor  Perry.  Without  knowing  what  had  been  said  or  done,  the 
latter  saw  the  entire  class  approaching  his  house.  He  had  barely 
time  to  snatch  his  memorandum-book,  containing  a  list  of  their 
names,  when  they  drew  up  in  front  of  his  piazza  to  meet  him.  There 
was  no  time  for  parley  nor  solemnities.  He  assumed  that  they  had 
come  to  reknit  their  boyishly  snapped  connections.  There  was  no 
propriety  in  his  meeting  them  with  a  club  in  his  hand.  Accordingly, 
he  said  to  them  pleasantly :  "  /  am  glad  to  see  you.  I  did  not  ex- 
pect you  so  soon,  nor  in  such  large  numbers."  Then,  taking  out  his 
class-list,  saying  that  he  should  take  for  granted  that  each  one  re- 
sponding "  present "  thereby  resumed  his  place  and  duty  in  the  Col- 
lege, the  roll  was  called,  the  response  unanimously  made,  and  the 
class  withdrew,  not  without  some  signs  of  hilarity.  The  only  criti- 
cism openly  made  by  the  president  on  the  conduct  of  the  professor, 
during  nine  years  of  intimate  association,  fell  in  the  next  faculty 
meeting,  when  he  remarked  with  some  acerbity  that  the  matter  was 
too  jocosely  handled.  It  was  noticeable,  though,  that  neither  he  nor 


684  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

any  other  member  of  the  faculty  practically  suggested  any  way  in 
which  it  could  have  been  differently  handled  or  with  better  results. 

Consequences,  unpleasant  to  President  Chadbourne,  followed  this 
little  ripple  of  a  rebellion,  largely  as  a  result  of  references  which  he 
himself  made  to  it  at  an  alumni  dinner  at  Cleveland, — references 
that  proved  displeasing  to  the  trustees  and  alumni  present,  and  on 
their  publication  to  other  trustees  and  alumni.  Previously  to  this, 
Chadbourne  had  gone  into  manufacturing  in  a  small  way  at  a  fall  in 
the  Green  River  on  Water  Street.  Indeed,  he  had  been  dabbling  in 
local  stocks  and  factories  for  ten  years  before  he  became  president. 
As  an  agent  for  the  Arnold  Brothers  in  North  Adams,  he  had  pur- 
chased the  fine  water  privilege  on  the  Hoosac  Eiver  at  the  railroad 
station,  and  took  stock  in  the  cotton-mill  built  there.  About  the 
time  he  became  president  he  purchased  additional  stock,  and  became 
the  treasurer  there.  These  functions  were  so  actually  and  obviously 
incompatible  with  his  duties  as  president  of  the  College,  that  he  soon 
resigned  the  treasurership  ;  while  the  purchase-money  for  this  stock, 
which  he  borrowed,  remained  an  item  in  his  insolvency  at  the  time 
of  his  death.  About  the  time  of  this  resignation  of  the  treasurership 
of  the  large  cotton-mill  on  the  Hoosac,  Dr.  Hopkins  was  desirous  to 
find  a  place  in  local  business  for  his  youngest  son,  Mark  Hopkins,  Jr. 
Chadbourne  had  then  a  reputation  for  business  capacity  of  all  sorts, 
and  a  self-estimation  of  his  own  ability  along  these  lines,  altogether 
exaggerated  beyond  the  real  facts  in  the  case.  Largely  at  Dr.  Hop- 
kins's  instance  a  joint-stock  company  was  formed  to  build  and  run  a 
mill  on  Green  Kiver  for  some  subordinate  branches  in  the  cotton  man- 
ufacture. It  was  styled  "  Loup,  Hopkins  &  Co."  The  stockholders 
were  Mark  Hopkins,  Paul  Chadbourne,  Keyes  Danforth,  and  a  young 
man  from  the  large  mill  on  the  Hoosac,  who  was  to  be  the  manager. 
The  new  mill  promised  to  be  profitable.  Chadbourne  was  proud  of 
the  combined  designation  of  college  president  and  cotton  manufac- 
turer. At  the  Cleveland  meeting  just  referred  to,  the  president, 
probably  in  pleasantry,  contrasted  the  running  of  a  cotton-mill  with 
the  running  of  a  college  to  the  disadvantage  of  the  latter  function, 
adding  with  considerable  emphasis,  —  "  A  cotton-mill  never  rebels  !  " 

This  extremely  injudicious  reference,  under  all  the  circumstances, 
and  the  wide  publicity  given  to  it,  and  the  hostile  criticism  excited 
by  it,  brought  matters  to  a  head  so  far  as  the  action  of  the  trustees 
toward  Chadbourne  was  concerned.  There  had  been  a  quiet  move- 
ment in  1879  to  oust  Chadbourne,  which  became  known  to  some  of 
the  trustees,  who  assumed  to  say  to  those  having  it  in  charge,  that 
the  trustees  themselves  would  take  such  decisive  action  as  would 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE    TILL   THE    CENTENNIAL.  685 

bring  about  the  resignation  in  1880,  certainly  in  1881.  Chadbourne 
already  knew  he  had  lost  whatever  confidence  he  had  had  of  students 
and  of  faculty  and  of  trustees ;  and  it  was  supposed  by  those  best 
entitled  to  know,  that  Judge  Dewey  of  Worcester  was  the  agent  of 
the  trustees  in  inducing  the  president  to  agree  to  resign  in  1880,  to 
take  effect  at  Commencement  in  1881.  Garfield's  political  campaign 
for  the  presidency  fell  in  the  fall  of  1880.  Those  not  in  the  secret 
were  surprised,  that  the  president  of  the  College  should  be  away 
from  his  post  during  much  if  not  most  of  that  fall  term  ;  that  he 
should  be  making  stump  speeches  at  the  West,  and  particularly  in 
Ohio ;  and  their  surprise  was  not  abated  when  the  bullet  of  Garfield's 
assassin  brought  the  private  statement  from  Chadbourne  that  Gar- 
field  had  specifically  promised  to  him  the  United  States  mission  to 
Copenhagen.  He  had  visited  that  capital  many  years  before  and  had 
been  highly  honored  there,  as  a  naturalist  and  traveller ;  the  appoint- 
ment would  have  been  highly  appropriate  in  any  case,  as  Garfield 
was  a  graduate  of  the  College,  and  Chadbourne  its  present  president ; 
and  the  form  of  the  honor  was  the  result  of  an  understanding  be- 
tween the  two  men  in  connection  with  campaign  services  rendered  in 
the  autumn.  Garfield  was  already  on  his  way  to  attend  the  Com- 
mencement here  of  1881,  when  his  predestined  fate  confronted  him ; 
and  while  its  announcement  in  Williamstown  fell  as  a  personal  be- 
reavement more  heavily  on  Dr.  Hopkins  than  on  Dr.  Chadbourne,  it 
was  to  the  latter  a  crushing  blow  on  his  immediate  and  future  pros- 
pects. His  college  career  was  over.  He  had  no  home.  He  had  no 
apparent  means  of  livelihood.  He  did  not  know  which  way  to  turn. 
That  Commencement  was  a  memorable  one  in  the  history  of  the 
College.  The  first  impulse  of  the  officials  when  the  appalling  news 
from  Washington  reached  them  was  to  forego  all  the  public  cere- 
monies of  the  week.  But  the  graduating  class,  to  whom  such  cere- 
monies come  but  once  in  a  lifetime,  were  by  no  means  inclined  to 
surrender  them,  and  there  was  no  solid  reason  why  they  should. 
The  annual  alumni  meeting  on  Tuesday  sent  through  their  secre- 
tary a  feeling  telegram  to  the  White  House,  which  was  pathetically 
responded  to  through  Colonel  Rockwell,  a  classmate  and  companion 
of  the  suffering  President.  Though  the  atmosphere  was  of  course 
depressing,  the  exercises  of  Wednesday,  graduating  day,  the  last  at 
which  Dr.  Chadbourne  presided,  passed  off  much  as  usual.  He  was 
low  in  spirits  throughout  the  week ;  and,  calling  on  the  writer  for 
the  final  good-by,  he  said:  "My  presidency  here  seems  now  way 
back  in  the  past,  as  much  so  as  my  work  in  Madison  does,  almost  as 
much  as  anything  in  my  past  life,  —  cut  off  sharp  like  the  weaver's 


686  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

thread."  The  faculty  were  a  body  of  able  and  independent  men, 
who,  as  soon  as  it  was  generally  known  in  the  summer  of  1880  that 
he  was  to  leave  the  College  at  the  end  of  the  following  year,  were 
desirous  to  transmit  to  him  and  have  put  on  record  their  sense  of  his 
courtesy  to  them  and  fair-mindedness  in  general.  Professor  Perry  was 
requested  by  his  colleagues  to  draft  such  a  paper,  which  he  consented 
to  do  on  condition  that  it  might  be  substantive  and  not  merely  for- 
mal in  its  expressions.  In  fact,  his  estimates  of  the  president  were 
more  favorable  than  those  of  most  of  his  colleagues,  mainly  because 
he  knew  him  more  thoroughly  and  had  learned  to  look  beyond  his 
obvious  shortcomings.  Llewellyn  Pratt  of  the  class  of  1852  was  at 
that  time  the  professor  of  the  best  literary  taste  in  College,  and  he 
had  a  good  insight  into  character.  Perry  was  his  college  classmate, 
and  the  two  were  always  fast  friends.  Pratt  objected  to  two  or 
three  phrases  in  the  first  draft  of  the  Chadbourne  paper  as  too  com- 
plimentary 'to  be  truthful ;  and  it  was  then  written  over  anew  so  as 
to  meet  his  objections  and  receive  his  signature.  "When  this  was 
presented  to  Professor  Dodd,  the  veteran  of  the  circle,  a  man 
notably  conscientious  in  all  his  criticisms,  he  still  objected  to  a 
single  expression  as  too  nattering  to  his  old  classmate  of  1848.  No 
paper  was  to  be  handed  in  unless  it  carried  the  names  of  all  the 
members  of  the  faculty ;  and  no  paper  was  to  be  handed  in  unless 
certain  qualities  of  the  president  were  honestly  and  emphatically 
commended.  In  this  dilemma,  Perry  wrote  his  paper  for  the  third 
time,  and  thus  secured  Dodd's  name  as  a  trophy  and  a  proof  of  his 
magnanimity  also,  and  all  the  rest  in  due  order  of  succession.  After 
preamble  the  professors  say :  — 

We  heartily  unite  in  expressing  to  you  our  deep  personal  regret  that  you 
propose  to  take  this  step ;  second,  our  sense  of  the  loss  which  the  college  will 
sustain  thereby  in  the  most  important  of  its  varied  relations  ;  third,  their  confi- 
dence in  you  as  a  Christian  man,  as  a  conscientious  citizen  and  a  college  admin- 
istrator ;  fourth,  their  sense  of  the  value  to  them  and  to  the  college  of  the 
almost  perfect  harmony  that  has  uniformly  subsisted  between  you  and  them ; 
fifth,  their  gratitude  for  the  independence  allowed  them  in  their  respective 
departments  and  the  unquestioned  support  rendered  to  them  whenever  it  has 
been  needed  ;  and  sixth,  their  cordial  good  will  and  sincere  hopes  for  your  con- 
tinued success  in  those  paths  of  activity  along  which  you  propose  to  walk  in  the 
future. 

The  president's  reply  to  these  words  of  the  professors  was  equally 
cordial  in  its  recognition  of  the  pleasant  relations  sustained  and  the 
honest  work  done  by  all  for  the  common  cause.  Both  pieces  of 
writing  are  on  permanent  record  in  the  book  of  the  faculty.  The 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    CENTENNIAL.  687 

president's  reply  is  dated  Aug.  23,  1880.     Its  main  paragraph  is 
here  quoted  verbatim  :  — 

It  would  be  improper  for  me  to  give  all  the  reasons  for  my  resigning.  The 
time  may  never  come  when  it  will  be  wise  to  give  them  all.  Enough  reasons 
lie  upon  the  surface  to  justify  the  step.  Nine  years  of  presidency  during  which 
the  college  has  made  constant  advances  enables  me  to  leave  with  honor  to  my- 
self, and  with  a  good  degree  of  assurance  that  the  college  can  continue  to  pros- 
per under  wise  and  efficient  management.  The  loss  of  a  large  amount  of  money 
during  my  administration,  by  entrusting  my  business  to  others,  makes  it  neces- 
sary for  me  to  care  for  the  interests  of  my  family.  A  permanent  place  involv- 
ing much  less  labor  and  responsibility  than  a  college  presidency  is  ready  for  me 
at  a  yearly  salary  of  $10,000  ;  so  that,  while  in  many  respects  my  present  position 
is  the  most  desirable  of  any  that  I  could  fill,  I  feel  that  the  indications  are  plain 
that  I  should  leave  the  college.  But  in  doing  so,  I  beg  to  assure  the  present 
Faculty  that  they  have  my  warmest  thanks  for  the  past  and  my  best  wishes  for 
the  future. 

Whoever  reads  the  above  lines  with  care,  and  also  between  the 
lines,  will  be  able  to  see  what  kind  of  a  man  Paul  A.  Chadbourne 
was  pretty  nearly.  He  was  transparent,  over-sanguine,  fickle-minded, 
gifted,  versatile,  superficial,  commonly  judging  more  truthfully  those 
about  him  than  himself,  trustful  and  worthy  of  trust.  He  was  mis- 
taken when  he  imagined  that  those  about  him  did  not  know  substan- 
tially all  the  reasons  that  led  him  to  resign.  They  knew  them  in 
fact  better  than  he  knew  them  himself.  His  reference  to  the  un- 
known and  perhaps  never-to-be-revealed  element  was  to  the  intolera- 
ble relations  between  himself  and  Dr.  Mark  Hopkins.  He  was 
mistaken  too  when  he  assumed  and  asserted  that  the  College  had 
made  "  constant  advances  "  during  the  nine  years  of  his  presidency. 
It  had  not.  Neither  in  numbers,  nor  in  moral  power,  nor  in  public 
reputation  had  it  made  such  "  advances,"  speaking  generally.  He 
was  also  mistaken  in  affirming  that  his  pecuniary  losses  came  by 
"  entrusting  my  business  to  others."  It  was  rather  the  truth  that 
his  partners,  Hopkins  and  Danforth,  lost  more  money  than  he  did 
by  entrusting  their  business  to  him.  The  president  of  a  college 
has  no  business  to  have  any  such  business  as  the  practical  running 
of  a  cotton-mill.  Chadbourne's  short-lived  reputation  as  possessing 
extraordinary  business  capacity  was  illusory  as  much  to  himself  as 
to  others,  and  cost  himself  and  others  first  and  last  a  good  deal  of 
money.  The  financial  panic  of  1873,  which  really  continued  till  the 
resumption  of  specie  payments  in  1879,  was  probably  the  main 
reason  of  the  failure  of  the  cotton-mill,  and  that  failure  was  cer- 
tainly the  cause  of  much  and  lasting  bitterness  in  several  of  the 
leading  families  in  Williainstown. 


688  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

If  it  were  true,  as  it  doubtless  was,  that  "  a  permanent  place  in- 
volving much  less  labor  and  responsibility  than  a  college  presidency  " 
was  ready  for  Dr.  Chadbourne  when  this  letter  was  written  in  Au- 
gust, 1880,  "at  a  yearly  salary  of  $10,000,"  it  would  seem  to  be  a  pity 
that  he  did  not  accept  it  at  once  and  leave  Williams  a  year  before 
he  did ;  for  the  place  was  not  "  ready  "  for  him  in  1881,  although  he 
did  some  work  in  the  course  of  that  year  for  the  New  York  Life 
Insurance  Company,  which  had  made  him  the  "  permanent "  offer. 
An  official  of  that  company  chanced  to  tell  the  present  writer  some 
time  afterward,  that  Chadbourne's  transient  work  in  writing  for 
them  had  done  the  company  no  good,  though  he  had  been  liberally 
paid  for  it.  Besides,  as  we  have  already  seen,  he  had  in  the  mean- 
time been  deflected  into  politics,  and  suffered  therefrom  a  harrowing 
disappointment.  Though  he  was  paid  his  full  salary  to  the  last 
cent,  his  last  year  in  college  was  a  pitiable  dwindling  out  at  every 
point ;  and  his  last  baccalaureate  sermon,  that  of  1881,  was  but  a 
shabby  rehash  of  an  old  discourse  on  the  Parable  of  the  Sower, 
which  he  had  preached  before  in  Williamstown  a  half-dozen  times. 
This  was  but  in  accordance  with  a  habit  he  had  of  taking  pains  to 
make  a  striking  introduction  to  his  sermons,  and  then  fall  down  to 
medium  or  below  it  in  the  body  of  them.  His  best  discourse  was 
the  funeral  sermon  on  Albert  Hopkins,  and  that  is,  of  all  his  writ- 
ings, the  piece  most  likely  to  survive  his  generation.  He  usually 
wrote  in  great  speed,  and  prided  himself  on  the  quickness  with 
which  he  could  produce  even  an  important  paper.  A  curious  exam- 
ple of  this  occurred  in  connection  with  one  of  his  baccalaureates,  a 
copy  of  which  he  sent  to  the  Spring  field  Republican  to  be  printed  on 
Monday  after  its  delivery.  Through  some  mistake  in  the  printing- 
office,  the  sermon  appeared  on  Saturday  instead  of  Monday.  One 
of  his  professors,  seeing  the  printed  paper  as  soon  as  it  arrived  in 
Williamstown,  and  meeting  him  shortly  after  on  the  street,  con- 
gratulated him  on  the  extra  promptness  of  its  coming  out.  He  was 
confused  for  an  instant,  and  angry,  then  cried  out,  "  I'll  fix  it !  Pll 
write  a  new  sermon ! "  He  did  so.  The  same  professor  watched  its 
delivery  the  next  day  line  by  line.  It  was  fair  and  passable ;  but  it 
was  not  equal  to  one  of  the  usual  baccalaureates  of  Mark  Hopkins  ! 

In  the  failure  of  any  proper  and  profitable  work  to  fall  into  his 
hands  in  1881,  he  took  up  again  for  a  short  time  the  presidency  of 
the  State  Agricultural  College  at  Amherst ;  and  later  in  the  season 
he  came  back  to  Williamstown  to  see  whether  his  political  confreres 
would  send  him  for  the  winter  to  the  lower  house  of  the  State 
Legislature  at  Boston.  At  this  point  he  met  with  a  humiliating 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  689 

rebuff.  The  late  James  Waterman,  long  the  practical  leader  of  the 
^Republican  party  in  town,  brusquely  told  him  that  they  had  nothing 
for  him,  that  he  had  had  already  more  than  his  share  of  the  political 
honors  in  being  sent  two  years  in  succession  to  the  Senate  of  Massa- 
chusetts. The  local  curtain  falls  on  a  disappointed  man.  John  F. 
Arnold  of  North  Adams,  a  prominent  manufacturer  there,  for  some 
time  a  leading  partner  of  Chadbourne  in  the  cotton  business,  said  of 
him,  some  years  before  this,  "  He  wants  all  the  profit  and  all  the 
honor  all  the  time."  He  had  cherished  all  these  years  an  astonish- 
ing overestimate  of  his  political  prominence  and  prospects.  While 
he  was  still  carrying  the  presidency  and  the  mill  properties  and 
several  other  enterprises,  he  even  made  some  movements  toward 
being  nominated  a  member  of  Congress  from  the  Berkshire  district; 
and,  what  no  intelligent  person  except  on  ear-witness  would  credit, 
he  actually  said  of  Henry  L.  Dawes,  "  Dawes  got  me  into  my  present 
place  [the  presidency],  in  order  to  keep  me  out  of  his  way! " 

The  average  judgments  of  Dr.  Chadbourne  passed  by  his  col- 
leagues in  the  faculty  were  more  favorable  than  those  of  the  stu- 
dents and  those  of  the  citizens.  An  observant  graduate  of  the  year 
1881  wrote  of  him  a  dozen  years  later  as  follows  :  — 

I  think  Dr.  Chadbourne  hardly  got  his  due ;  but  if,  as  I  hope,  he  is  now 
serenely  botanizing  in  the  Elysian  Fields  and  making  up  for  his  misdirected  life 
on  earth,  the  old  gentleman  will  never  know  the  difference  ! 

A  very  special  interest  attaches  to  the  following  sweet  and  simple 
verses  which  fell  from  the  pen  of  Dr.  Chadbourne  a  little  before 
the  close  of  his  life,  which  came  at  length  Feb.  23,  1883.  Dr. 
L.  D.  Woodbridge  of  the  class  of  1872  was  in  constant  medical 
attendance  upon  him  for  two  weeks  before  he  died,  and  spoke 
warmly  of  his  masterful  human  victory  over  the  King  of  Terrors. 

THE   WAITING  SAVIOUR. 
(Sol.  Song  v.  2;  Rev.  iii.  20.) 

In  the  silent  hours  of  darkness, 
When  the  world  is  hushed  and  still, 
Comes  the  Saviour,  gently  knocking, 
Till  His  locks  the  dew-drops  fill. 

Listen,  oh,  my  soul,  with  wonder, 
That  this  Saviour  comes  to  thee, 
Ever  knocking,  ever  waiting, 
Waiting  what  thy  will  shall  be. 

2T 


690  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

Oh,  for  grace  to  listen  to  Him  ! 
Oh,  for  room  within  my  heart ! 
Oh,  for  love  to  bid  Him  enter  ! 
Enter  never  to  depart. 

Come  and  enter,  precious  Saviour, 
Come,  dear  Father,  with  the  Son, 
Come,  Thou  ever  loving  Spirit, 
Come,  Thou  Holy  Three  in  One  ! 

Come  according  to  Thy  promise, 
Come  to  calm  this  troubled  breast, 
Come  to  cheer  this  earthly  journey, 
Come  and  take  me  home  to  rest. 

More  than  once  in  the  course  of  the  foregoing  pages  occasion  has 
been  taken  to  .notice  that,  during  the  first  third  of  the  college  cen- 
tury, under  impulses  communicated  by  Professor  Silliman  of  Yale 
and  by  Amos  Eaton  of  the  Williams  class  of  1799,  the  natural 
sciences  held  here  the  predominant  place  in  the  college  curriculum, 
owing  chiefly  to  the  remarkable  influence  exerted  on  the  spot  by 
Professor  Chester  Dewey.  These  sciences,  such  as  chemistry  and 
botany,  have  their  basis  in  observation.  It  has  been  noticed  also, 
that,  during  the  second  third  of  the  century,  say  from  1833  to  1866, 
the  same  leading  place  was  held  even  more  firmly  by  the  philo- 
sophical sciences,  such  as  metaphysics  and  ethics,  under  the  con- 
summate skill  of  Mark  Hopkins.  These  sciences  rest  back  for 
their  basis  upon  introspection.  It  remains  now  to  notice,  since  it  is 
impossible  to  characterize  correctly  the  last  third  of  the  century 
without  calling  specific  attention  to  it,  that  a  corresponding  promi- 
nence was  then  acquired  and  maintained  by  the  political  sciences, 
such  as  economics  and  politics,  both  of  which  bear  peculiar  rela- 
tions to  history. 

Professor  Colby  of  Dartmouth  College  has  rendered  a  signal  ser- 
vice to  all  the  colleges  of  the  country  by  publishing  in  1896  the  re- 
sults of  an  original  and  painstaking  investigation  into  the  time  and 
circumstances  under  which  the  older  colleges  introduced  and  con- 
tinued the  legal  and  political  and  economical  studies  as  a  part  of 
their  public  instruction.  Dartmouth  was  relatively  early,  if  not  the 
earliest,  to  combine  economics  with  politics  in  the  same  department, 
and  was  also  extremely  fortunate  in  the  very  able  and  distinguished 
men  who  in  succession  taught  in  it,  —  namely,  Roswell  Shurtleff 
(1828-38),  Charles  B.  Haddock  (1838-54),  Clement  Long  (1854-61), 
Samuel  G.  Brown  (1861-67),  Daniel  J.  Noyes  (1867-83).  Political 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  691 

economy,  distinctively  such  and  almost  uniformly  also,  as  helping 
to  denominate  the  department  of  instruction,  was  instituted  at  Wil- 
liam and  Mary  in  1807 ;  Harvard  in  1820 ;  Yale  in  1824  ;  Columbia 
in  1827 ;  Dartmouth  in  1828 ;  Princeton  in  1830 ;  and  Williams  in 
1835.  This  nearly  synchronous  introduction  of  political  economy 
as  a  branch  of  study  in  the  northern  colleges  was  doubtless  much 
facilitated  by  the  publication  in  Boston  of  an  English  translation  of 
Leon  Say's  "  Political  Economy  "  in  1821 ;  which  presents  the  subject 
in  general  in  a  clear  and  attractive  form,  as  indeed  with  many 
diversities  the  French  economists  have  usually  presented  it. 

So  far  as  Williams  is  concerned,  Joseph  Alden,  a  graduate  of 
Union  in  1828,  was  chosen  in  August,  1835,  Professor  of  Rhetoric, 
Political  Economy,  and  History.  He  held  this  chair  with  honor  for 
seventeen  years ;  and  continued  a  college  teacher  and  president  in 
different  institutions  throughout  a  long  life,  ending  it  in  Albany  as 
president  of  the  New  York  Normal  College.  Dr.  Alden  was  an  able 
and  successful  man,  but  for  some  reasons  was  never  popular  with  his 
classes  at  Williams,  probably  because  in  part  he  stood  in  many  re- 
spects in  strong  contrast  with  Mark  Hopkins.  Usually,  however, 
there  were  one  or  two  or  more  students  in  each  class  who  found  in 
him  a  stimulating  teacher,  and  whom  in  turn  he  treated  as  favorite 
pupils.  For  one  example,  there  was  mutual  admiration  between  him 
and  David  A.  Wells  of  the  class  of  1847.  It  has  never  transpired 
if  the  teacher  influenced  the  pupil  much  in  economy,  in  which  the 
latter  distinguished  himself  greatly  in  his  later  years,  but  it  is  a 
matter  of  record,  or  rather  of  personal  transmission,  that  the  one  did 
influence  the  other  largely  in  rhetoric.  "  Wells,  whenever  you  write 
anything  that  you  think  is  specially  fine,  —  strike  it  out  ! "  For  a 
second  example  (and  they  might  easily  be  multiplied),  Dr.  Alden 
imparted  a  strong  and  lasting  impulse  as  a  teacher  to  Arthur  L. 
Perry  of  the  class  of  1852,  who  was  destined  to  become,  his  imme- 
diate successor  at  Williams.  This  time  the  influence  was  felt  along 
the  line  of  politics.  Alden  gave  some  thoroughly  good  lectures  on 
the  origin  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  specially 
on  the  individuals  most  concerned  in  the  construction  and  early  ad- 
ministration of  that  instrument,  as  Hamilton  and  Jefferson  and 
Madison.  The  first  of  these  great  characters  then  interested  the 
boy  for  the  first  time ;  the  opportunity  of  an  extended  conversation 
with  Mrs.  Hamilton,  who  survived  her  husband  just  fifty  years,  dur- 
ing the  following  year  at  Washington,  naturally  deepened  his  en- 
thusiasm ;  and  this  has  never  been  suffered  to  slumber  long  at  a  time 
in  the  long  interval  since. 


692  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

Dr.  Alden  was  a  consistent  Jeffersonian  Democrat  all  his  life.  His 
instructions  in  politics  to  the  young  men  here,  though  too  little  re- 
garded by  them,  were  sound  and  wholesome.  Their  fundamental 
principle  was  and  remains,  Equality  of  Rights  to  all  citizens  under 
the  Law:  no  special  Privileges  to  the  few  at  the  expense  of  the 
Many.  This  principle  cuts  up  what  is  called  "  protectionism  "  by  the 
roots,  leaving  no  vestige.  Of  course,  Dr.  Alden  was  what  is  called 
a  free  trader.  He  then  used  as  a  text-book  Wayland's  "  Elements 
of  Political  Economy."  Way  land  was  a  free  trader  too,  because 
he  was  a  clear  thinker  and  a  righteous  man.  Protectionism,  in  every 
degree  of  it  and  in  every  manifestation  of  it,  is  contrary  to  common 
sense  and  common  decency  and  common  morality.  It  contravenes 
the  letter  and  spirit  of  the  Ten  Commandments,  as  well  as  the  spirit 
and  letter  of  the  Two  Commandments  of  the  New  Testament.  Dr. 
Alden  did  not  make  much  of  political  economy  in  his  classes,  nor 
of  history  either,  but  he  made  a  beginning.  He  prepared  the  way 
for  another,  who  was  much  more  interested  in  all  these  things  than 
he  was,  was  willing  to  give  to  them  a  more  radical  and  comprehen- 
sive study,  and  was  able  after  a  little  to  gain  the  ear  of  the  College 
for  them,  and  even  that  of  the  public  also.  Dr.  Alden  had  married 
into  the  Livingston  family  of  New  York,  proprietors  of  the  Living- 
ston Manor  on  the  banks  of  the  Hudson,  and  so  had  corne  into  inti- 
mate relations  with  several  statesmen  and  divines  connected  with 
that  distinguished  family.  He  was  a  personal  friend  of  Governor 
William  L.  Marcy  of  New  York,  twice  the  leading  member  of  a 
President's  Cabinet  at  Washington.  In  consequence  of  all  this,  Dr. 
Alden  had  an  advantage  in  point  of  general  intelligence  and  culture 
not  possessed  by  any  of  his  colleagues  at  Williams.  Scarcely,  how- 
ever, if  at  all,  did  this  superficial  advantage  aid  him  in  gaining  and 
holding  a  firm  footing  in  the  College.  He  lacked  some  of  those 
qualities  more  essential  to  the  highest  success  of  a  college  teacher 
than  the  polish  that  comes  from  travel  and  intercourse  with  what  is 
known  as  the  best  society.  He  resigned  his  professorship  in  1852, 
and  it  remained  practically  vacant  for  a  year. 

In  the  meantime,  the  boy  whom  he  had  stimulated  by  his  lectures 
on  the  founders  of  the  republic,  who  had  been  stimulated  more 
roundly  and  deeply  by  the  studies  of  Mark  Hopkins,  who  had  in- 
herited from  Scotch-Irish  ancestors  an  analytical  mind  never  satis- 
fied till  it  had  reached  the  very  bottom  of  questions,  and  who  had 
given  to  himself  in  private  a  full  year's  study  of  Mill's  "  Logic  "  while 
in  college,  —  thus  familiarizing  himself  with  the  inductive  reasoning, 
—  was  asked  to  take  the  chair  vacated  by  Dr.  Alden.  Although  he 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE  TILL  THE   CENTENNIAL.  693 

knew  nothing  about  it  at  the  time,  there  was,  beyond  question,  a  tie 
of  connection  between  this  painstaking  study  of  Mill  and  his  call  to 
the  professorship ;  for  President  Hopkins  repeatedly  said  to  him 
years  afterward,  —  "  /  picked  you  out  for  a  professor  in  your  Junior 
year,  at  that  first  public  debate  between  the  two  literary  societies" 
Mill's  book  was  nearly  finished  when  that  debate  took  place  in 
November,  1850 ;  and  it  is  more  than  likely  that  that  Junior's  pre- 
sentation of  his  side  of  the  subject  was  clarified  and  stiffened  by  the 
logical  theory  and  practice.  The  professorship  thus  reached  in  1853 
was  denominated  History  and  Political  Economy.  The  rhetoric  of 
Dr.  Alden's  former  department  devolved  on  John  Bascom  two  years 
later. 

Every  young  professor  has  his  trade  to  learn,  makes  his  inevitable 
mistakes,  and  exposes  himself  to  the  initial  ridicule.  In  this  case 
there  was  a  will  and  a  way.  To  render  something  of  one's  own  of 
considerable  consequence  in  point  of  substance,  and  in  point  of 
form  interesting  to  the  mind  of  students,  is  the  sine  qua  non  of  suc- 
cess. Students  invariably  distinguish  sharply  between  substance 
and  form.  Leave  them  alone  all  the  year  round  to  tell  the  differ- 
ence between  realities  and  shams.  They  know  a  man  when  they  see 
him.  They  come  to  trust  a  teacher  implicitly  who  trusts  them  by 
admitting  his  present  ignorance  through  obvious  and  earnest  efforts 
to  gain  the  knowledge  that  he  may  impart  it  to  them.  Perry  had  no 
difficulties  of  any  account  with  his  early  classes.  He  was  young 
and  crude.  So  were  they.  He  never  pretended  to  understand  any- 
thing that  he  did  not  understand,  nor  professed  to  be  satisfied  with 
any  analysis  or  induction  of  the  text-book  that  did  not  meet  the 
criteria  of  his  own  mind  and  training.  He  talked  over  the  processes 
with  his  classes  even  more  than  the  conclusions.  So  far  as  it  was 
possible,  he  made  it  seem  to  them  that  he  and  they  were  in  one  boat 
together,  voyaging  and  exploring.  He  studied  every  lesson  faithfully 
in  reference  to  that  particular  recitation  and  discussion.  He  was 
reading  history  diligently  with  reference  to  ulterior  ends,  economi- 
cal and  political;  but  so  far  as  it  was  taught  in  those  years  from  a 
text-book,  it  was  taught  almost  solely  to  enlarge  the  horizon  of  the 
pupils  geographically  and  intellectually.  The  main  emphasis  was 
put  on  English  and  American  history. 

In  the  meantime,  with  class  after  class,  further  on  in  the  course, 
the  questions  were  raised  and  tentatively  answered  in  mutual  dis- 
cussion year  after  year.  What  is  political  economy  ?  Within  what 
precise  field  do  its  inquiries  lie  ?  What  is  a  science  ?  How  are 
economics  differentiated  from  politics  ?  What  is  the  motive  to 


694  \VTLLI AMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

every  trade  ?  What  is  the  motive  for  obedience  to  government  ? 
These  and  similar  vital  questions,  and  the  subordinate  questions  im- 
plied in  them,  with  any  helps  presented  by  the  current  text-books, 
were  familiarly  discussed  day  after  day,  and  illustrated  by  historical 
examples  at  home  or  abroad.  Objections  were  always  in  order  from 
any  member  of  the  class,  and  were  duly  weighed.  No  doctrine,  his- 
torical or  other,  was  ever  thrust  down  the  throat  of  any  pupil.  Fre- 
quently an  objection  raised  was  thrown  over  to  volunteers  in  the 
class  to  confute  or  confirm.  The  only  condition  imposed  on  desk 
or  seats  was  the  universal  one,  —  "play  fair."  Recitation  hours  con- 
ducted in  this  way  on  the  pregnant  topics  ever  arising  within  such  a 
department  held  up  the  interest  alike  of  desk  and  seats.  The  depart- 
ment as  such  slowly  but  steadily  rose  in  the  estimation  of  the  students. 
After  ten  or  eleven  years  of  such  work  as  has  now  been  described, 
it  appeared  to  the  teacher  that  he  might  properly  essay  a  text-book 
of  his  own  on  the  economical  branch  of  his  department.  The 
endeavor  became  known  to  his  classes  while  it  was  still  going  on, 
and  their  interest  in  it  was  almost  equal  to  his  own.  The  "Elements 
of  Political  Economy  "  was  published  by  the  Scribners  in  1865.  The 
book  had  several  new  features.  (1)  Probably  the  most  transform- 
ing one  was  the  dropping  from  the  start  throughout  of  the  technical 
term  "  Wealth,"  which  all  writers  had  found  undefinable  and  conse- 
quently grossly  confusing,  and  the  substitution  therefor  of  the  term 
"  Valuables,"  which  is  easily  defined  in  a  sense  of  its  own,  and  yields 
perfectly  to  the  analysis  of  three  kinds,  namely,  Material  Commodi- 
ties, Personal  Services,  Commercial  Credits.  (2)  The  correspon- 
dence of  the  three  kinds  of  Valuables  to  the  three  grand  divisions  of 
Time,  namely,  Commodities  to  the  Past,  Services  to  the  Present, 
Credits  to  the  Future.  (3)  The  sole  subject  of  Political  Economy  is 
Buying  and  Selling.  (4)  The  impossibility  of  Buying  without  at 
the  same  instant  Selling,  or  Selling  without  Buying  at  the  same 
instant.  (5)  The  sole  motive  and  universal  reward  of  Buying  and 
Selling  is  the  mutual  Gain  accruing  to  each  party  ;  without  this  no 
trade  would  ever  take  place.  (6)  Trade  is  profitable  in  its  inmost 
nature ;  and  to  forbid  it  or  restrict  it  except  in  the  clear  interest  of 
public  Health,  or  public  Morals,  or  public  Eevenue,  is  alike  injustice 
and  impoverishment.  (7)  The  laying  down  in  terms  and  demon- 
stration in  logic  of  the  universal  principle,  —  A  market  for  Products 
is  products  in  Market.  (8)  Tariffs  are  Taxes.  (9)  Historical  chap- 
ters accompanying  and  illustrating  the  chapters  establishing  and 
collating  Economical  Principles.  (10)  The  Proof  that  Political 
Economy  is  a  Science  in  the  strictest  sense  of  that  word. 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    CENTENNIAL.  695 

The  reception  accorded  to  this  book  by  the  colleges  and  by  the  pub- 
lic generally  and  by  the  successive  classes  here  who  used  it  as  a  text- 
book for  twenty-five  years  has  a  significant  bearing  on  the  main 
proposition  now  being  illustrated.  President  Woolsey,  who  was 
then  teaching  political  economy  in  Yale,  was  kind  enough  to  listen 
to  considerable  portions  of  the  manuscript  before  it  was  printed,  and 
then  said,  "Wayland  is  good,  but  much  of  it  is  milk  for  babes; 
I  shall  introduce  your  book  here  as  soon  as  it  is  published."  After 
using  it  a  year  or  two,  Dr.  Woolsey  wrote,  "Your  book  interests 
students  more  than  any  I  have  ever  instructed  from."  Professor 
Noyes  shortly  introduced  the  book  in  Dartmouth,  President  Miner 
in  Tufts,  and  their  respective  professors  in  Bowdoin,  Trinity,  Wes- 
leyan,  Union,  and  Princeton  colleges,  and  Wooster  and  Brown,  and 
New  York  Universities,  and  in  the  course  of  a  few  years  in  many  of 
the  State  Universities  both  West  and  South  such  as  Virginia  and  North 
Carolina  and  Nebraska ;  making  in  all  perhaps  thirty  of  the  highest 
grade  institutions  of  learning  in  the  country.  It  was  a  new  thing 
for  the  colleges  to  come  to  Williams  in  such  numbers  for  guidance 
and  leadership  in  this  way ;  and  it  was  a  new  thing  for  Williams  to 
issue  a  book  which  required  new  editions  on  the  average  each  year 
for  eighteen  years.  Four  editions  of  this  first  book  were  subse- 
quently required.  In  1877,  at  the  instance  of  the  publishers,  a  much 
smaller  book,  entitled  "  Introduction  to  Political  Economy,"  was 
presented  to  the  public,  and  passed  through  five  ordinary  editions, 
besides  a  special  edition  printed  in  raised  letters  for  the  use  of  the 
blind.  In  1890  a  new  book  of  nearly  the  size  of  the  first  one, 
entitled  "  Principles  of  Political  Economy,"  was  issued.  In  this  more 
space  and  care  were  given  to  a  radical  and  comprehensive  discussion 
of  the  science  of  economics  and  much  less  to  a  history  of  its  doc- 
trines and  their  applications  in  legislation.  Of  this  book,  President 
Cravath  of  Fisk  University  wrote :  "  The  clear  and  masterful 
manner  refreshes  and  stimulates.  It  is  worthy  to  be  the  crowning 
triumph  of  a  lifelong  devotion  to  this  noble  science,  whose  practical 
fruits  are  becoming  richer  and  more  abundant  continually."  And 
the  Southern  Educator  wrote  also,  "Perry's  ' Principles'  stands,  by 
all  means,  at  the  head,  for  its  readableness  and  scientific  accuracy 
combined." 

As  bearing  upon  the  quality  of  the  instruction  given  and  the 
stimulus  imparted  in  the  economical  and  political  lecture-room  at 
Williams,  it  is  worth  while  to  notice  the  testimony  given  to  the  first 
and  third  of  these  books  by  two  or  three  men,  themselves  employed 
at  the  time  in  the  very  highest  places  of  public  administration. 


696  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

Hugh  McCulloch,  Secretary  of  the  United  States  Treasury,  the 
man  whom  Lincoln  (as  he  said),  "  brought  from  over  the  mountains 
[Fort  Wayne,  Indiana]  to  handle  the  war  finances  of  the  Union," 
wrote  as  follows  :  — 

You  have  made  an  exceedingly  valuable  contribution  to  the  science  of  politi- 
cal economy.  I  am  not  a  little  surprised  that  a  college  professor  should  have 
written  a  book  so  intelligible  to  the  common  mind,  and  so  eminently  practical 
and  instructive.  Accept  my  thanks  for  your  kindness  in  sending  me  the  book, 
and  my  grateful  acknowledgments  as  your  fellow-citizen  for  the  service  you 
have  rendered  the  country.  It  is,  in  my  judgment,  the  ablest  and  most  valuable 
work  yet  published  upon  the  science  of  which  it  treats.  I  do  not  see  where  it 
could  be  improved  in  matter,  or  style,  or  arrangement. 

What  was  thought  of  the  third  book  in  the  committee-room  of  the 
Ways  and  Means  of  the  51st  Congress  may  be  seen  in  the  subjoined 
letter  of  the  Hon.  C.  B.  Breckin ridge,  written  on  the  official  paper 
of  that  Committee,  dated  March  31,  1891,  and  now  printed  from  the 
original  for  the  first  time. 

PROF.  A.  L.  PERRY,  LL.D. 
Williamstown,  Mass. 

Dear  Sir :  I  am  greatly  obliged  to  you  for  the  copy  of  "  Principles  of  Political 
Economy."  It  should  have  been  acknowledged  much  sooner ;  but  the  drudgery 
of  congressional  work  kept  me  until  recently  from  giving  it  the  careful  reading 
that  I  desired  to  give  it,  and  which  I  find  it  so  richly  deserves.  Sound  princi- 
ples of  economics  lie  at  the  root  of  the  comfort,  liberty,  and  morals  of  a  people  ; 
and  we,  rioting  in  the  abundance  of  our  natural  endowments,  have  wandered  far 
and  long  from  them.  The  activity  and  earnestness  shown  by  our  best  writers 
and  leaders  of  thought  to  get  to  good  ground  is  none  too  soon  ;  and  your  book  is 
certainly  entitled  to  the  highest  rank  among  those  directed  to  this  end.  I  am 
greatly  pleased  with  your  divisions  and  terms,  while  your  illustrations  drawn 
from  current  events,  combined  with  great  clearness  of  statement,  give  the  book 
uncommon  strength  and  interest. 

It  will  be  observed,  that  this  letter  of  the  distinguished  congress- 
man commends  especially  the  scientific  "  divisions  and  terms  "  of  the 
Williams  book,  —  that  is  to  say,  its  fundamental  nomenclature,  and 
not  any  discussions  of  subordinate  principles  or  local  and  transient 
policies ;  and  the  same  is  true  (though  not  perhaps  in  the  same 
degree)  of  scores  of  other  letters  from  similar  sources.  All  three  of 
these  Williams  books  are  books  on  political  economy  as  a  science, 
and  not  on  any  phase  of  transient  politics  whatsoever ;  and  that  is 
the  reason  why  they  have  brought  to  the  College  and  to  their  author 
so  much  of  reputation  and  distinction  for  so  long  a  time,  and  why 
the  attacks  upon  them  and  the  defences  of  them  form  an  essential 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE    TILL    THE    CENTENNIAL.  697 

part  of  the  history  of  the  College  during  the  last  third  of  the  cen- 
tury. These  books  brought  out  a  radical  view  of  credit,  and  con- 
sequently of  banking,  that  was  relatively  new  and  transforming. 
They  brought  out  also  a  view  of  the  nature  of  buying  and  selling, 
which  makes  protectionism  (so-called)  a  contradiction  in  terms,  as 
well  as  a  necessary  impoverishment  and  an  inescapable  injustice.  It 
was  not  strange,  accordingly,  that  certain  officials  of  the  United 
States,  feeling  a  thorough  and  intelligent  sense  of  their  own  respon- 
sibility to  God  and  men,  should  have  resorted  to  Williams  College 
for  guidance  and  help  in  their  management  of  financial  affairs.  In 
the  first  administration  of  President  Cleveland,  when  his  first  secre- 
tary and  bosom  friend,  Daniel  Manning,  grew  sick  unto  death,  he 
indirectly  invited  Professor  Perry  to  become  Secretary  of  the  National 
Treasury.  The  professor's  cordial  relations  with  the  President  com- 
menced while  the  latter  was  Governor  of  the  State  of  New  York. 
John  B.  Thacher  of  the  college  class  of  1869,  and  long  Mayor  of  the 
city  of  Albany,  was  the  original  medium  of  communication  between 
them.  These  pleasant  relations  have  continued  till  the  present 
time.  During  the  second  administration  of  President  Cleveland, 
while  it  was  in  the  thick  of  its  portentous  struggle  to  maintain  the 
gold  standard  of  values  as  against  the  impending  menace  of  a  drop 
to  silver  payments,  and  while  John  G.  Carlisle,  of  Kentucky,  the 
ablest  and  most  efficient  financier  in  the  nation,  was  at  the  helm,  an 
official  request  from  the  Cabinet  voiced  to  him  by  Secretary  Morton, 
was  forwarded  to  Professor  Perry  by  mail,  for  a  short  and  sharp  and 
logical  and  popular  demolition  of  the  whole  silver  pretensions. 

In  1883,  at  Commencement  time,  fell  the  first  public  protest 
against  the  college  teaching  of  Professor  Perry  on  political  econ- 
omy, from  any  persons  entitled  to  a  respectful  hearing.  George  H. 
Ely,  of  the  class  of  1848,  an  ironmonger  of  Cleveland,  who  had  been 
very  instrumental,  with  a  few  others  of  the  same  general  craft,  in 
getting  so-called  protective  tariff  taxes  upon  forms  of  iron  imported, 
for  the  sole  sake  of  enhancing  the  prices  of  his  own  wares  at  the 
uncompensated  cost  of  his  countrymen,  circulated  among  others, 
like-minded,  the  subjoined  petition  to  the  trustees  of  the  College. 
There  lies  before  the  writer  a  contemporary  record  of  the  Com- 
mittee of  Ways  and  Means  at  Washington,  before  whom  Ely  et 
alii  had  presented  their  demands  that  the  whole  people  of  the 
United  States  should  be  taxed  in  order  to  hire  them  to  make  and 
sell  iron  at  a  cost  thereby  artificially  enhanced  to  every  buyer,  and 
to  whom  they  at  once  confessed  and  betrayed  under  the  sharp  ques- 
tions of  certain  members  of  the  Committee,  that  their  sole  motive  in 


698  WILLlAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

urging  these  taxes  on,  was  this  selfish  and  abominable  one.  There 
was  not,  therefore,  any  difference  of  opinion  between  these  petition- 
ers and  the  College  as  to  the  designed  and  actual  effects  of  so-called 
protective-tariff  taxes.  In  fact,  there  never  was  any  difference  of 
opinion  at  this  point  between  any  protectionists  and  free  traders. 
The  difference  of  opinion,  so  far  as  there  ever  was  any  at  all,  lay  at 
the  point,  whether  it  were  fair  and  right  to  rob  the  millions  by  law 
for  the  sake  of  stealthily  enriching  a  few  hundreds.  But  let  us  now 
hear  these  petitioners  in  full. 

WILLIAMS-TOWN,  July  3,  1883. 

To  the  Honorable  President  and  Trustees  of  Williams  College : 

The  undersigned  alumni  and  friends  of  the  college  respectfully  beg  leave  to  ask 
your  attention  to  a  subject  affecting,  in  no  small  degree,  its  permanent  interests. 

It  is  well  known  that  the  advocacy  of  free  trade,  in  the  instruction  here  in 
political  economy,  has  operated  to  the  virtual  commitment  of  the  college  to  these 
doctrines.  Such  commitment  is  regarded  by  a  very  large  number  of  its  friends 
and  alumni  as  most  inexpedient,  unwise,  and  unjust.  It  is  true  that  our  insti- 
tution of  learning  is  bound  to  sustain,  establish,  and  teach  truth  throughout  the 
domain  of  morals  and  science.  But  absolute  scientific  truth  cannot  be  predi- 
cated of  any  question  of  social  science  or  political  economy.  In  this  case  there 
is  an  entire  absence  of  capacity  or  susceptibility  of  numerical  application  —  an 
element  essential  in  this  case.  It  is  a  question  of  national  policy  only,  and, 
hence,  has  become  naturally  and  necessarily  a  political  question,  and,  for  this 
reason  alone,  it  should  have  no  advocate  here. 

We  deprecate,  therefore,  without  further  suggestion,  everything  in  the  admin- 
istration of  the  college  which  tends  to  place  it  in  the  position  of  advocate  or 
defender  of  any  controverted  politico-economic  question. 

For  these  reasons,  and  believing  that  thereby  the  usefulness  of  the  college  will 
be  increased  and  a  just  and  necessary  cause  of  the  alienation  of  friends  be  happily 
removed,  we  respectfully,  but  most  earnestly,  request  that  the  college  do  refuse 
to  accept  from  any  foreign  government,  or  any  foreign  political  or  commercial 
organization,  any  prize  for  proficiency  in  this  department. 

We  sincerely  deprecate  such  influence  of  a  foreign  organization  in  an  Ameri- 
can college  as  is  suggested  and  implied  by  its  acceptance  of  a  prize  from  such  a 
source,  and  for  such  a  purpose.     We  remain,  gentlemen,  most  respectfully, 
GEORGE  H.  ELY  EDWARD  H.  FITCH  G.  W.   HUBBELL 

H.  R.  HATCH  OLIVER  G.  BARTON  JAS.  S.  KNOWLSON 

CHAS.  A.  DEWEY  PARKER  HANDY  T.   P.   HANDY 

S.  S.  MELLEN  J.  B.  PARSOXS  J.  LASELL 

J.  H.  DOUGLASS  HENRY    M.  HOYT 

Of  the  fourteen  names  appended  to  this  petition,  purporting  to  be 
"  alumni  and  friends  of  the  College,"  six  were  never  to  be  found  on 
the  triennial  catalogue.  If  the  language  chosen  had  been  "  alumni 
or  friends  of  the  College,"  simple  truth  would  not  have  been  violated 
in  the  preamble,  and  the  petition  itself  would  not  have  been  preju- 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL  THE   CENTENNIAL.  699 

diced,  as  it  was;  but  whether  that  mode  of  simple  speech  would 
have  been  more  in  accordance  with  the  usual  methods  of  protection- 
ists, need  not  now  be  considered.  Eight  of  the  signers  were  grad- 
uates of  the  College ;  and  some  of  them  certainly  were  excellent, 
albeit  mistaken  and  relatively  obscure  men.  Nearly  all  if  not  quite 
all  of  them  had  been  members  of  a  single  secret  society  in  College. 
As  soon  as  this  petition  had  been  sent  to  the  press,  action  was  taken 
upon  it  in  the  city  of  Cleveland,  the  home  of  Mr.  Ely,  and  a  counter- 
petition  (as  follows  in  full)  was  circulated  there ;  and  it  was  said  at 
the  time  that  every  alumnus  of  the  College  then  resident  there  (ex- 
cepting of  course  Mr.  Ely)  appended  to  it  his  signature  with  the 
date  of  his  graduation.  At  any  rate  the  list  was  headed  by  Harvey 
Rice  of  the  class  of  1824,  a  classmate  and  lifelong  intimate  of  Mark 
Hopkins.  Of  him  a  full  account  has  been  given  on  some  of  the 
preceding  pages. 

To  the  Honorable  President  and  Trustees  of  Williams  College : 

We,  the  undersigned,  graduates  of  Williams  College,  residing  in  Cleveland,  0., 
without  regard  to  party,  predilections  or  political  bias,  desire  to  respectfully 
submit  to  you  this  statement  of  our  regard  for  Professor  A.  L.  Perry  as  a  teacher, 
a  scholar  and  a  man  eminently  fitted  for  the  position  he  fills  in  the  Faculty  of 
Williams  College. 

As  a  teacher  of  political  economy  he  has  no  superior  in  this  country.  Upon 
all  questions  pertaining  to  this  important  science  he  invites  the  freest  discussion 
in  his  class-room,  and  insists  upon  a  broad  research  and  reading  by  his  students 
of  all  the  eminent  writers  upon  this  subject,  so  that  these  discussions  in  the 
class-room  may  be  instructive  and  interesting. 

We  do  not  "deprecate  the  fact "  that  he  takes  a  stand  and  has  decided  views 
upon  one  of  the  great  questions  of  this  science.  Without  expressing  our  views 
upon  this  subject  of  free  trade  or  protection,  we  do  not  "deem  it  inexpedient, 
unjust,  or  unwise  "  that  the  majority  of  the  young  men  of  each  class  should  go 
out  from  his  instruction  also  with  decided  views  upon  these  questions.  If  they 
are  advocates  or  defenders  of  the  weaker  side  they  ought  soon  to  discover  their 
error  when  they  come  to  meet  the  question  as  educated  men,  if  the  stronger  side 
be  strong  enough  to  show  them  their  error.  If  not,  what  harm  that  the  right 
should  be  taught  them  ? 

If  the  Cobden  Club,  which  has  among  its  members  in  this  country  such  men 
as  Charles  Francis  Adams,  Cyrus  W.  Field,  Stanley  Matthews,  Samuel  J.  Tilden, 
Horace  White  and  James  A.  Garfield,  desires  to  offer  a  medal  to  the  best  student 
in  Political  Economy  at  Williams  or  Yale,  we  do  not  think  that  the  "  usefulness  " 
of  these  colleges  "  would  be  impaired,"  nor  do  we  see  any  reason  why  it  should 
lead  to  "  the  alienation  "  of  their  friends  if  the  successful  student  should  be  a  Free 
Trader  or  a  Protectionist,  as  he  happened  to  be  at  Williams  in  the  class  of  1882. 
For  the  purpose,  then,  of  partially  replying  to  a  protest  recently  handed  to  the 
honorable  president  and  trustees  of  Williams  College,  and  signed  by  some  who 
are  not  graduates,  and  being  desirous  of  expressing  our  belief  in  the  ability  of 


700  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

Professor  Perry  as  a  teacher,  and  of  his  success  in  his  department  we  respectfully 
submit  the  above. 

HARVEY  RICE,  Class  of  1824  H.  J.  HERRICK,  Class  of  1858 

JARVIS  M.  ADAMS,  Class  of  1851  M.  M.  MOWER,  Class  of  1880 

VIRGIL  P.  KLINE,  Class  of  1867  JOSEPH  PERKINS,  JR.,  Class  of  1882 

BUSHNELL  WHITE,  Class  of  1836  JACOB  B.  PERKINS,  Class  of  1877 

SAMUEL  D.  DODGE,  Class  of  1877  A.  E.  BUELL,  Class  of  1882 

ROLLO  OGDEN,  Class  of  1877  CHARLES  E.  BARR,  Class  of  1881 
E.  P.  INGERSOLL,  Class  of  1882 

Stunning  as  was  the  blow  at  George  H.  Ely,  when  every  one  of 
his  fellow-alumni  in  Cleveland  immediately  confronted  his  petition 
with  their  own,  there  followed  in  his  town  a  public  manifestation  in 
opposition  to  his  position  as  a  protectionist,  which  seemed  to  his 
fellow-citizens,  if  not  to  him,  more  deadly  still.  Tom  L.  Johnson, 
personally  engaged  in  the  iron  business  in  the  same  localities  and 
under  the  same  conditions  as  was  Ely,  announced  that  protective- 
tariff  taxes,  so-called,  in  behoof  of  the  manufacture  of  iron  were 
wholly  unnecessary,  as  well  as  monstrously  unjust  to  the  masses  of 
the  people.  Johnson  continued  this  public  contention  as  long  as  Ely 
lived,  and  afterward  was  repeatedly  elected  a  member  of  Congress 
from  the  Cleveland  district  on  the  strength  of  it,  and  by  means  of 
the  consistent  maintenance  of  it  became  a  national  statesman  of  large 
proportions.  It  throws  a  sort  of  lurid  light  on  a  life  otherwise 
eminently  respectable  that  the  College  necrology  of  1894  has  these 
words  on  George  H.  Ely.  "  Early  in  the  tariff  discussion  [of  1893] 
he  went  to  Washington  to  present  the  interests  of  iron  industry. 
While  conducting  this  business  he  died  of  heart  failure,  Jan.  24, 
1894."  Of  much  more  local  interest  was  the  way  in  which  these 
college  petitions  struck  the  newspapers  of  Berkshire  County  and 
vicinity.  The  Springfield  Republican,  for  one  example,  had  the 
following  editorial  even  before  the  Cleveland  petition  had  been 
received. 

The  protest  of  several  of  the  alumni  and  friends  of  Williams  College  against 
the  teaching  of  free  trade  at  that  institution  derives  most  of  its  strength  from 
the  honorable  names  which  are  attached  to  it.  As  a  statement  of  truth  it  is 
singularly  weak,  and  if  it  became  the  basis  of  the  policy  of  the  institution  it 
would  reduce  the  teaching  of  political  economy  to  mere  speculative  abstractions. 
They  say  truly  that  "  absolute  scientific  truth  cannot  be  predicated  of  any  ques- 
tion of  social  science  or  political  economy."  But  when  they  add  that  "  in  this 
case  there  is  an  entire  absence  of  capacity  or  susceptibility  of  universal  applica- 
tion, an  element  essential  in  this  case,"  we  are  puzzled  to  know  what  they 
mean.  If  it  is  the  principle  of  free  trade  which  lacks  "  capacity  or  susceptibility 
of  universal  application,"  and  if  this  is  "  an  element  essential  in  this  case,"  then 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    CENTENNIAL.  701 

clearly  many  of  the  principles  of  exchange,  currency,  banking,  and  government 
in  its  large  sense  fall  under  the  same  condemnation  and  would  be  thrown  out  of 
the  college  class-room  and  text-book.  But  it  would  be  above  all  things  extraor- 
dinary if  in  the  United  States,  where  absolute  free  trade  prevails  among  38 
states  and  amid  a  continental  nation,  without  precedent  or  parallel  in  magni- 
tude, an  American  college  should  be  muzzled  on  this  subject,  on  the  ground 
that  the  principle  has  not  yet  acquired  "universal  application." 

The  claim  that,  because  "free  trade  is  naturally  and  necessarily  a  political 
question,"  "for  this  reason  alone  it  should  have  no  advocate  here"  is  another 
most  extraordinary  doctrine  to  propound  to  a  college  concerned  in  the  instruc- 
tion of  future  citizens,  and  which  has  already  furnished  one  President  to  the 
United  States.  The  proposition  amputates  one  of  the  great  purposes  of  the 
college.  There  is  no  higher  public  concern  than  politics,  and  the  idea  that  there 
is  a  field  of  political  economy  and  morals  higher  than  politics  or  of  which  poli- 
tics is  a  perversion  and  degradation  is  what  manly  scholars  have  been  combat- 
ing for  a  generation.  "Political  questions"  are  not  questions  on  which  the 
colleges  should  keep  silent.  Rather  they  should  illuminate  them  with  the  fullest 
presentation  of  truth,  and  to  this  end  there  is  increasing  demand  for  instruction 
in  the  subjects  of  government  and  political  economy.  The  protest  of  these 
gentlemen  against  the  Cobden  club  prize  is  in  a  very  narrow  spirit  and  in 
unfortunate  ignorance  of  the  purpose  and  mission  of  the  Cobden  club.  While 
that  club  has  issued  pamphlets  on  free  trade  in  America,  in  fact  its  most  impor- 
tant publications  have  been  upon  the  internal  policy  of  Great  Britain  in  regard 
to  land  tenure  and  local  taxation,  and  its  researches  upon  these  questions  have 
placed  political  economists  throughout  the  world  under  obligation. 

If  the  signers  of  this  protest  were  to  object  that  the  teaching  at  Williams  has 
been  too  exclusively  in  favor  of  free  trade,  or  that  the  instruction  in  political 
economy  is  inadequate,  they  would  place  their  criticism  on  debatable  ground, 
and  could  only  be  answered  that  the  college  would  be  pleased  to  endow  more 
agencies  of  instruction  if  it  had  the  means.  It  will  probably  be  the  upshot  of 
the  matter  that  means  will  be  furnished  for  another  lecturer  perhaps  in  political 
economy,  but  we  trust  the  institution  will  never  forsake  the  broad  charter  of 
free  instruction  upon  the  themes  of  political  economy  and  government  which 
it  has  always  held  for  such  a  narrow  policy  of  abstention  and  silence  as  is 
advised  by  the  signers  of  this  protest.  The  missionary  college  owes  its  fame 
to  its  catholicity  of  culture  and  of  spirit,  the  world  is  its  consecrated  field,  and 
it  is  too  late  now  to  narrow  its  mission  in  any  respect. 

Franklin  H.  Giddings,  now  (1897)  Professor  of  Sociology  in  the 
Columbia  University  of  New  York,  was  then  (1883)  editor  of  the 
Gazette,  a  South  Berkshire  newspaper  of  high  character.  His  edito- 
rial, which  follows,  while  too  favorable  personally  to  the  economist 
at  Williams,  was  written  under  some  misapprehension  of  his  method 
of  teaching,  and  under  more  misapprehension  perhaps  of  the  real 
question  at  issue  as  between  free  traders  and  protectionists.  It 
was  always  borne  in  mind  in  the  lecture-room  at  Williams,  and 
always  borne  in  upon  the  minds  of  the  students,  that  free  trade  is 


702  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

the  natural  state  of  things,  and  wholly  negative  in  its  character. 
Free  trade  does  not  compel  anybody  to  trade,  does  not  even  rec- 
ommend anybody  to  trade,  says  nothing  about  trade  one  way  or 
another,  until  some  one  else  steps  in  with  a  look  of  authority  be- 
tween two  parties  about  to  trade  to  their  own  mutual  advantage, 
and  says  to  them,  "  You  shall  not  trade  except  on  conditions  agree- 
able to  me,  even  if  I  allow  you  to  trade  at  all ! "  Who  is  this  third 
party,  who  presumes  to  interfere  violently  with  the  natural  ongoing 
of  things  as  God  appointed  them,  and  to  destroy  by  a  stroke  the 
legitimate  gain  of  two  persons  ?  Who  is  this  man  who  sets  himself 
up  to  be  wiser  than  God,  and  to  have  certain  rights  supreme  over 
the  trial  rights  of  his  fellow-citizens  ?  How  did  he  obtain  the 
authority  to  lord  it  thus  over  his  fellow-men  to  their  outward  im- 
poverishment, and  to  their  inward  sense  of  intolerable  wrong? 
This  was  always  the  bottom  question  in  that  lecture-room,  and  it 
was  always  the  radical  question  everywhere  as  between  free  traders 
and  protectionists.  There  was  no  opportunity  for  dogmatic  teach- 
ing, and  no  temptation  to  enter  upon  it.  Free  trade  was  not  even  a 
postulate,  still  less  was  it  a  theory  in  any  sense  of  that  much-abused 
word.  It  was  a  negative.  The  proving  lay  with  the  party  of  the 
other  part.  Free  trade  seems  to  lie  embedded  in  human  nature, 
and  in  the  fundamental  laws  of  the  physical  world,  and  therefore  in 
the  wisdom  and  purpose  of  God ;  and  it  is  only  when  men  attempt 
to  give  ostensible  and  positive  reasons  for  infringing  it  by  means  of 
public  law,  when  their  real  reasons  for  doing  so  are  obvious  out  of 
their  own  mouths  and  actions,  that  logic  comes  in  play  to  show  the 
fallacy  of  the  alleged  reasons,  and  the  obviousness  of  the  real  ones. 
Never  was  there  a  fairer  opportunity  for  the  inductive  process  of 
reasoning  than  in  the  number  and  simplicity  and  certainty  of  the 
instances  given  in  Benton's  "  Debates,"  and  in  the  official  records  of 
the  Ways  and  Means  Committee,  to  demonstrate  the  selfish  motives 
(utterly  careless  of  the  rights  of  others)  of  those  who  have  practi- 
cally gotten  the  protective-tariff  taxes  laid  on.  Out  of  their  own 
mouths  and  confessions  were  they  judged  in  every  instance.  But 
let  us  now  hear  Professor  Giddings. 

It  is  only  a,  few  weeks  since  the  protectionist  guerillas,  in  and  out  of  the 
newspapers,  were  exercising  themselves  by  a  scattering  fire  upon  Yale  College 
and  its  professor  of  political  economy,  W.  G.  Sumner.  No  blood  was  shed  nor 
any  free  trade  gun  silenced.  Unsuccessful  in  that  quarter,  the  skirmishers  have 
gone  north  and  made  a  brave  little  raid  on  Williamstown.  At  the  commence- 
ment the  other  day  a  memorial  signed  by  14  inconsequential  alumni,  most  of 
whom  were  never  heard  of  before,  was  presented  to  the  trustees,  objecting  to 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    CENTENNIAL.  703 

the  "virtual  commitment"  of  the  college  to  free  trade,  and  protesting  against 
the  acceptance  of  a  certain  prize  offered  by  the  Cobden  club  of  London  for  an 
essay  on  the  free  trade  question. 

All  this  is  aimed,  of  course,  at  Professor  A.  L.  Perry,  the  most  original  stu- 
dent of  political  economy  this  country  has  yet  produced  ;  the  one  member  of 
the  Williams  faculty  who  besides  its  presidents,  Hopkins,  Chadbourne  and 
Carter,  has  been  much  known  outside  of  Berkshire  county  ;  the  one  man,  not 
excepting  the  presidents  above  named,  who  has  made  the  institution  known  and 
honored  in  Europe  ;  the  scholar  whom  Macleod  of  the  University  of  Cambridge 
puts  above  all  other  American  economists  ;  the  one  whom  to  confute,  Bonamy 
Price  of  the  University  of  Oxford  has  put  forth  his  best  powers  —  and  failed. 

There  is  little  danger  that  these  memorialists  will  accomplish  much  beyond 
their  own  confusion.  But  the  opportunity  seems  a  good  one  to  call  attention  to 
what  is  perhaps  a  real  mistake  in  American  college  teaching  of  political  and 
economic  science.  Is  it  not  possible  that  the  teaching  is  too  dogmatic,  too 
authoritative  ?  The  dogmatic  method  does  not  harmonize  well  with  the  modern 
scientific  spirit. 

The  simple  truth,  was  shown  to  be  such  by  every  criterion  of 
truth  applicable  in  such  matters,  that  these  men  were  trying  to 
feather  their  own  nests  out  of  the  stolen  plumage  of  other  birds,  and 
at  the  same  moment  were  accusing  the  disinterested  men  who  stood 
up  against  the  wrong,  and  in  behalf  of  the  wronged,  of  being  de- 
luded by  a  theory  and  of  introducing  the  millennium  into  this  wicked 
world.  Nothing  is  more  respectable  than  a  theory  in  its  own  place 
and  when  well  proven.  But  unluckily  for  these  illogical  protection- 
ists, free  trade  is  not  a  theory  at  all,  while  protectionism  is  nothing 
but  a  theory,  and  a  very  bad  theory  at  that  because  it  is  insuscepti- 
ble of  any  proof,  and  issues  in  palpable  injustice  obvious  to  a  child. 
Conjoined  with  the  charge  of  being  theorists,  the  free  traders  were 
assailed  with,  being  "  scholars  in  politics,"  as  if  care  and  diligence  in 
looking  into  the  nature  of  trade  and  taxation,  and  clearness  and 
vigor  in  expressing  the  results  of  such  research,  ought  at  once  to 
disfranchise  the  inquisitive  citizen  of  the  republic,  and  subject  him 
to  other  pains  and  penalties  at  the  instance,  and  under  the  pressure 
of,  the  "  business  man  in  politics,"  that  is  to  say,  of  the  protection- 
ists. To  such  absurd  lengths  was  this  doctrine  urged,  that  one  of 
their  own  number,  Senator  Hoar  of  Massachusetts,  felt  obliged  to 
take  up  the  cudgels  in  behalf  of  decency  and  science  as  follows :  — 

I  wish  to  put  on  record  my  emphatic  opinion,  that  a  college  president  or  pro- 
fessor has  as  much  right  to  express  his  opinion  on  a  question  affecting  the  com- 
munity as  any  man  in  the  country.  Not  only  has  he  the  privilege,  but  the 
community  has  the  right  to  know  what  he  thinks.  The  public  should  know 
what  the  scholars  think  of  what  is  going  on.  The  republic  cannot  be  run  if  this 
is  not  so. 


704  WIILIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

Just  a  little  of  this  painstaking  inquiry  into  the  nature  of  things, 
which  Senator  Hoar  so  admirably  commends  as  essential  to  the  on- 
going of  the  republic,  would  have  shown  every  one  of  the  signers  of 
the  Ely  petition  their  own  utter  ignorance  of  the  salient  points  of 
the  history  of  their  country.  The  American  Eevolution  grew 
directly  out  of  the  attempt  of  Great  Britain  to  apply  protectionism 
to  their  liberty-loving  colonists.  The  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  and  the  legislation  of  the  first  Congress  under  it  practically 
established  free  trade  both  within  and  without  the  republic.  When 
England  herself  came  at  length  to  perceive  the  inherent  losses  and 
wrongfulness  of  the  delusion  she  had  hugged  so  long,  and  made  in 
1846  the  gigantic  throw  of  her  civil  history  and  cast  off  the  Corn 
Laws  forever,  the  United  States  (after  a  brief  wandering  in  the 
wilderness)  was  already  farther  advanced  in  the  doctrine  and  prac- 
tice of  free  trade  than  was  England.  Robert  J.  Walker,  then 
Secretary  of  the  United  States  Treasury,  made  a  report  to  Congress 
advocating  absolute  free  trade,  which  was  republished  in  England 
by  order  of  the  House  of  Commons,  at  the  instance  of  Sir  Eobert 
Peel,  in  order  to  facilitate  the  abolition  of  the  Corn  Laws.  England 
was  then  more  than  willing  to  be  taught  by  the  advanced  thought  of 
the  United  States.  It  was  England  that  kept  step  to  the  music  of 
the  free  trade  exemplified  in  the  United  States  from  1846  to  1861. 
Without  any  public  discussion  whatever,  by  those  underhanded 
methods  so  dear  to  the  protectionist  heart,  while  the  black  clouds 
of  civil  war  were  breaking  over  the  nation,  representatives  of 
Massachusetts  and  Pennsylvania,  by  log-rolling  with  others  like- 
minded,  foisted  into  the  tax  laws  of  the  time  restrictions  and  pro- 
hibitions certain  to  diminish  the  revenue  (the  one  thing  needful) 
and  certain  to  enrich  the  few  at  the  cost  of  the  many.  These  stolen 
marches  on  the  people  enabled  the  confederated  protectionists  to 
entrench  themselves  in  a  plutocracy,  from  which  they  were,  with 
great  difficulty,  long  afterward  dislodged,  but  which  they  could  not 
possibly  hold  against  the  intelligence  and  fairness  of  the  people. 
Ignorance  and  craft  succumb  to  light  and  righteousness  in  a  free 
country,  or  else,  as  Senator  Hoar  says,  the  freedom  itself  disappears. 

Grotesque  to  the  last  degree  seemed  the  drivel  of  the  Ely  petitioners 
about  the  Cobden  Club  of  England  in  the  light  of  the  fact  that  the 
American  Free  Trade  League  was  then  at  work  with  all  its  might 
to  disseminate  throughout  this  country  the  thought  and  practice 
which  England  and  America  had  conjointly  striven  to  effectuate 
for  so  many  years.  Particularly  was  such  a  petition  grotesque  as 
addressed  to  Williams  College,  in  view  of  the  prominent  personnel 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  705 

of  the  American  Free  Trade  League.  Who  constituted  that  League 
in  the  day  of  its  vigor  and  moral  influence  ?  Its  first  president  was 
WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT,  a  graduate  of  Williams  College,  the 
most  distinguished  name  on  the  triennial  catalogue.  Its  second 
president  was  DAVID  DUDLEY  FIELD,  a  graduate  of  Williams  Col- 
lege, the  next  most  distinguished  name  on  the  triennial  catalogue. 
Its  third  and  last  president  was  DAVID  AMES  WELLS,  a  graduate  of 
Williams  College,  a  less  distinguished  name  indeed  than  that  of  his 
two  predecessors,  and  yet  the  name  of  a  man  who,  in  his  prime,  was 
almost  as  well  known  throughout  the  United  States  and  western 
Europe  as  were  they.  The  memories  of  these  three  men  are  worthy 
to  stand,  and  will  stand,  in  history,  alongside  the  memories  of  PEEL 
and  COBDEN  and  BRIGHT,  as  disinterested  benefactors  of  mankind. 

But  what  shall  be  said  about  the  disinterestedness  of  motive  on 
the  part  of  the  Ely  signers,  and  of  all  the  other  men  who  made  their 
voices  audible  above  the  ground  or  underneath  it,  in  bitter  oppo- 
sition to  the  open  and  straightforward  and  everyday  teachings  of 
the  College?  The  motives  of  men  cannot,  indeed,  be  observed 
directly,  but  in  most  cases,  and  after  an  interval  of  time,  they  either 
exhibit  or  'betray  themselves  in  outward  conduct.  It  is  obvious  at 
the  outset,  and  the  contrary  was  never  claimed,  that  free  traders  can 
have  no  personal  or  selfish  motive  in  expending  vitality  and  running 
hazards  to  advocate  the  universal  rights  of  mankind,  in  whose  bene- 
fits they  themselves  can  only  share  when  and  as  all  other  men  share 
them.  It  is  equally  obvious  in  the  ongoing  that  protectionists  can 
have  no  other  than  personal  and  selfish  motives  in  striving  to  curtail 
these  universal  rights,  because  the  mode  of  their  action  invariably 
betrays  its  character,  even  when  the  men  do  not  openly  confess  it. 
Men  have  never  gone  to  Washington  to  do  protectionist  work  there, 
or  hired  lobbyists  to  do  such  work  for  them,  and  at  the  same  time 
been  such  fools  as  to  pretend  they  were  acting  for  the  public  good ; 
even  if  they  had  pretended  it,  the  public  were  not  such  fools  as  to 
believe  it ;  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  pretences  have  rarely  been 
made.  Protectionists  as  such  know  what  they  are  about,  and  why 
they  spend  their  money  in  influencing  the  tax  laws  of  the  nation, 
and  everybody  else  knows  what  they  are  about  and  why  they  spend 
their  money.  They  have  always  been  open  to  the  charge  of  being 
public  plunderers  of  the  masses,  but  they  have  not  often  been  open 
to  the  charge  of  being  hypocrites  by  professing  to  enrich  while  they 
really  impoverish  them.  The  ordinary  tests  of  motives  apply  plainly 
enough  to  their  ordinary  words  and  conduct,  while  the  last  and  best 
and  never-failing  test  is  their  attitude  of  hostility  to  all  those  who 
2z 


706  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

clearly  discuss  and  unflinchingly  expose  the  methods  of  protection- 
ism. The  fundamental  motto  of  free  traders  may  be  expressed  in 
the  lines  :  — 

The  world  is  wide, 

And  God  is  good. 

The  thought  in  this  motto  practically  unfolded  never  failed  to 
excite  the  anger  of  the  practical  protectionists,  whose  fundamental 
principle  may  be  expressed  in  the  distich  :  — 

The  world  is  small, 
And  one  is  all. 

All  this  was  well  illustrated  in  all  the  men  who  raised  the  out- 
cry of  opposition,  from  first  to  last,  to  the  quiet  and  explicit  teach- 
ings of  Professor  Sumner  at  Yale  and  Professor  Perry  at  Williams. 
Every  signer  of  the  Ely  memorial,  whose  business  relations  were 
known  at  the  time  or  ascertained  afterward,  was  directly  and  pe- 
cuniarily interested  in  the  unjust  legislation  designed  to  raise  the 
price  artificially  of  his  own  wares,  particularly  iron  wares.  The 
same  may  be  said  with  even  more  of  emphasis,  of  those  individuals 
in  the  Board  of  Trustees  of  the  College,  who,  in  long  succession  and 
with  more  of  bitterness  and  persistence  at  the  last,  endeavored  in 
various  ways  to  undermine  and  overthrow  the  position  of  the  Pro- 
fessor of  Political  Economy.  Fortunately  these  men,  seeking  their 
own  and  not  the  public  good,  were  overmatched,  one  after  the  other, 
by  abler  and  disinterested  men,  who  knew  the  truth  and  despised 
the  self-seeking.  Usually,  if  not  always,  the  professor  was  pri- 
vately informed  by  broader  members  of  the  board,  like-minded 
with  himself,  of  these  machinations.  Except  in  one  flagrant  in- 
stance, he  preserved  absolute  silence,  and  went  on  his  way  rejoicing. 
In  that  instance,  a  member  of  the  board  from  Worcester,  in  which 
city  was  then  being  carried  out  the  most  iniquitous  and  far-reaching 
monopoly  under  tariff  taxes  the  country  had  seen,  and  whose  citi- 
zens were  aware  that  this  trustee  was,  up  to  his  eyes,  in  counsel 
and  concord  with  these  grasping  monopolists,  and  had  brought  to 
bear  upon  him,  in  consequence,  such  moral  pressure  as  had  com- 
pelled him  to  resign  a  State  judgeship,  broached  to  the  board  a 
scheme  to  weaken  and  dishonor  the  Professor  of  Economics ;  a 
fellow-trustee,  who  was  familiar  with  all  the  facts  in  the  case,  re- 
ported the  whole  device  to  the  professor;  who,  in  turn,  requested 
his  informant  to  say  from  him  to  the  Worcester  man  in  most  ex- 
plicit terms,  that  if  another  word  were  spoken  by  him,  or  another 
move  made  as  toward  that  scheme,  the  next  morning  afterward 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL  THE   CENTENNIAL.  707 

the  /Springfield  Republican  would  print  in  full  an  exposure  of  the 
whole  Worcester  deviltry,  his  own  included.  Meek  and  silent  was 
that  particular  trustee  thereafter  in  relation  to  that  professor,  and 
dead  as  Csesar  became  his  subterranean  contrivance. 

One  more  instance,  out  of  a  number  of  others,  of  a  college  trustee 
seeking  private  revenge  for  public  teaching  solely  offensive  to  him 
because  it  was  the  simple  truth,  will  suffice  in  this  connection. 
This  time  it  was  a  manufacturer  of  buttons  in  Easthampton.  In 
the  so-called  wool  and  woollens  tariff  of  1867,  heavy  tariff  taxes 
were  levied  on  foreign  woollens  in  order  "  to  protect "  the  domestic 
manufacturers,  that  is,  to  rob  the  people  in  their  special  behoof; 
foreign  woollens  of  the  best  quality  were  needed  by  the  East- 
hampton button-makers  to  cover  their  moulds  with ;  strange  to  say, 
these  button-making  protectionists  were  averse  to  paying  protective- 
tariff  taxes  themselves,  though  they  helped  to  heap  them  on  the 
masses  with  glee ;  so  it  was  craftily  inserted  in  the  law,  that  dam- 
aged cloth,  suitable  for  covering  buttons  and  for  other  purposes, 
should  come  in  free  ;  on  the  direct  testimony  of  a  chief  clerk  of 
the  establishment  at  Easthampton  it  was  stated  to  credible  wit- 
nesses, that  their  cloth  was  sometimes  purposely  damaged  on  the 
other  side,  so  as  to  legally  escape  the  tariff  taxes  on  this  side,  but 
not  so  as  to  injure  it  for  covering  buttons.  This  striking  instance 
was  repeatedly  cited  in  the  Williams  lecture-room,  —  not  to  prove 
that  the  Easthampton  Galileans  were  sinners  above  all  the  Gali- 
leans, but  to  prove  that  protectionists,  when  it  came  to  action, 
had  precisely  the  same  opinion  of  the  effect  of  tariff  taxes  that 
free  traders  had.  The  trustee  in. question  was  naturally  restive 
under  this  cited  instance,  and  its  obvious  logical  bearing  on  the 
class  of  men  to  which  he  belonged.  Other  trustees  strongly  sym- 
pathized with  him.  But  what  could  be  done  in  such  a  case? 
These  trustees  were  in  the  wrong. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  a  pleasure  at  this  late  day  to  recall 
the  names  of  some  of  those  clear-headed  and  broad-minded  and 
justice-loving  men,  who  invariably  proved  the  heavyweight  in  the 
recurring  scrimmage.  "  You  let  Professor  Perry  alone,"  exclaimed 
Judge  Colt,  as  from  the  bench,  at  the  close  of  one  of  these  confabs, 
as  he  himself  reported  it  to  the  party  chiefly  concerned.  Judge 
Bishop,  another  Berkshire  citizen,  always  took  the  same  side.  So, 
preeminently,  did  Dr.  Prime,  clergyman  and  journalist,  of  New 
York,  whose  field  of  observation  was  the  world.  Joseph  White 
and  James  White,  both  long-time  residents  of  William stown,  be- 
lieved in  discussion  rather  than  repression,  in  light  rather  than 


708  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

in  darkness ;  all  these  were  graduates  of  the  College ;  and  with 
many  other  younger  men  who  had  been  pupils  of  the  professor, 
and  so  best  judged  in  the  matter  in  hand,  stood  up  strongly  for 
him.  William  Hyde  of  Ware,  trustee  from  1859  till  1877,  an  alum- 
nus of  1826,  educated  as  a  lawyer  and  spending  his  entire  active 
life  as  a  banker,  better  fitted  than  any  other  member  of  the  board 
to  understand  and  appreciate  the  public  importance  of  the  economic 
teaching  of  the  College,  and  disgusted  with  the  picayune  policy  of 
some  of  his  colleagues,  determined  to  found  in  the  name  of  one 
of  his  family  the  department  of  History  and  Political  Economy. 
This  he  did  in  1875,  his  father-in-law,  Orrin  Sage,  a  Massachusetts 
manufacturer,  furnishing,  at  his  instance,  $50,000  for  this  purpose. 
In  a  private  letter  to  Professor  Perry  he  unfolded  his  reasons  for 
taking  this  step,  which  were,  in  substance,  to  put  on  permanent 
record  his  approbation  of  the  intelligence  and  fidelity  and  success 
with  which  the  department  had  been  rounded  out  by  him  who  was 
to  be  the  first  beneficiary  of  this  foundation.  In  his  letter  to  the 
trustees  conveying  the  principal  to  them  in  trust,  he  insisted  as  a 
condition  of  its  bestowment,  that  Professor  Perry's  annual  salary 
under  it  should  be  $2500,  or  five  per  cent,  that  being  as  high  a 
rate  of  interest  as  could  be  expected  in  perpetuity.  The  salary  of 
the  full  professors  in  1875  was  but  $2000.  For  several  years  the 
Orrin  Sage  professor  received  under  this  distinct  provision  $500 
more  than  his  colleagues.  After  all  this,  there  could  be,  one  would 
think,  no  rational  question  about  the  legal  and  moral  right  of  this 
professor  to  teach  the  economical  and  political  doctrines  that  he 
had  always  taught,  that  his  predecessor  in  the  department  had 
always  taught  before  him,  and  that  in  1875  had  been  already  for 
ten  years  published  to  the  world  in  a  widely  circulated  treatise 
and  text-book. 

In  1891,  with  broken  health  and  after  thirty-eight  unbroken  years 
of  assiduous  teaching  in  it,  the  first  incumbent  resigned  the  Orrin 
Sage  professorship.  For  several  years  the  place  remained  unfilled. 
Its  "  acting "  incumbent  in  this  interval,  Professor  John  Bascom, 
taught  with  applause  a  part  of  the  subjects  embraced  within  the 
professorship.  Though  not  a  trained  economist,  and  not  in  the 
best  sense  a  competent  economist,  for  he  had  given  his  fine  powers 
for  a  lifetime  to  the  higher  themes  of  philosophy,  on  ethical  rather 
than  economical  grounds,  Bascom  was  a  pronounced  free  trader ;  and 
so  there  was  never  one  official  word  spoken  in  a  lecture-room  opened 
in  1835  and  continued  throughout  the  century,  in  behalf  of  a  paltry 
scheme  soaked  in  wrongthinking  and  set  to  dry  in  wrongdoing. 


ORRIN    SAGE, 
Founder  of  Professorship. 


n 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE    TILL    THE    CENTENNIAL.  709 

Paul  A.  Chadbourne  was  succeeded  in  the  presidency  of  the 
College  by  Franklin  Carter  of  the  class  of  1862.  This  change  took 
place  in  the  summer  of  1881.  All  the  circumstances  leading  to  it 
were  interesting  and  instructive,  and  are  here  to  be  fully  narrated 
for  the  first  time. 

The  claim  of  Mark  Hopkins,  which  all  of  the  alumni  were  inclined 
to  respect,  namely,  that  he  ought  to  be  allowed  to  select  and  induct 
his  own  successor,  had  this,  among  other  attendant  evils,  that  it 
prevented  any  public  canvass  of  the  merits  of  any  particular  candi- 
date. Such  a  canvass  is  eminently  proper  and  needful  in  every 
case,  especially  in  such  a  case  as  this  was,  where  a  large  body  of 
alumni  was  an  essential  part  of  an  old  college,  who  know  best  the 
needs  of  the  college  and  the  qualities  of  the  man  most  likely  to 
succeed  at  its  head.  The  public  furnishes  the  funds  to  endow  and 
upbuild  an  institution  of  learning,  and  furnishes  also  the  scholars 
to  receive  its  advantages  and  the  conditions  under  which  the  life- 
work  of  these  is  to  be  accomplished.  The  public,  accordingly,  have 
a  right  to  some  voice  in  the  choice  of  the  presiding  head  of  a  public 
institution.  A  board  of  trustees  and  their  head  are  never  less 
respectable,  or  rarely  less  wise,  than  when  they  practically  deny 
this  and  act  in  this  sense  as  a  close  corporation.  It  is  indeed 
probable,  that,  in  1872,  even  after  a  full  and  fair  comparison  of 
views,  Chadbourne  would  have  been  preferred  by  a  large  majority 
of  all  the  persons  interested ;  for  there  was  a  strange  illusion  about 
him  at  that  time  as  a  man  of  business  and  of  affairs  generally,  that 
was  wholly  dissipated  before  1881.  Still,  if  Hopkins  had  had  the 
backing  of  the  public  in  1872,  such  as  would  likely  have  followed  a 
free  discussion,  he  would  not  have  experienced  the  bitter  personal 
regrets  and  disappointments  that  fell  to  him  as  a  result  of  that 
election.  These  feelings  are  certain  to  have  constrained  his  action 
and  whole  attitude  in  relation  to  the  election  of  1881. 

On  the  other  hand,  Chadbourne  knew  perfectly  well  that  he  had 
been  wholly  indebted  to  the  personal  favor  of  his  predecessor  for  his 
own  elevation,  and  he  did  not  see  any  reason  why  he  himself  should 
not  exercise  the  same  privilege  in  relation  to  his  own  successor. 
Not  that  he  intended  to  go  forward  secretly  and  uncounselled  in  the 
premises,  for  in  a  moment  we  shall  see  to  the  contrary.  But  the 
unhappy  relations  existing  between  these  two  good  men  tended  to 
make  each  of  them  suspicious  of  any  choice  of  the  other  for  a  man 
to  stand  in  the  succession.  Early  in  the  summer  term  of  1881,  in  a 
frank  manner  as  was  his  wont,  Chadbourne  came  to  Professor  Perry, 
and  said,  that  they  two  certainly,  and  later  other  members  of  the 


710  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

faculty,  ought  to  consult  together  and  agree  upon  some  man  for  the 
succession.  Perry  said  in  reply,  "I  have  given  no  thought  to  the 
subject,  have  heard  no  agitation  of  it  whatever,  and  have  no  man  in 
my  mind."  Chadbourne  said,  "Well,  you  think  about  it,  and 
we  will  talk  it  over  again  in  a  few  days.  It  is  really  our  business 
to  attend  to  this,  or  somebody  else  will  attend  to  it.  By  the  way, 
what  do  you  think  of  Daniel  Merriman  ? "  Perry  rejoined,  "I 
have  a  good  opinion  of  Merriman,  but  I  have  never  thought  of  him 
in  this  connection."  So  they  parted  for  the  nonce.  The  impression 
on  Perry's  mind  was  strong,  and  remained  so,  that  Chadbourne  had 
not  then  fastened  upon  anybody  in  his  own  mind.  Perhaps  a  fort- 
night afterward  the  two  men  happening  to  meet,  Chadbourne 
recurred  to  the  subject,  but  this  time  in  a  more  perfunctory  and 
hurried  way,  as  if  between  times  he  had  struck  upon  somebody 
satisfactory  at  least  to  himself.  But  he  suggested  no  name.  Neither 
did  the  other,  who  took,  in  fact,  very  little  interest  in  the  matter. 
Probably  Chadbourne  perceived  this,  for  a  few  days  after,  the  two 
again  casually  meeting,  he  said  in  effect  with  a  smile  and  in  haste, 
"  That  matter  we  have  been  talking  about,  —  let  it  all  go !  "  There 
is  now  no  doubt  at  all  that  about  that  time  he  had  come  into  com- 
munications with  Professor  Carter  of  Yale,  and  that  he  favored  the 
re-aspirations  of  that  gentleman  to  become  president  of  Williams. 
There  is  also  no  doubt  at  all  that  Chadbourne  knew  that  such  a 
nomination  would  be  very  repugnant  to  Dr.  Hopkins,  as  it  was. 

There  was  no  one  then  in  the  faculty  at  Williams  who  had  any  the 
least  desire  to  become  president.  If  any  one  of  several  professors 
might  have  had  such  a  desire  under  other  circumstances,  which  is 
doubtful,  the  place  had  then  become  to  all  of  them  forbidding.  The 
only  one  actually  talked  of  more  or  less,  and  influentially  approached, 
in  the  premises,  was  Professor  Llewellyn  Pratt  of  the  class  of  1852. 
He  had  been  six  years  Professor  of  Rhetoric.  He  was  a  kindly  and 
courteous  and  conservative  gentleman.  He  was  such  a  man  as  Mark 
Hopkins  took  to,  and  esteemed  very  highly  in  love.  He  was  a  good 
teacher,  an  admirable  preacher,  and  a  steadfast  friend.  As  soon  as 
Hopkins  knew  that  Chadbourne  had  set  his  face  toward  Franklin 
Carter  as  president,  he  determined  to  prevent  that  consummation,  if 
it  were  a  possible  thing.  Once  and  again  and  again  he  went  to  Pro- 
fessor Pratt  privately,  and  urged  him  to  allow  his  name  to  go  before 
the  trustees  as  a  candidate,  and  justly  assured  him  that,  if  he  would 
do  so,  his  election  would  be  certain.  Dr.  Hopkins  estimated  rightly 
at  this  point  his  own  influence  over  the  body  of  trustees  as  contrasted 
with  that  of  Dr.  Chadbourne,  who  had  fallen  into  more  or  less  odium 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    CENTENNIAL.  711 

in  all  quarters.  But  while  Pratt  was  deeply  touched  by  these  tokens 
of  confidence  and  affection  on  the  part  of  his  old  president,  the  offer 
itself  made  no  favorable  impression  upon  his  mind.  He  did  not 
give  at  any  time  the  least  encouragement  to  anybody  that  he  would 
take  the  place  on  any  conditions.  (1)  He  was  conscious  of  a  certain 
unfitness  for  the  executive  functions  involved,  in  which  self-judg- 
ment his  most  intimate  friends  concurred.  (2)  The  College  was  then 
demoralized,  its  funds  were  low,  and  its  friends  not  easily  concentred. 
(3)  He  himself  had  been  a  little  before  chosen  a  professor  in  the 
Hartford  theological  seminary,  had  accepted  the  post,  and  could  not 
go  back  on  his  promise. 

Still  Dr.  Hopkins,  not  fully  apprised  of  any  one  of  these  reasons 
in  its  full  force,  did  not  give  up  his  quest.  He  arranged  for  an  in- 
terview between  three  of  the  trustees,  himself  and  Joseph  White 
and  Judge  Colt  of  Pittsfield,  and  Professor  Pratt,  the  party  of  the 
other  part.  Here  it  must  be  premised  that  Pratt  had  been  for 
some  time  in  special  communication  with  Carter  at  New  Haven. 
The  latter,  owing  to  his  forwardness  and  self-protrusion,  which  was 
a  part  of  the  nature  of  the  man  and  had  been  exhibited  all  through 
his  professorship  at  Williams,  and  in  a  glaring  light  at  the  close  of 
it,  had  had  a  rough  experience  at  Yale,  and  was  still  as  ambitious 
as  in  1872  to  become  president  at  Williams.  Pratt  knew  little  of 
Carter's  previous  experience  at  Williams  and  less  of  his  strifes  and 
bitterness  at  Yale,  and  was  prepared  to  believe  what  Carter  himself 
really  believed  (with  that  ready  self-deception  characteristic  of  the 
man),  that,  in  the  Yale  life,  he  had  outgrown  the  foibles  which  had 
made  him  so  obnoxious  at  Williams,  that  he  ha'd  learned  his  true 
place  relatively  to  others,  and  that  consequently  he  was  an  eligible 
and  acceptable  candidate.  But  Pratt  knew  that  Hopkins  was  un- 
alterably opposed  to  any  second  experiment  at  Williams,  and  also 
that  he  had  been  distinguished  through  a  long  life  for  his  knowledge 
of  men.  Pratt,  therefore,  as  a  comparatively  young  man  and  far 
less  deeply  versed  in  the  human  heart,  took  an  unwarranted  respon- 
sibility, certainly  without  some  further  inquiry  at  Yale,  in  urging 
upon  the  self-appointed  committee  of  the  trustees  the  choice  of 
Carter  as  a  good  candidate.  Pratt  was  mistaken  in  his  judgment. 
In  the  interview  referred  to,  while  absolutely  declining  to  become  a 
candidate  himself,  he  strongly  commended  to  these  trustees,  as, 
upon  the  whole,  their  best  man,  Franklin  Carter.  In  the  course  of 
the  interview,  turning  to  the  former  president,  he  said,  "  /  do  not 
wonder,  Dr.  Hopkins,  that  you  feel  as  you  do  about  Professor  Carter. 
He  was  foolish  in  Williamstown  before.  He  admits  it,  and  deplores  it. 


712  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

Bat  he  was  young.  He  has  learned  much  in  these  last  nine  years.  He 
is  anxious  to  repair  faults  on  the  ground  where  he  committed  them." 

This  disinterested  and  earnest  advocacy,  while  it  did  not  convince 
Dr.  Hopkins,  became  the  main  ground  of  Carter's  subsequent  elec- 
tion. He  owed  more  to  Pratt  than  to  all  others  combined.  Pratt 
was  a  modest  and  highly  cultivated  man,  and  was  heard  to  say  time 
and  again,  "  I  could  have  prevented  Carter's  election  as  easily  as 
turning  niy  hand  over."  He  unquestionably  meant  by  this,  (1)  that, 
if  he  would  have  listened  to  the  proposal,  he  might  certainly  have 
been  elected  himself;  and  (2)  that,  if  he  had  not  urged  Carter  upon 
unwilling  ears  in  season  and  out  of  season,  the  latter  could  never 
have  been  elected.  Next  to  Pratt,  but  much  below  him,  was  Carter 
indebted  to  Professor  Perry,  as  will  now  appear.  The  latter  indeed 
had  never  thought  of  Carter  as  a  candidate,  until  the  movement  in 
his  behalf  had  made  considerable  progress,  and  until  the  candidate 
became  anxious  to  know  what  the  other  thought  about  it.  Instead 
of  frankly  writing  and  asking  him,  which  was  the  only  way  their 
uniformly  friendly  relations  could  justify,  the  candidate  preferred 
a  roundabout  and  subterranean  method.  He  wrote  to  Professor 
Griffin,  a  college  classmate  but  by  no  means  an  assured  friend,  to 
find  out.  With  another  professor,  who  was  not  even  a  graduate  of 
the  college,  the  two  sidled  up  to  Perry  on  a  college  walk,  one  on 
either  hand  very  near,  and  in  a  manner  that  instantly  betrayed  them 
as  emissaries,  Griffin  asked  what  he  thought  of  Professor  Carter  as 
president  of  the  College,  the  other  confederate  bending  forward  his 
ear  so  as  to  catch  every  word.  Surprise  at  the  question  and  disgust 
at  the  manner  of  it  prevented  the  interrogated  from  asking  the 
interrogator  quickly,  what  he  thought  about  it.  This  question,  if 
it  had  been  truthfully  answered  on  the  spot,  would  have  broken  up 
the  interview,  and  spoiled  the  wretched  device.  Eecovering  him- 
self in  a  moment,  Perry  replied :  "  I  am  surprised  at  it,  but  I  think 
well  of  it.  From  the  way  he  went  away  from  here,  I  did  not  sup- 
pose he  would  ever  come  back.  If  he  comes,  I  shall  support  him 
cordially." 

Not  many  days  after  this,  with  a  manner  in  utter  contrast  with 
that  just  related,  Professor  Pratt  spoke  to  Perry  on  the  latter' s 
piazza,  and  said  in  effect:  "I  hope  you  will  see  your  way  clear 
not  to  oppose  in  any  way  the  accession  of  Carter.  As  things  are, 
the  college  cannot,  I  think,  do  any  better."  With  utter  sincerity, 
as  before,  the  other  replied :  "  Not  only  will  I  not  oppose  his  acces- 
sion at  any  point,  but  I  will  do  what  I  can  to  promote  it,  for  I  am 
inclined  to  agree  with  you,  that  the  college  cannot  do  any  better.  I 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    CENTENNIAL.  713 

have  taken,  as  you  know,  no  special  stand  for  anybody."  Perry  did 
not  then  know  what  Pratt  had  said  to  the  trustee  committee,  but 
added  his  own  construction  of  a  difficulty,  which  everybody  felt,  in 
substantially  these  very  words,  "  Carter  has  been  revolving  those, 
years  in  the  great  wheel  at  New  Haven,  with  nobody  to  pay  any 
special  attention  to  him,  and  this  experience  has  probably  taken,  out 
of  him  his  egregious  self-conceit."  This  last  inference  proved  to  be 
unwarranted  by  the  facts,  and  was  the  more  unjustifiable  because 
the  speaker's  good  acquaintance  with  several  of  the  leading  gentle- 
men at  Yale  might  easily  have  furnished  him  exact  information  if 
he  had  only  asked  for  it. 

Things  were  now  moving  in  considerable  force  toward  New 
Haven,  and  the  time  of  the  decision  meeting  of  the  trustees  in  New 
York  was  approaching,  and  Dr.  Hopkins  made  a  final  grasp  at  what 
proved  to  be  a  straw,  and  another  trustee  even  after  he  had  reached 
New  York  telegraphed  to  Professor  Pratt  to  see  if  he  could  not  get 
a  crumb  of  comfort  elsewhere.  Dr.  Hopkins  went  down  to  Pro- 
fessor Perry's  house,  as  he  had  done  nine  years  before.  In  his  words 
he  was  very  cautious,  which  was  like  him ;  but  his  errand  came  out 
clearly  enough  in  the  interview ;  which  was  to  see  whether  Perry 
would  favor  a  dash  to  Bascom,  who  was  then  president  of  Wisconsin 
University.  Perry,  who  remembered  his  promise  to  Pratt,  and  took 
a  cool  view  of  the  whole  situation,  replied,  that  it  was  too  late  — 
things  had  gone  too  far  New  Havenwards  —  if  Bascom  were  here  in 
the  faculty  as  in  1872  it  would  be  a  different  question  —  he  is 
anchored  at  Madison,  and  there  is  no  time  now  to  make  a  shift. 
"  You  said  then  that  Bascom  could  put  twenty  Chadbournes  in  his 
breeches  pocket,  and  walk  off  and  not  know  it."  "  I  say  the  same  now." 
"  Oh  !  do  you  ?  "  "  But  that  was  nine  years  ago,  and  the  question  now 
is  wholly  different."  It  is  not  probable  that  Hopkins  thought  that 
anything  tangible  could  really  come  out  of  this  last  turn,  but  he 
made  it  partly  to  see  where  his  colleague  stood  and  partly  as  a 
refuge  for  his  own  mind.  His  manner  was  crestfallen  and  dis- 
heartened. 

The  election  of  Franklin  Carter  proceeded  without  incident  and 
under  the  usual  forms.  He  thus  became  a  member  of  the  Board  of 
Trustees,  and  their  official  head.  He  also  thereby  became  a  member 
and  the  head  of  the  faculty,  which  always  had  been  and  always  will 
be  not  only  a  constituent  part  of  the  complex  College,  but  also  the 
most  considerable  and  most  vital  part  of  the  complex  College.  He 
was  elected  under  the  force  and  sanction  of  a  written  body  of  laws, 
which  had  been  compiled  and  amended  with  extreme  care  a  few 


714  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

years  before  by  a  member  of  the  faculty,  and  which  had  been 
adopted  by  the  Board  of  Trustees,  after  a  slow  and  careful  reading 
before  them  of  every  clause,  without  the  altering  of  a  single  word. 
At  the  first  faculty  meeting  after  its  adoption  by  the  trustees  Presi- 
dent Hopkins  in  a  similar  manner  read  every  word  of  it  before  the 
faculty,  and  it  was  unanimously  adopted  by  them  without  amend- 
ment or  discussion.  The  time  and  precedents  of  the  trustee's  meet- 
ing in  New  York,  at  which  Carter  was  formerly  elected  president, 
were- prescribed  in  this  body  of  laws.  If  these  laws,  thus  sanc- 
tioned, under  which  he  was  elected  president,  were  not  binding  upon 
him  as  such,  at  least  until  they  had  been  changed  or  abrogated  by 
equal  authority,  then  his  own  election  was  invalid.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  he  misunderstood  and  disregarded  the  essentials  of  the  position 
to  which  he  had  been  chosen.  From  the  first  he  spoke  and  acted  as 
if  he  were  proprietor  of  the  College,  and  not  merely  president  under 
strict  and  verbal  conditions  of  each  of  two  conjoint  boards,  of  each 
of  which  he  was  indeed  a  part,  but  of  each  of  which  he  was  still 
more  an  agent.  Members  of  the  two  boards  were  his  equals  in  status, 
in  grounds  of  authority,  in  duration  of  power,  in  everything,  except 
he  was  to  gather  and  voice  the  authoritative  opinions  of  each  in  rela- 
tion to  the  functions  of  the  other,  and  of  both  in  all  relations  to  the 
student-body.  Also  he  was  to  preside  (when  present)  in  the  formal 
meetings  of  each  board ;  when  absent,  somebody  else  presided,  with 
the  authority  of  each  body  unimpaired.  The  new  president  even 
spoke  of  "retaining"  in  the  service  of  the  College  members  of  the 
faculty,  some  of  whom  were  well  established  professors  when  he 
came  to  College  as  a  student  in  1860 ;  just  as  if  he  had  entire  power 
to  dismiss  every  one  of  them,  and  it  were  only  by  his  grace  that 
any  one  of  them  remained  in  the  college  service.  He  also  spoke 
constantly  of  his  "  administration"  as  if  he  conceived  of  it,  as  he  cer- 
tainly did,  under  the  conditions  of  a  President  of  the  United  States, 
who  usually  brings  in  a  new  Cabinet  entire,  but  sometimes  retains  a 
previous  Secretary  or  more.  Those  members  who  were  most  assidu- 
ous in  attendance  on  faculty  meetings  during  the  first  years  under 
Carter,  never  heard  him  refer  to  this  body  of  laws  just  spoken  of 
as  having  any  significance  whatever.  As  he  spoke,  so  he  acted.  He 
himself  reported  to  the  faculty,  at  the  close  of  his  first  year,  a  rep- 
rimand he  had  received  from  the  trustees  for  acting  on  his  sole  au- 
thority in  changing  usages  they  regarded  as  beyond  his  province. 
Whereupon  he  determined  to  thwart  the  trustees  and  to  ignore  the 
faculty  in  the  matter  of  his  own  authority  and  by  nondescript  and 
indecent  means,  which  had  never  before  been  heard  of  in  the  College, 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE    TILL    THE    CENTENNIAL.  715 

and  which,  it  is  safe  to  say,  will  never  be  heard  of  a  second  time. 
It  is  enough  at  this  point  to  add,  that,  of  all  those  who  had  any 
share  or  function  in  the  election  of  Franklin  Carter  as  president, 
Mark  Hopkins  was  the  one  person  most  prudent  and  far-seeing  and 
college-honoring.  The  vindications  of  his  position  came  swiftly  and 
strongly,  and  continued.  Pratt  proved  to  have  been  mistaken. 

The  new  president's  inaugural  discourse  made  for  the  most  part  a 
very  good  impression  upon  all  who  heard  it.  It  was  a  scholarly  and 
original  plea  for  the  introduction  into  the  college  curriculum  of  the 
Hebrew  language,  and  perhaps  of  other  Semitic  tongues.  It  was  a 
vigorous  defence  of  the  chief  item  of  Emerson's  famous  catalogue  of 
the  sources  of  the  world's  civilization. 

Heir  of  Egyptian  labor,  Grecian  art, 
Hebrew  religion,  and  of  Roman  law  ; 
The  Anglo-Saxon  will  in  turn  impart 
His  hard-earned  contribution,  and  withdraw. 

His  case  was  abstractly  well  made  out ;  and,  as  a  presentation  of 
the  preeminence  of  Semitic  thought  as  conveyed  to  the  world  through 
Hebrew  forms,  was  weighty  and  admirable.  The  weakness  of  the 
discourse  appeared  when  it  came  to  the  practical  suggestions,  how 
and  where  it  could  be  introduced  into  the  course  and  made  harmoni- 
ous with  the  other  parts  of  it,  what  it  should  displace,  by  whom  it 
should  be  taught,  and  what  class  of  students  (if  any)  would  be  likely 
to  elect  it  if  offered.  The  suggestion,  taken  by  itself,  was  not  of  any 
great  significance,  and  when  the  elective  came  to  be  offered  to  the 
Seniors  a  year  or  two  later  and  continued  to  be  offered  for  fifteen 
years,  an  average  of  perhaps  two  or  three  students  a  year  availed 
themselves  of  the  opportunity.  The  prominent  discussion,  however, 
in  an  inaugural  of  so  remote  and  professional  a  study  as  Hebrew  as 
proper  and  pressing  for  a  college  course,  gave  due  notice  to  every- 
body that  the  new  president  would  move,  at  a  proper  time  and  after 
some  consultation  with  the  two  boards  of  which  he  formed  a  part,  for 
a  considerable  substitution  of  elective  studies  in  lieu  of  the  prescribed 
studies  then  constituting  almost  the  sole  college  course.  The  Juniors 
during  their  summer  term  had  long  had  an  option  as  between  the 
French  and  German  languages.  These  were  the  only  "  electives  " 
properly  so-called  offered  by  the  College  before  1881.  Dr.  Hopkins 
had  long  prided  himself  and  been  much  praised  by  others  on  a 
thoughtful  arrangement  in  due  order  and  dependence  of  the  college 
studies  for  the  four  years.  The  trustees  as  a  body  set  much  store 
on  this  established  arrangement  for  a  small  college.  The  faculty 


716  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

were  satisfied  with  it,  and  nearly  every  one  of  them  had  been  trained 
under  it.  But  Carter  had  been  teaching  for  nine  years  in  a  large  col- 
lege in  New  Haven,  the  college  of  his  native  state  and  of  his  own  earli- 
est choice,  from  which  he  had  been  driven  to  Williams  as  a  student 
by  the  stress  of  ill-health.  He  had  gone  away  from  Williams  as  a 
teacher  in  1872  with  no  very  large  respect  for  the  College  as  then 
administered,  and  with  no  very  kind  feelings  toward  Dr.  Hopkins 
personally.  He  came  back  to.  the  College  in  1881  self-determined  to 
change  its  form,  and  to  make  it  over  into  a  sort  of  new  Yale  after  a 
pattern  of  his  own.  The  elective  system  had  then  already  made 
considerable  inroads  in  Yale  upon  the  former  system  of  required 
studies  throughout. 

Carter  thought  it  would  be  best  to  make  a  quiet  beginning  of  elec- 
tives  at  once,  without  any  open  discussion  of  any  change  with  any- 
body ;  and  so  he  persuaded  Professors  Griffin  and  Fernald,  the  heads 
of  the  Latin  and  Greek  departments,  personally  to  offer  electives  in 
their  departments,  for  that  first  year,  '81-82.  This  step  was  not 
debated  in  the  faculty  meeting,  nor  even  mentioned  there.  It  so 
happened,  that,  at  the  close  of  the  year,  when  the  examinations  in 
those  two  electives  had  just  passed,  Professor  Perry  met  the  two 
professors  together,  as  they  came  out  of  the  door  of  the  post-office, 
when  Griffin  accosted  him  with  emphasis,  saying,  "The  fellows  in 
my  elective  have  done  just  nothing  at  all  throughout  the  term,  — 
just  nothing  at  all!"  Turning  to  Fernald,  the  latter  asked  him 
quietly,  how  it  had  been  in  his  department.  Fernald  responded, 
after  a  manner  of  his  own,  "  It  has  been  no  great  success,  certainly." 
This  dismally  proclaimed  failure,  after  a  year's  trial  at  the  hands  of 
his  two  then  most  trusted  agents,  instead  of  giving  Carter  pause,  as 
it  certainly  would  have  done  any  wise  man,  made  him  furious,  and 
determined  him,  in  spite  of  the  warning  of  the  trustees  and  of  the 
well-known  opinions  of  the  faculty  and  alumni  in  general,  to  compel 
certain  college  teachers  to  offer  electives  in  their  long-established 
departments  contrary  to  the  matured  judgments  of  the  teachers 
themselves.  The  means  chosen  to  bring  about  this  end  were  such 
as  no  one  but  a  low-lived  boor  would  ever  have  conceived  of,  and  no 
one  but  a  man  of  towering  self-conceit  would  ever  have  asked  others 
to  help  him  carry  into  execution.  So  thoroughly  disgraceful  were 
these  means,  that  the  subordinate  agents  selected  to  carry  them  out 
were,  with  one  exception,  men  recently  come  into  the  faculty,  and 
who  were  afraid  if  they  refused  the  function  forced  upon  them,  that 
they  would  lose  their  places.  So  conscious  were  these  men  at  the 
time  and  afterward,  that  the  work  was  dirty  work,  totally  unworthy 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL. 


717 


in  its  inception  and  execution  of  gentlemen,  that  afterward  and 
again  and  again  they  made  ample  apologies  to  the  chief  subject  of 
the  wrong,  pleading  as  their  sole  excuse  the  novelty  of  the  situation 
and  their  personal  dependence  upon  the  wrongdoer. 

The  public  has  no  concern  with  the  strangely  changing  personal 
relations  as  between  Franklin  Carter  and  Edward  Griffin,  except  so 
far  as  these  permanently  and  deeply  affected  the  public  ongoings 
of  the  College  itself.  The  College  is  a  very  public  institution 
indeed.  It  is  the  child  of  the  State  through  its  charter  and  the 


EDWARD    HERRICK    GRIFFIN. 

recurring  grants  of  the  public  money  to  extend  and  upbuild  it. 
Indeed,  there  is  nothing  private  about  the  College  as  such.  The 
presidency,  for  example,  both  when  it  begins  and  so  long  as  it  con- 
tinues, is  something  about  which  every  man  who  helps  to  constitute 
the  public  has  a  right  to  have  and  to  express  an  opinion.  College 
presidents  are  apt  to  think  themselves  intrenched.  They  are  not. 
They  are  amenable  every  day  they  live,  in  each  and  every  public 
act,  to  that  large  and  composite  constituency  which  made  and  can 
unmake  them  at  will.  Moral  obligations  are  mutual  and  reciprocal 


718  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

and  constant  through  that  delicate  and  complex  organization  called 
a  college.  Trustees  administer  a  public  trust  given  over  into  their 
t  hands  by  that  large  public,  to  which  they  are  in  their  corporate 
capacity  responsible.  Faculties  render,  —  at  least  they  ought  to 
render,  —  to  their  own  members,  each  to  each,  and  as  a  body  to 
each  member,  services  of  a  helpful  and  lofty  character,  as  well  as 
those  peculiarly  difficult  ones  daily  due  to  their  own  pupils.  A 
faculty,  if  it  be  good  for  anything  as  such,  must  be  a  moral  unity, 
the  individuals  working  together  as  toward  certain  common  ends, 
in  much  the  same  way  as  a  Christian  church,  if  it  be  vitally  and 
influentially  such,  must  be  a  substantial  unity  working  as  toward 
similar  moral  and  public  ends.  The  strictly  private  and  personal 
ends  and  relations  as  between  members  of  the  same  college  faculty 
are  beyond  the  ken  of  the  faculty  as  a  body,  and  of  course  beyond 
the  ken  of  other  individuals  as  such.  But  when  private  cliques  are 
formed  within  a  faculty  to  control  faculty  action,  or  to  build  up  one 
and  to  pull  down  another,  and  especially  when  a  college  president, 
whose  official  relations  to  all  his  colleagues  are  of  necessity  com- 
mon, and  whose  moral  obligations  to  each  and  every  colleague  are 
conterminous  and  equally  sacred  with  the  moral  obligations  of  each 
colleague  to  him,  lends  himself  to  secret  cabals  within  the  body, 
becomes  the  head  and  organizer  of  them  for  ends  of  his  own,  he 
forfeits  thereby  every  moral  claim  to  the  respect  and  cooperation 
of  his  colleagues  as  such.  He  is  a  president  only  in  name.  He  is 
a  misfit,  and  out  of  his  place.  All  the  forces  of  the  moral  world 
around  him  come  into  just  combination  to  upset  and  deny  him. 

Carter  and  Griffin  were  college  classmates  but  not  intimates 
during  the  two  years  while  the  former  was  a  member  of  the  class 
of  1862,  years  also  considerably  broken  by  his  ill-health  and  conse- 
quent isolation.  So  far  as  is  known  and  believed,  Griffin  had  taken 
no  decided  part  for  or  against  Carter  while  the  latter  was  a  candi- 
date in  the  summer  of  1881.  It  was  not  like  him  to  take  a  decided 
part  under  such  circumstances.  Nor  was  it  the  part  of  wisdom  for 
any  one  011  the  ground  to  take  a  decided  part  under  the  circum- 
stances. Griffin,  however,  knew  well  that  Perry  was  more  favorable 
to  Carter,  and  that  Dr.  Hopkins  was  more  opposed  to  him,  than  any 
one  else  on  the  ground.  When  the  election  had  been  carried  and 
announced,  Griffin,  usually  very  reticent,  occasionally  very  frank 
on  critical  points,  casually  meeting  the  older  and  always  friendly 
colleague,  manifested  his  deep  disgust  at  the  turn  things  had  taken. 
More  contemptuous  expressions,  both  facial  and  vocal,  are  rarely 
witnessed  than  those  then  employed  by  him  without  disguise.  His 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  719 

words,  indeed,  were  few,  but  his  sentiments  were  completely  revealed. 
It  was  a  volunteer  conference  on  his  part,  wholly  private,  and  nobody's 
business.  The  recipient  took  it  and  kept  it  as  confidential.  It  was, 
however,  actual,  and,  in  the  sequel,  vital  to  a  public  state  of  things 
in  College,  —  not  pleasant  to  record,  but  needful  to  the  record.  It 
was  unquestionably  an  honest  and  proper  expression  of  views  then 
entertained  and  afterward  entertained  again.  Perry  did  not  lay  a 
single  straw  of  any  name  or  nature  in  Carter's  way,  either  before 
or  after  he  assumed  to  administer  the  College.  He  gave  his  coun- 
sel, both  in  private  and  in  faculty  meeting,  whenever  it  was  asked 
for,  in  utter  integrity  and  in  as  conciliatory  a  manner  as  possible, 
while  Carter  became,  term  after  term,  intensely  and  increasingly 
unpopular,  and  the  weekly  faculty  meeting  became  so  hollow  and 
distasteful  to  all  that  they  could  with  difficulty  persuade  themselves 
to  attend  it.  "Darned  old  faculty  meeting!"  was  the  repeated  excla- 
mation of  Professor  Rice,  while  it  was  equally  the  sentiment  of  the 
rest.  Perry,  though  never  a  flatterer  or  fig-shower  to  anybody,  was 
really  the  best  and  steadiest  friend  that  the  president  had  in  the 
faculty,  and  when  the  latter  asked  him  about  the  odium  attaching 
to  the  meetings  replied  frankly  and  kindly :  "  I  have  never  known 
in  my  life  any  such  unpopularity  of  the  faculty  meeting."  "  How 
do  you  account  for  it  ?  "  said  he.  The  other  answered  in  substance, 
not  verbally,  that  he  accounted  for  it,  in  part,  by  the  unwise  innova- 
tion by  which  the  meeting,  which  had  fallen  uniformly  on  Wednesday 
evening  since  the  foundation  of  the  College  in  1793,  was  arbitrarily 
put  on  Monday  evening,  at  a  great  inconvenience  to  some  and  at  no 
advantage  to  any ;  and  also  in  part  by  the  fact  that  the  time  of  the 
gentlemen  was  frittered  away  night  after  night  by  the  attempted 
construction  of  petty  details  and  regulations  which  could  be  handled 
better  by  a  small  committee. 

In  the  meantime  it  was  clearly  perceived  by  the  experienced 
members  of  the  faculty,  that  Carter  did  not  intend  to  govern  the 
College  through  or  by  means  of  the  faculty,  and  also  that  he  did 
not  intend  to  give  the  faculty  his  confidence  as  to  the  manner  in 
which  he  had  determined  to  govern  the  College  himself.  It  was 
also  perceived  at  the  same  time,  and  with  increasing  clearness  by 
the  same  men  (such  things  cannot  be  concealed  in  a  small  college, 
and  the  very  effort  to  conceal  them  reveals  them),  that  the  president 
was  making  special  confidants  of  two  or  three  colleagues  in  relation 
to  pending  and  approaching  college  questions,  and  so  forming  a 
secret  council,  to  whom  he  could  dictate,  and  who  should  help  him 
execute  autocratic  decrees,  of  which  the  faculty  as  such  knew  noth- 


720  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

ing,  and  to  which  certain  members  might  be  easy  victims.  One  of 
these  experienced  observers  certainly,  and  it  must  be  said  of  each  of 
them  that  he  had  been  for  long  and  unselfishly  devoted  to  all  the 
interests  of  the  College  as  these  had  been  expounded  by  its  author- 
ized representatives,  was  astonished  as  the  evidences  unfolded  that 
Griffin  was  to  be  and  became  the  chief  man  of  this  secret  conclave. 
In  what  way  he  had  been  won  over  from  his  pronounced  position  of 
1881  is  not  known,  nor  is  it  of  the  least  consequence.  It  is  enough 
and  too  much,  that,  by  some  means,  he  became  willing  for  a  consid- 
erable length  of  time  to  abandon  an  honorable  and  recognized  posi- 
tion as  councillor  and  coadjutor,  for  which  he  had  hereditary  talents 
and  high  personal  ability,  to  accept  an  incompatible  position  of 
servility  toward  one,  whom,  as  a  college  official,  he  despised,  and 
of  machination  toward  others,  whom,  as  colleagues,  he  had  every 
reason  to  respect  and  honor.  This  second  position,  however,  be  it 
thankfully  added,  he  sloughed  off,  after  a  full  trial,  with  every 
mark  of  loathing.  Self-respecting  coadjutors  Carter  did  not  want, 
nor  would  he  tolerate  them ;  he  wanted  men  "  Friday,"  and  found 
them,  and  harmed  them,  and  they  harmed  him  irreparably. 

The  first  positive  proof  that  came  under  Perry's  observation  that 
Griffin  had  radically  changed  his  position  of  1881,  and  had  become 
willing  to  help  Carter  bring  in  a  college  autocracy  —  aut  Cwsar  aut 
nullus  —  in  spite  of  faculty  and  in  spite  of  trustees,  was  exhibited 
in  Perry's  own  house,  which  stood  on  his  own  grounds.  Carter  and 
Griffin  calling  together  were  courteously  received  and  seated.  Their 
manner  was  somewhat  constrained,  and  they  had  obviously  come  on 
a  common  errand.  Griffin  said  nothing,  and  Carter  said  little. 
After  a  few  commonplaces  back  and  forth,  which  meant  nothing,  the 
pair  rose  to  go,  and  the  host  accompanied  them  to  the  door,  when 
Carter  blurted  out  with  vehemence,  and  in  a  tone  of  accusation,  — 
"You  are  an  optimist!"  The  comical  aspects  of  the  scene  most 
impressed  the  host,  who  was  conscious  of  having  been  polite  in  the 
interview,  and  was  also  conscious  of  having  a  native  and  acquired 
tendency  of  looking  on  the  bright  side  of  things  so  far  as  possible. 
He  had  no  time,  still  less  disposition,  to  palliate  the  charge,  for  the 
two  passed  out  at  once  with  the  air  of  men  who  had  performed  a 
solemn  duty,  and  were  relieved  of  a  moral  burden.  This  air,  how- 
ever, was  not  an  air  of  satisfaction,  nor  scarcely  of  self-respect.  It 
was,  perhaps,  fortunate  for  themselves  that  the  message  they  had 
brought  was  entirely  true,  and  that  the  receiver  was  optimistic 
enough  even  to  ignore  the  gross  discourtesy  of  such  an  official  call 
bringing  such  a  formal  announcement  delivered  in  such  a  toplofty 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE    TILL    THE    CENTENNIAL.  721 

way.  It  did  not  disturb  his  equanimity  in  the  least.  It  engendered 
in  his  mind,  of  course,  more  or  less  of  contempt  for  a  couple  of 
relative  novices,  showing  so  little  manliness  and  manners  in  their 
going  forth  to  war  against  established  usages,  and  an  already  hard- 
ened historical  development  of  an  institution  already  old. 

These  two  men  never  came  to  the  same  house  together  again,  in 
the  patent  interest  of  the  absolutism  of  one  through  the  unscrupu- 
lous facility  of  the  other ;  but  each  came  again  singly  after  consid- 
erable intervals  of  time,  each  in  the  same  interest,  and  with  a 
pronounced  accession  of  ill-bred  impertinence.  The  president, 
amazing  as  the  statement  will  seem,  conceived  it  to  be  a  part  of  his 
function  as  such,  not  only  to  possess  and  administer  the  sole  author- 
ity in  college,  choosing  his  tools  and  minions  as  agents,  but  also 
even  to  determine  the  sentiments  and  beliefs  of  his  colleagues  on 
certain  great  public  questions,  and  what  they  should  publish  or  not 
publish  in  relation  to  these  questions,  about  which  in  his  saner 
moments  he  was  prompt  enough  to  avow  that  he  knew  nothing  at 
all.  It  was  true,  indeed,  that  he  knew  nothing  at  all  of  the  ultimate 
nature  and  drift  of  these  subjects,  but  it  was  also  true  that  he  had  a 
narrow  and  bitter  and  bigoted  prejudice  in  relation  to  them,  warped 
by  private  interest  and  family  associations,  which  last  of  itself  was 
enough  to  prevent  such  a  kind  of  man  as  he  was  from  attaining  any 
balanced  judgment  whatever  in  that  class  of  subjects.  A  national 
society  in  New  York  largely  officered  and  supported  by  some  of  the 
most  distinguished  graduates  of  Williams  College  had  printed  for 
general  distribution  a  leaflet  written  by  Professor  Perry,  entitled 
"  A  Free  Trade  Lesson  from  the  New  Testament."  Whether  Carter 
had  read  a  copy  of  this  may  be  doubted,  at  any  rate  he  had  heard 
something  about  it  from  some  of  his  protectionist  confederates. 
What  may  not  be  doubted  is,  that  he  had  never  learned  the  precious 
art  of  minding  his  own  business :  he  was  a  meddler  and  a  mischief- 
maker,  an  incessant  busybody  in  other  men's  matters.  He  under- 
took to  suppress  the  circulation  of  this  leaflet,  by  a  self -assumed 
authority  to  control  whatever  had  gone  out  or  might  thereafter  go 
out  from  Williams  College,  in  virtue  of  his  becoming  personally  a 
transient  president  thereof.  He  appeared  in  the  same  hallway  as 
before,  with  a  face  as  black  as  Erebus,  just  as  the  householder  was 
parting  with  another  caller,  an  intimate  and  highly  esteemed  friend, 
Mr.  Frederic  Leake.  This  time  he  declined  to  be  seated,  though 
courteously  asked  to  do  so,  and,  without  waiting  for  Mr.  Leake  to 
withdraw,  who  was  already  standing  in  the  door,  he  hurled  at  the 
host  an  indecent  and  almost  blasphemous  expression  in  reference  to 


722  W1LLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

the  leaflet  without  mentioning  it,  and  instantly  went  out.  Vulgar 
boorishness  in  manner  under  a  colleague's  roof  could  no  further  go. 
Impertinence  and  self-assumption  as  to  the  matter  could  no  further 
go.  His  college  autocracy  was  to  extend  into  fields  that  stood  in  no 
relations  to  the  College.  The  man  thus  accosted  in  the  presence  of 
an  honored  guest  had  been  for  more  than  a  dozen  years  the  senior 
member  of  the  faculty,  for  the  same  length  of  time  had  had  the 
sole  charge  of  the  weekly  religious  meeting  uniting  the  faculty  and 
the  students,  was  in  reality  the  best  friend  the  president  had  on  the 
ground,  was  doing  more  teaching  and  exerting  a  more  quieting  and 
harmonizing  influence  than  any  one  else,  and  at  that  very  time  and 
afterward  was  doing  all  that  lay  in  his  power  to  reduce  in  the  minds 
of  the  students  the  increasing  detestation  in  which  the  president 
was  held. 

Professor  Griffin  did  not  understand  the  real  lay  of  the  land.  He 
did  not  foresee  the  extreme  lengths  to  which  Carter  would  carry  the 
doctrine  and  practice  of  his  personal  sovereignty.  Fairly  good 
motives  must  be  accorded  to  Griffin  in  his  successive  changes  of 
attitude  and  action.  His  mistakes,  nevertheless,  at  two  points  were 
radical,  and  brought  great  trouble  to  himself  and  to  others.  As  a 
Christian  minister  and  a  college  professor,  he  ought  to  have  seen  be- 
forehand, that  it  is  involved  in  the  nature  of  things,  that  personal 
rights  and  usual  courtesies  cannot  be  filched  from  anybody  without 
producing  reactions  and  results  injurious,  not  only  to  those  who 
thus  violate  an  external  rule  of  right,  but  to  the  whole  community 
as  well.  In  the  second  place,  he  should  have  known  that  for  any 
one  to  take  up  a  radically  false  position  with  a  determination  to 
maintain  it  blindly,  carries  along  with  it  the  consequence  that  such 
a  one  is  necessarily  involved  in  further  falsities  and  in  increasing 
difficulties.  The  moral  world  is  constructed  on  the  principle  that  it 
is  excessively  hard  work  to  take  care  of  an  initial  lie  in  its  after 
developments.  The  stars  in  their  courses  fight  against  him  who 
attempts  this.  Carter's  claim  to  college  sovereignty,  to  which 
Griffin  had  weakly  surrendered,  implied,  in  order  to  gain  any 
strength  of  ground  at  all,  that  his  colleagues  must  admit  (tacitly  at 
least)  that  the  president  was  the  College,  and  that  "  loyalty  to  the 
College"  meant  personal  subserviency  to  him.  Though  all  mixed 
up  in  the  logic,  Carter  was  clear  in  the  conclusion,  that  he  himself 
was  "  the  College  "  in  a  very  substantive  and  emphatic  sense.  Alike 
in  his  conception  and  in  his  parlance  for  years,  loyalty  to  the 
College  was  toadyism  to  himself.  His  case  was  parallel,  mutatis 
mutandis,  with  that  of  the  French  king  before  the  Revolution, — 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  723 

"  The  State  ?  I  am  the  State !  "  Griffin  was  clearer-headed  than 
Carter,  but  not  so  strong-willed.  He  had  submitted  to  the  sov- 
ereignty doctrine,  perhaps  under  the  impression  that  he  was  to  be 
a  sort  of  co-sovereign,  which,  we  may  be  sure,  was  no  part  of  Carter's 
purpose,  and  which,  as  it  turned  out  in  practice,  proved  to  be  no 
part  of  the  actual  result.  He  submitted  also,  as  logically  compelled, 
to  the  "loyalty"  doctrine,  though  it  is  probable  that  he  expected  to 
escape  for  himself  the  reality  and  the  charge  of  the  "toadyism" 
inextricably  involved.  He  did  not  and  could  not  escape  either  of 
them.  They  betrayed  him  to  his  lasting  humiliation. 

The  interview  between  two  of  the  college  professors  herein  in  a 
moment  to  be  narrated,  though  at  first  sight  perhaps  trivial,  is 
historical  in  the  strict  sense,  on  the  ground  by  which  any  fact  what- 
ever becomes  historically  important.  What  is  an  historical  fact? 
And  what  is  the  distinction  between  such  and  the  innumerable  facts 
that  are  non-historical  ?  For  any  fact  to  become  historical  its  causes 
must  be  known  and  calculable,  and  its  consequents  seen  to  take  their 
place  in  the  record  of  the  social  progress  of  mankind,  along  some  one 
of  the  many  lines  by  which  such  progress  manifests  itself.  Twice  at 
least  after  Griffin  had  yielded  himself  to  the  quasi-menial  service 
of  the  president,  and  feeling  himself  exalted  through  the  new  rela- 
tion, and  doubtless  in  the  expectation  of  constraining  Perry  to  take 
up  a  similar  condition  of  subserviency,  he  had  grossly  insulted  the 
latter,  as  if  he  himself  were  already  a  twin-sharer  in  the  throne. 
Under  a  mistaken  confidence  in  the  issue  of  a  policy  of  irenics,  as 
alone  capable  of  saving  Carter  from  an  impending  downfall,  these 
insults  had  been  received  in  patience  and  silence,  although  not 
without  abundant  contempt  for  a  man  acting  such  dastardly  parts. 
Griffin  wholly  misinterpreted  the  patience  and  silence.  So  did 
Carter  misinterpret  them.  They  sprang  out  of  a  genuine  loyalty 
to  the  College  in  the  only  true  sense  of  that  phrase,  which  neither 
of  these  men  possessed  nor  had  the  magnanimity  to  recognize  in 
others.  College  term  after  term  passed  by,  while  the  sovereignty 
system  did  not  seem  to  prosper  at  all.  The  students  saw  it  through 
and  through,  and  did  not  take  kindly  to  it.  They  called  it  in  their 
printed  periodicals  the  "  spy-system."  They  kept  calling  it  so  for 
several  years.  They  denominated  it  justly  and  sharply.  They 
discriminated  pretty  sharply  also  in  their  feelings  and  in  the  mani- 
festation of  them,  as  between  those  professors  who  were  open  and 
guileless  and  independent,  and  those  who  seemed  to  be  and  to  act 
in  some  sort  of  a  secret  ring.  It  is  possible  that  Griffin  began  to  be 
somewhat  isolated  under  these  circumstances  in  the  faculty  itself. 


724  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

It  is  true,  however,  that  several  other  good  members  of  that  body, 
mostly  new  men,  and  all  in  ignorance  of  the  nature  of  the  moral 
struggle  going  on,  acted  in  general  accord  with  him.  This  ignorance 
several  of  these  men  afterward  acknowledged  and  regretted.  At  any 
rate,  Griffin  thought  there  would  be  no  harm  nor  hazard  in  insulting 
and  outraging  the  senior  professor  once  more  in  his  own  house, 
which  was  a  noticeable  feature  in  the  whole  proceeding.  Carter,  no 
doubt,  incited  him  to  come,  and  instructed  him  in  the  line  of  assault. 
Certainly  he  came  and  acted  as  one  sent,  though  appearing  as  a  free 
agent,  and  not  at  all  foreseeing  the  moral  issue  of  the  interview. 

Courteously  admitted  into  the  study  and  declining  to  be  seated, 
he  began  without  preliminary  or  apology  of  any  kind  to  berate  his 
host  for  not  being  loyal  to  the  College.  The  words  were  substan- 
tially these,  and  were  deliberately  repeated,  the  eyes  of  the  two  men 
confronting  each  other,  "  J  think  it  is  time  for  you  to  become  loyal 
to  the  College ! "  Quietly  and  firmly  the  other,  "  Who  do  you  mean 
by  the  College  ?"  Griffin's  eyes  fell  to  the  floor  instantly,  and  the 
wretched  evasion  uttered  in  quick  low  tones  came  to  his  lips,  "  / — 
and  the  faculty."  He  did  not  await  what  would  have  been  the  imme- 
diate and  inevitable  inquiry,  "  On  what  ground  should  I  crouch  to 
you,  and  how  does  the  faculty  come  in  here  ? "  Irrecoverably  chop- 
fallen,  he  went  immediately  out.  The  simply  pertinent  question  dis- 
embowelled a  huge  beast  that  looked  formidable  a  moment  before. 
Pitiable  was  the  answer  to  it  in  its  weakness  and  contradiction,  and 
deplorable  in  its  blazing  falsities.  It  was  a  confession  that  the 
claim  of  any  individual  to  "  loyalty  "  from  his  colleagues,  was  not 
only  untenable  but  also  unmentionable.  When  once  questioned  at 
the  bar  of  reason,  its  champion  did  not  dare  even  to  pronounce  his 
name.  The  answer  was  the  best  exit  open  to  a  quick-witted  man 
from  a  contradiction  in  terms  and  a  monstrosity  in  nature.  Loyalty 
is  a  monarchical  term.  It  goes  from  a  person  to  a  person  —  from  a 
subject  to  a  king.  It  has  no  place  among  equals.  It  is  a  misnomer  in 
a  republic.  It  is  an  absurdity  in  a  college.  Perhaps  the  perversion 
of  the  term  took  its  origin  in  the  mythical  mother  of  the  colleges, 
the  Alma  Mater.  In  the  language  of  the  imagination,  loyalty  to  her 
is  an  allowable  and  beautiful  expression,  and  no  graduate  of  any  col- 
lege is  under  such  a  constraining  obligation  to  loyalty  to  her  in  this 
figurative  sense  as  is  any  transient  president.  But  for  him  to  set 
himself  up  in  her  place  and  claim  for  himself  what  only  belongs  to 
her,  and  what  only  the  finer  minds  of  an  alumni  body  can  easily  con- 
ceive and  hold  fast  to,  is  at  once  a  crime  against  language  and  an 
outrage  on  decency. 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  725 

The  interview  just  characterized  was  historical  in  the  strict  sense 
of  that  word,  for  its  certain  influence  upon  Griffin  and  Carter,  and 
for  its  almost  certain  influence  in  perpetuity  upon  the  College  itself. 
Griffin  was  never  known  thereafter  to  crack  his  "  loyalty "  whip 
about  the  ears  of  any  one  of  his  colleagues.  His  relations  with  all 
of  them  continued  to  be  friendly,  though  they  may  hardly  be  said  to 
have  been  intimate  unless  it  were  with  Professor  Fernald,  who  was 
not  a  graduate  of  the  College,  and  who  thus  escaped  some  of  the 
weighty  obligations  to  the  Alma  Mater  falling  upon  most  of  the  rest. 
The  tight  place  into  which  Griffin  was  casually  thrown  in  the  inter- 
view must  have  set  him  to  thinking  whether  his  factitious  relations 
with  the  president  were  proper  for  him  to  hold,  or  indeed  any  rela- 
tions not  essentially  common  to  him  and  his  colleagues.  If  his  pre- 
vailing motive  were,  as  is  likely,  to  help  hold  Carter  up  in  his  chosen 
policy  of  government,  and  particularly  that  part  of  it  consisting  of 
petty  intrigues,  incessantly  rising  and  breaking  like  the  foam  on  the 
waves  of  the  sea,  he  could  not  but  perceive  that  his  supposed  help 
was  futile  and  wasted.  Carter  was  gaining  no  settled  moral  hold  on 
any  portion  of  the  College.  The  bulk  of  the  students  detested  his 
methods,  and  distrusted  him.  The  trustees  were  getting  doubtful 
and  anxious.  The  members  of  the  faculty  were  doing  all  that  men 
could  do  under  the  circumstances  in  building  up  their  departments, 
and  in  strengthening  the  College  in  general.  They  were  a  competent 
and  faithful  and  meritorious  body  of  men.  Not  one  of  them  but  was 
more  "  loyal  to  the  organism  "  than  was  Carter  himself  ;  who  did  not 
render  to  others  what  he  was  vehemently  desirous  and  demanding 
that  they  should  render  to  him,  and  what,  for  the  most  part  with 
astonishing  magnanimity,  they  did  render  to  him.  Griffin  could  not 
but  perceive  what  was  protrudingly  true,  that  he  himself  was  suffering 
an  increasing  unpopularity  from  his  well-known  and  special  relations 
to  one  whose  unpopularity  was  already  boundless.  Indeed,  a  disin- 
terested friend  said  to  him  in  so  many  words,  "  Each  of  you  inten- 
sifies the  unpopularity  of  the  other."  All  the  processes  of  Griffin's 
mind  in  the  premises  are  not  known,  nor  need  to  be ;  what  passed 
from  time  to  time  between  the  two  men  is  not  known,  nor  needs  to 
be ;  what  is  known  and  became  historical  in  this  case  is  the  sudden 
and  complete  and  undisguised  split  of  the  professor  from  the  presi- 
dent. It  was  something  fitting  and  wholesome,  that  the  final  cleav- 
age was  mediated  in  an  open  faculty  meeting  with  palpitating  wedges 
of  scorn  from  Griffin's  own  lips,  with  whom,  as  against  the  other,  all 
present  seemed  to  sympathize.  Carter  himself,  who  learned  in  the 
school  of  experience  and  adversity  but  very  slowly,  talked  less  loudly 


726  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

from  that  day  on  about  his  own  royal  position,  and  the  duty  of  his  col- 
leagues to  recognize  it  in  their  "loyalty"  to  him,  yet  he  continued 
to  think  about  it,  whispered  of  it  to  some,  and  now  and  then  indi- 
rectly proclaimed  it,  just  as  before.  The  incident  did  him  some  good 
on  the  whole.  It  should  have  transformed  his  attitude  altogether. 

An  autocracy  in  any  form  and  a  college  in  its  normal  form  are  a 
contradiction  in  terms.  An  attempted  autocracy  within  a  college  is 
an  attempted  destruction  of  the  college  itself.  Williams  received 
in  1881  as  its  president  a  man  who,  with  many  excellences  of  pri- 
vate character,  was  unfitted  in  endowment  and  in  temperament  and 
in  training  for  the  large  public  place  which  he  had  coveted  and  striven 
for  during  many  years.  On  assuming  its  difficult  and  complicated 
duties,  he  gave  no  sign  to  those  around  him,  every  one  of  whom  was 
ready  in  good  faith  to  help  him  if  allowed  to  do  so,  of  ever  having 
reflected  for  a  moment  upon  the  etymological  and  customary  mean- 
ing of  the  word  "  college."  He  quickly  manifested  his  determination 
to  decide  everything  and  to  do  everything  by  himself.  He  was  and 
was  to  be  the  fons  et  origo  of  everything  pertaining  (no  matter  how 
remotely)  to  the  College.  This  was  the  more  strange,  inasmuch  as, 
when  he  was  a  professor  under  President  Hopkins  for  nine  years  he 
was  in  a  frequent  fret  and  fury  against  him,  because  he  did  not 
defer  enough  (or  at  least  scrupulously  enough)  to  the  rest  of  the 
faculty  ;  and  when  also  he  was  a  professor  afterward  for  nine  years 
at  Yale,  it  was  well  understood  in  general  that  he  often  made 
himself  and  those  about  him  uncomfortable  on  somewhat  similar 
grounds.  At  any  rate,  Franklin  Carter  was  the  last  man  in  the 
world  to  have  quietly  submitted  in  another  to  the  swelled  and  base- 
less functions  assumed  by  himself  as  toward  others.  From  the  first 
his  very  look  was  sinister  and  suspicious,  and  his  every  attitude 
one  of  opposition  and  prepared  resistance,  when  there  was  nothing 
to  be  resisted  or  opposed.  "  As  a  man  soweth  so  shall  he  also  reap." 
There  is  no  possible  and  there  was  no  actual  cutting  of  that  heaven- 
appointed  tie  between  cause  and  effect.  The  students  were  the  first 
to  take  the  true  measure  of  their  man.  He  distrusted  them  without 
cause,  and  gave  them  speedy  proof  of  his  suspicions  ;  and  they  not 
only  failed  to  render  him  respect,  but  began  to  despise  him  for  a 
trickster  and  a  spy-monger.  For  ten  years,  certainly,  if  not  longer, 
the  president  failed  to  possess  himself  of  the  fair  confidence  of  a 
single  graduating  class  ;  and  these  consequently  went  out  in  succes- 
sion not  feeling  so  well  toward  the  College  as  the  classes  before  had 
pretty  uniformly  done ;  which  proved  an  irreparable  damage  to  the 
College  itself,  and  the  report  of  which  did  not  fail  to  reach  the  ears 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL    THE   CENTENNIAL. 


727 


of  the  scattered  trustees  from  time  to  time,  and  to  cause  them  dis- 
quiet, and  once  at  least  to  bring  them  together  at  their  own  motion 
upon  the  ground  to  see  and  hear  what  they  could  for  themselves.  . 
It  is  true,  indeed,  that  the  students,  considered  as  a  body,  gave 
the  new  president  a  reasonable  margin  of  time  and  opportunity 
to  manifest  himself,  before  they  fully  made  up  their  minds  what 
manner  of  spirit  he  was  of.  Those  who  had  observed  the  slack 
methods  of  the  last  years  of  President  Chadbourne  were  pleased 
to  see  the  signs  of  vigor  and  the  instant  proofs  of  executive  ability 
shown  by  the  new  head.  Five  new  professors  and  three  new  in- 


LASELL   GYMNASIUM. 
Built  in  1886. 


structors  were  in  their  places  almost  immediately.  Two  or  three 
of  the  older  professors  were  given  positions  better  to  their  mind. 
Many  other  changes  were  initiated  or  proposed.  The  new  presi- 
dent was  expected  to  increase  the  funds  of  the  -College,  and  he 
addressed  himself  to  that  task  with  skill  and  persistency.  When 
it  was  announced  that  a  gift  of  $100,000  for  a  new  dormitory  had 
been  secured  from  Governor  Morgan  of  New  York  by  his  direct 
solicitation,  the  students  were  jubilant,  —  little  surmising  the  heart- 


728  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

burnings  and  bitterness  that  the  new  building  would  engender  in 
the  course  of  a  few  years.  The  Lasell  Gymnasium,  understood 
to  have  been  secured  by  similar  means,  built  in  1886,  excited 
similar  feelings  on  the  part  of  the  students,  without  being  fol- 
lowed by  any  permanent  reactions  as  in  the  other  case.  President 
Carter  deserved  large  credit  for  his  laborious  and  successful  efforts 
to  add  to  the  funds  of  the  College,  and  to  its  material  equipments 
generally ;  but  that  did  not  and  could  not  of  itself  make  him  a  good 
president,  because  such  an  official  in  all  his  relations  to  the  persons 
surrounding  him  and  constituting  the  College,  must  have  personal 
and  moral  and  social  qualifications  such  as  Carter  did  not  possess. 
No  one  man  indeed  ever  did  have,  or  ever  will  have,  all  the  qualities 
seemingly  requisite  for  a  good  college  president ;  but  he  must  have 
the  essential  qualities,  namely,  the  ability  to  draw  and  hold  the  con- 
fidence of  all  the  bodies  with  which  he  has  specifically  to  do,  as  an 
open  and  competent  and  faithful  official.  The  experiment  that  was 
tried  on  this  ground  during  the  last  two  decades  of  the  century  was 
presently  advantageous  to  the  College  and  the  community. 

But  its  main  significance  and  usefulness  lay  in  the  future.  It  was 
vitally  important  for  the  College  that  the  principle  and  practice 
within  it  of  sovereignty  and  loyalty  should  be  not  only  scotched 
but  killed.  Every  branch  needed  to  be  excided  and  every  root 
eradicated.  The  experiment  of  establishing  it,  if  it  were  to  be  made 
at  all,  were  well  made  persistently,  under  favorable  auspices,  and 
by  mammals  of  the  pachydermatous  order,  and  then  the  failure  of 
the  trial  be  exhibited  to  all  the  world  as  total  and  dismal.  Sub- 
stantially these  conditions  existed  and  this  result  was  exhibited. 
(1)  The  time  and  place  for  the  experiment  were  favorable.  The 
strictly  and  properly  collegiate  government  had  been  weakened  in  the 
last  years  of  Hopkins  and  all  the  years  of  Chadbourne.  Influence  had 
then  largely  taken  the  place  of  authority.  Influence  is  better  than 
authority,  and  if  there  cannot  be  but  one,  is  greatly  to  be  preferred. 
But  the  legitimate  authority  kindly  and  firmly  exerted  by  the  con- 
stituted body  as  such,  and  then  a  personal  influence  gained  and  held 
by  individuals  as  such  and  exerted  in  studied  harmony  with  the 
other,  makes  the  perfection  of  a  college  government  over  students. 
An  ideal  is  never  practically  reached,  and  a  perfect  college  govern- 
ment has  never  been  witnessed  in  New  England ;  nevertheless,  it 
remains  and  always  will  remain,  that  these  two  factors,  collegiate 
authority  and  personal  influence,  properly  conjoined  and  adjusted 
and  lubricated  by  clear  intelligence  and  Christian  charity,  constitute 
the  normal  and  rotund  college  government.  Neither  factor  of  these 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  729 

two  can  possibly  get  on  well  without  the  other.  Each  president  and 
each  professor  must  be  content  to  act  at  once  as  a  correlated  part  and 
as  a  subordinated  whole  in  the  great  college  sphere.  (2)  Franklin 
Carter  was  just  the  man  to  try  the  experiment  of  displacing  in 
general  influence  by  authority,  and  also  collegiate  by  presidential 
authority.  The  primary  quality  needed  was  self-sufficiency.  A 
secondary  one  was  persistency  regardless  of  the  rights  and  feelings 
of  others,  coupled  with  a  practical  insensibility  to  the  strokes  falling 
of  course  on  the  anachronist  and  iconoclast.  If  such  a  man  for  such 
a  work  needed  and  desired  a  confidential  cooperator,  then  was 
Griifin  the  best  man  he  could  have  chosen;  for  he  had  within 
certain  limits  all  the  good  qualities  and  all  the  bad  qualities  com- 
patible with  such  a  questionable  service.  If  the  scheme  could  have 
succeeded,  then  these  two  men  would  have  put  it  through.  With- 
out positively  affirming  that  such  a  scheme  could  not  succeed  under 
any  circumstances,  it  may  be  confidently  affirmed  that  this  scheme 
under  all  these  favorable  circumstances  did  not  succeed.  It  failed. 
It  miserably  failed. 

What  is  historical  and  hopeful  in  this  whole  business  is  the 
extreme  unlikelihood  of  such  an  experiment  as  that  was  ever  being 
tried  on  this  ground  again.  Prognostication  is  not  indeed  so  easy  and 
safe  as  is  retrospection  and  a  record ;  but  the  social  progress  of  man- 
kind is  facilitated  perhaps  as  much,  certainly  a  great  deal,  by  the 
conspicuous  failure  of  false  principles,  as  by  the  exhilarating  success 
of  sound  principles.  Future  faculties  of  Williams  College  are  likely 
to  be  warned  by  the  ill  success  of  this  desperate  trial.  This  thing 
was  not  done  in  a  corner.  Nor  was  it  in  itself  a  feeble  attempt. 
The  light  of  the  past  shines  out  not  dimly  for  this  institution  into 
the  still  opening  roads  of  the  twentieth  century. 

History  is  disposed  to  linger  still  longer  on  the  college  annals  of 
these  two  decades,  not  with  a  view  of  exalting  or  depreciating  any 
individuals  as  such,  but  with  the  purpose  of  elucidating  certain  per- 
vasive principles  which  belong  radically  to  the  development  of  col- 
leges and  similar  schools  of  learning.  These  institutions  come  to 
have  an  historic  growth  of  their  own,  the  result  partly  of  original 
bent  and  long-continued  culture,  and  partly  of  special  environment. 
Williams  College  had  such  a  growth  under  peculiarly  definite  causes 
of  both  these  sorts.  It  became  strong  after  its  own  fashion,  and  in 
accordance  with  conditions  normal  only  here.  No  man  was  fit  to 
exert  or  capable  of  exerting  a  controlling  influence  which  should  be 
healthful  and  continuous  on  a  college  so  grown  and  so,  in  a  certain 
sense,  self-conscious,  who  did  not  historically  understand  these  con- 


730  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

ditions  and  thoroughly  respect  their  embodied  results.  Franklin 
Carter  came  hither  as  president  in  1881  without  knowing  those  his- 
torical antecedents  and  ingredients  of  the  College,  and  without  car- 
ing anything  at  all  what  they  had  been,  and  consequently  without 
heartily  respecting  the  College  itself.  He  had  not  an  historical 
mind  to  start  with;  and  for  this  he  was  not  to  blame.  He  had 
never  given  himself  any  historical  training,  for  the  good  reason  that 
he  had  given  himself  an  almost  exclusively  linguistic  training,  and 
the  two  are  quite  diverse  in  their  action  on  the  mind.  Scarcely  in 
its  germs  did  he  ever  come  to  possess  what  is  happily  called  the 
"  Historic  Sense."  But  he  himself  was  unaware  of  any  personal  de- 
ficiency at  that  point.  He  spoke  and  acted  throughout  as  if  any 
local  knowledge  of  the  past  were  a  matter  of  no  consequence  to  him 
or  to  any  one  else.  He  came  to  Williams  and  began  his  lordly 
operations  apparently  just  as  he  would  have  done  had  he  gone  to 
Dartmouth  or  Bowdoin,  so  far  as  any  past  of  Williams  was  con- 
cerned in  his  mind  and  plans.  He  knew  nothing  of  the  imposing 
strength  of  an  honorable  and  historical  past.  It  was  all  to  him  as 
a  tabula  rasa.  He  thought  himself  able  to  transform  and  re-create 
the  College  after  types  existing  in  his  own  mind. 

During  his  first  terms  as  president  he  busied  and  wearied  himself, 
arid  kept  his  faculty  busied  and  wearied,  in  trying  to  make  new  rules 
and  regulations  for  everything.  Nothing  in  the  past  of  the  College  was 
good  enough  for  him.  He  did  not  respect  the  processes  and  he  did  not 
respect  the  result.  It  angered  him  to  have  any  one  of  the  older  pro- 
fessors even  suggest  that  this  or  that  had  been  formerly  managed  so 
and  so.  That  was  enough  to  condemn  it  outright.  He  was  eager  to 
learn  and  quick  to  quote  how  a  certain  difficulty  was  handled  in 
remote  institutions,  and  was  anxious  to  apply  at  once  the  foreign 
remedy  to  the  domestic  ill ;  and  when  some  one  suggested  that  there 
might  be  hazard  in  applying  the  same  rule  in  diverse  conditions,  and 
that  much  bodily  borrowing  seemed  unseemly,  then  was  hurled  from 
chair  to  colleague  the  instant  insult  (a  new  thing  in  Williams  Col- 
lege), as  if  some  differences  of  opinion  and  divers  points  of  view 
were  not  implied  in  all  consultations  and  councils,  and  were  not  the 
sole  ground  of  their  utility.  The  president  had  very  little  ingenuity 
of  his  own  in  framing  verbal  rules  and  restraints  ;  and  while  several 
of  his  colleagues  had  much  more,  and  did  their  utmost  to  serve  the 
ends  he  had  in  view,  the  almost  uniform  result  was  that  the  stu- 
dents had  little  trouble  in  driving  a  coach  and  four  through  the  fin- 
est network  of  words  that  could  be  framed.  The  ingenuity  along 
this  line  of  any  body  of  students  passes  beyond  description  when 


TOWN    AND   COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  731 

they  set  themselves  to  it  under  provocation.  They  are  fearfully  and 
wonderfully  made  in  this  regard.  And  this  is  one  reason  why  a  col- 
lege can  never  be  governed  by  any  collocation  of  mere  words,  how- 
ever elaborate.  The  infirmities  and  ambiguities  of  language  are  too 
many  for  any  such  purpose.  A  solid  personal  influence  on  the  part 
of  the  teachers  is  indispensable  in  order  to  reenforce  the  words,  or 
better  still,  in  order  to  dispense  with  them  mainly  or  altogether. 
But  the  president  gained  very  little  personal  influence  over  the  stu- 
dents. He  did  not  know  how  to  do  it.  He  scarcely  even  tried  to 
do  it.  He  did  not  meet  them  with  open  face  and  a  clean  heart,  man 
to  man,  and  no  subterfuges  anywhere.  The  structure  of  his  mind, 
his  past  experiences,  and  their  repeated  evasions  and  overthrows  of 
his  superfine  regulations,  deepened  his  suspicions  of  them  ;  and  they 
in  their  turn,  as  classes  and  bodies,  never  gave  him  their  confidence, 
mainly  for  this  reason,  that  he  never  made  a  clean  breast  of  it  with 
them.  He  chose  to  govern  by  authority,  and  pushed  that  forward 
on  all  occasions,  authority  both  legitimate  and  illegitimate,  over 
young  men  who  are  always  open  to  appeals  to  reason,  and  to  honest 
manifestations  of  confidence  by  those  who  in  any  sense  are  over 
them.  The  results  of  this  isolated  and  personal  policy,  of  this  fail- 
ure of  the  president  to  identify  himself  with  the  College  and  to  appeal 
to  and  abide  by  some  at  least  of  its  traditions  and  historical  strength, 
and  of  his  manifested  determination  to  cut  himself  off  from  the  old 
and  to  build  with  a  free  hand  on  new  foundations,  were  steadily  de- 
plorable, first  on  the  members  of  the  faculty,  second  on  the  succes- 
sive classes  of  students,  and  third  and  more  slowly  upon  the  body 
of  the  alumni. 

Previous  presidents  had  taken  pains  to  make  the  weekly  faculty 
meetings  pleasant  to  all  those  who  participated  in  them  so  that,  as 
a  rule,  they  were  looked  forward  to  in  the  way  of  anticipation  by 
all  parties  as  an  interruption  of  the  monotony  of  college  work  and 
duty.  It  became  a  time  and  place  for  mutual  acquaintance  and 
good  cheer,  —  a  sort  of  club.  The  college  business,  whatever  it 
might  be,  was  usually  presented  first  —  the  president  bringing  up 
any  general  matters  that  had  been  called  to  his  attention,  and  then 
asking  in  turn  each  professor  if  he  had  anything  to  present  from 
his  own  department  or  classes.  This  over,  and  it  rarely  took  up 
the  whole  evening,  the  gathering  became  informal  and  social.  Men 
manifested  themselves  just  as  they  were  without  restraint.  Opin- 
ions jostled,  and  animosities  melted.  Men  got  acquainted  with 
each  other,  and  came  to  have  a  mutual  respect  and  a  brotherly  feel- 
ing. Their  weaknesses  got  mildly  ridiculed  from  time  to  time,  and 


732  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

their  points  of  strength  eventually  came  out  more  or  less.  Stories 
were  told  on  each  other  back  and  forth,  doubtless  much  like  those 
which  were  circulated  among  the  students  about  this  professor  or 
that,  and  these  were  more  or  less  put  on  their  guard,  and  gradually 
helped  into  sounder  paths.  Best  of  all,  under  these  circumstances 
a  faculty  came  to  feel  that  they  were  an  organism  ;  that  their  indi- 
vidual interests  were  in  common ;  that  they  were  a  body  of  indi- 
viduals constituting  a  whole  for  important  public  purposes,  and 
consequently  that  they  must  not  ravel  out  at  the  edges.  It  would 
be  wrong  and  foolish  to  expect  that  every  president  could  manage 
such  loose  gatherings  of  colleagues  as  these,  to  generally  cheerful 
and  wholesome  ends,  as  Mark  Hopkins  did  for  so  many  years. 

But  Carter  had  nothing  of  all  this  freedom  and  consequent  good 
feeling  and  unity.  His  faculty  meetings  were  to  the  last  degree 
official  and  solemn.  Every  man  felt  under  a  conscious  restraint, 
and  he  more  than  anybody  else.  He  allowed  himself  no  opportu- 
nity to  get  acquainted  with  his  colleagues  when  they  were  all  to- 
gether. In  fact,  there  was  no  other  opportunity.  And  he  did  not 
get  acquainted  with  them.  He  never  put  himself  on  a  level  with 
them  socially,  or  in  any  other  way.  He  never  put  himself  at  ease 
with  them  as  a  body,  and  they  never  came  to  feel  at  ease  with  him. 
Instead  of  ministering  to  a  feeling  of  unity,  and  of  an  organization 
for  common  ends,  which  a  college  is  if  it  be  anything,  the  faculty 
meetings  served  to  intensify  the  individuality  of  each  person  who 
attended  them,  the  president's  especially.  They  solved  no  difficul- 
ties, they  removed  no  alienations,  they  quickened  no  organic  pur- 
poses, they  ministered  to  no  man's  content  or  comfort.  Accord- 
ingly, the  story  of  the  faculty  meetings,  during  the  whole  period  of 
Carter's  presidency,  form  the  dreariest  portion  of  a  record  other- 
wise, for  the  most  part,  dreary  enough.  They  became  so  odious 
and  useless  that  they  were  intermitted  altogether  for  considerably 
long  seasons.  At  other  times  they  gathered  only  at  the  special  sum- 
mons of  the  president  for  special  purposes.  During  his  occasional 
absences  from  town,  when  otherwise  they  were  assembling  regu- 
larly, the  professors  were  warned  by  special  messenger  not  to 
gather.  This  was  something  entirely  new  in  the  history  of  the  Col- 
lege ;  for  before  this  the  faculty  unif ormly  came  together  whether 
the  president  were  present  or  not.  The  deeper  truth  in  this  whole 
matter  was,  that  under  Carter's  theory  and  practice  of  personal  sov- 
ereignty, regular  faculty  meetings  were  an  incongruity  rather  than 
a  necessity.  By  studiously  making  himself  independent  so  far  as 
possible  of  the  sound  historical  precedents  of  the  College,  that 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    CENTENNIAL.  733 

is  to  say,  cutting  himself  off  from  its  goodly  fame,  consolidated  in 
an  honorable  growth  of  nearly  a  century,  Carter  weakened  him- 
self as  an  administrator,  and  weakened  his  colleagues  as  individ- 
uals, as  well  as  a  body,  in  all  their  relations  to  the  students  as  a 
body  and  as  individuals. 

How  little  the  president  knew,  and  how  less  he  cared  about  the 
history  of  the  town  and  college,  was  manifested  in  his  bearings 
toward  the  Professor  of  History,  who,  when  a  student,  had  become 
deeply  interested  in  the  origins  of  both ;  that  is  to  say,  in  the  old 
French  and  Indian  wars,  as  these  were  carried  on  along  the  valley 
and  over  the  mountains  of  the  upper  Hoosac  River,  necessitating 
a  line  of  forts  from  the  latter  to  the  Connecticut  River,  and  bring- 
ing at  length  into  the  region  a  body  of  brave  soldiers  and  citizens, 
who  became  the  founders  of  both  town  and  college.  Becoming 
Professor  of  History  in  1853,  this  man  continued  mostly  in  college 
vacations,  and  wholly  at  his  own  expense,  glad  and  successful  re- 
searches into  this  then  terra  incognita.  He  had  quietly  pursued 
this  course  for  almost  thirty  years  when  Carter  became  president. 
He  had  made  the  beginnings  of  an  historical  museum.  The  trustees 
had  voted  into  his  care  the  sword  and  a  few  other  authentic  relics 
of  Colonel  Ephraim  Williams,  the  founder  of  the  College.  While 
still  a  student  he  had  brought  to  the  College,  with  the  consent  of 
the  owner  of  the  meadow  on  which  Fort  Massachusetts  stood,  the 
last  headstone  remaining  in  the  little  graveyard  adjoining  it,  and 
he  added  to  this  afterward  several  historical  relics  from  the  same 
hallowed  site.  He  visited  repeatedly,  and  carefully  explored,  the 
remains  of  Fort  Pelham  in  the  town  of  Rowe,  and  Fort  Shirley  in 
the  town  of  Heath,  both  in  the  line  of  forts  to  the  eastward  from 
Fort  Massachusetts  to  the  Connecticut  River.  John  Henry  Haynes, 
since  so  world-distinguished  for  historical  explorations  on  the  plains 
of  the  Euphrates,  received  his  first  impressions  and  took  his  first 
simple  lessons  along  what  proved  to  be  his  life-work,  in  kindly  as- 
sisting his  professor  in  excavating  and  measuring  at  the  sites  of 
Forts  Pelham  and  Shirley.  Interesting  memorials  from  both  these 
places  came  at  length  to  the  little  museum,  not  without  much  pains- 
taking and  considerable  expense.  President  Chadbourne  of  his  own 
accord  offered  a  commodious  home  for  the  slowly  growing  collection 
in  the  then  just  finished  Clark  Hall,  which  had  been  built  under  his 
auspices.  Dr.  Chadbourne,  whose  special  intellectual  interests  lay 
as  remote  from  history  as  did  those  of  Dr.  Carter,  yet  saw  clearly 
the  great  value  of  the  historical  work  that  was  being  done,  both 
present  and  prospective,  kindly  promoted  it  in  every  way  he 


734 


WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 


could,  and  voluntarily  gave   a   suitable   place   of   deposit   for   the 
collection. 

Fort  Shirley  was  a  jointed  block-house  sixty  feet  square,  built  of 
hewn  pine  timber  at  the  order  of  Colonel  John  Stoddard  of  North- 
ampton by  Captain  William  Williams  in  the  summer  of  1744.  All 
the  original  documents  relating  to  the  erection  and  garrisoning  of 
Fort  Shirley  are  still  extant  in  the  archives  at  Boston,  many  of  them 
in  the  handwriting  of  John  Stoddard,  the  military  commandant  of 
western  Massachusetts.  Six  of  these  old  pine  timbers  used  in  the 
building  of  the  fort  were  fortunately  preserved  in  a  family  by  the 


CLARK    HALL. 


name  of  Maxwell,  which  came  to  own  the  land  on  which  the  old  fort 
stood.  In  October,  1885,  in  company  with  Mr.  Maxwell,  who  repre- 
sented that  generation  of  this  family,  the  Williams  professor  care- 
fully examined  these  timbers,  and  found  how  the  fort  had  been 
constructed  throughout.  They  had  been  hewn  and  jointed  and 
dowel-pinned  and  dovetailed  at  the  corners.  Indeed,  he  pulled  out 
with  his  own  hands  two  of  these  pins  from  their- places,  in  which 
they  had  then  quietly  rested  141  years.  Not  long  after  this  the 
town  of  Heath  celebrated  the  centennial  of  its  organization.  As  it 
had  little  to  distinguish  it  above  the  surrounding  towns  except  the 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THi:    CENTENNIAL.  735 

interesting  story  of  old  Fort  Shirley,  the  professor  was  invited  to 
deliver  the  address  on  that  occasion.  When  he  had  concluded,  Mr. 
Maxwell  publicly  presented  to  him  a  section  about  five  feet  long  of 
one  of  these  timbers  in  the  name  of  the  town,  and  as  a  memorial  of 
the  Maxwell  family.  As  a  precious  relic  of  "  ye  olden  time,"  the 
section  was  brought  to  the  College  and  given  a  modest  place  in  Clark 
Hall.  President  Carter  continued  to  manifest  in  various  ways  a 
haughty  contempt  for  the  local  historical  labors  of  the  professor  of 
History,  and  particularly  toward  the  small  collection  of  relics  in 
Clark  Hall.  Perhaps  this  is  not  so  strange  in  itself,  for  he  was 
totally  ignorant  of  the  background  of  these  relics,  and  of  course  the 
relics  themselves  meant  nothing  to  him ;  his  assumption  was,  that 
what  meant  nothing  to  him  meant  nothing  to  anybody  else ;  and 
even  then  it  remained  inexplicable  why  he  should  feel  such  a  pique 
and  grudge  toward  these  unobtrusive  tenants  in  Clark  Hall,  and,  in 
particular,  toward  the  section  of  one  of  the  timbers  of  old  Fort 
Shirley,  so-named  after  the  energetic  and  popular  colonial  Governor 
of  Massachusetts.  The  president  usually  kept  in  tow  a  small  coterie 
of  underlings  and  fig-showers,  sometimes  students  and  sometimes  new- 
comers into  the  faculty,  who  held  their  places  through  his  good  will, 
and  these  stood  ready  to  do  anything  at  his  persuasion,  however 
discreditable  to  him  and  them.  One  day  the  historical  professor 
was  astonished  to  find  that  his  bit  of  wood  from  Fort  Shirley  had 
been  disfigured  and  was  scrawled  over  in  writing  to  the  effect  that 
it  was  a  piece  of  rubbish  of  no  significance  at  all !  The  relatively 
innocent  agent  in  this  act  of  low-lived  prejudice  afterward  acknowl- 
edged of  his  own  accord  to  the  person  chiefly  concerned,  that  he  had 
done  this  thing  at  the  president's  instigation  and  under  the  general 
fear  of  otherwise  losing  his  place. 

Some  years  after  this,  when  this  same  person  concerned  had 
resigned  his  professorship,  an  unfortunate  newcomer  and  ninny,  a 
total  stranger  to  the  place  and  to  the  past  of  this  whole  region  of 
country,  was  used  by  the  president  to  uncork  his  vials  of  wrath  on. 
the  doomed  relics  in  Clark  Hall.  Many  of  them,  including  the 
Shirley  beam,  were  ignominiously  dumped  into  an  unoccupied  room 
of  a  neighboring  building;  and  the  poor  irresponsible  dupe,  who 
verily  thought  he  was  doing  God  service,  was  told  to  inform  the 
professor  of  what  had  been  done,  and  to  invite  him  to  come  and  see 
the  wrecks  as  newly  bestowed.  The  invitation  was  never  accepted. 
The  emissary  was  quietly  asked,  what  had  become  of  the  colonial 
and  revolutionary  swords.  "  Oh ! "  responded  he,  "  /  have  saved  all 
the  good  things ! "  "  Good  things  ?  How  did  you  know  ivhich  the  good 


736  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

things  were  ?  There  was  nothing  there  that  was  not  a  good  thing !  You 
know  nothing  whatever  of  the  significance  of  a  single  item  of  the  collec- 
tion^ any  more  than  the  man  who  sent  you  on  the  vile  errand  !  "  The 
tool  used  in  this  case  was  a  scientist,  who  knew  practically  no  other 
subject.  Except  on  his  own  hugged  delusion,  that  he  was  the  pro- 
prietor of  the  College  and  of  every  person  and  thing  in  it,  this  mag- 
nanimous official  had  no  more  right  to  break  up  and  scatter  the 
hopeful  beginnings  of  an  historical  museum,  which  directly  and 
indirectly  had  cost  some  hundreds  of  dollars  and  many  a  long  jour- 
ney, than  he  had  to  scatter  on  the  campus  the  geological  specimens 


TRUMAN    HENRY   SAFFORD. 
Born  Jan.  6,   1836. 

(for  instance)  of  Professor  Emmons.  Can  it  be  accounted  strange 
that  his  colleagues  could  bear  little  respect  for  a  man,  who  treated 
them  all,  first  or  last,  in  this  high-handed  and  senseless  fashion  ? 
And  was  it  any  lack  of  Christian  charity,  which  led  some  of  them 
privately  to  predict,  years  before  that  welcome  event  took  place, 
that  a  well-authenticated  announcement  of  his  resignation  from  the 
College  would  undoubtedly  raise  here  the  price  of  tar-barrels  ? 

An  illustration  or  two,  tending  to  show  how  the  alumni  in  general 
became  somewhat  alienated  from  the  College,  may  here  be  given 
of  a  deficiency  in  the  mental  make-up  of  President  Carter,  which 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE    TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  787 

wrought  much  mischief  and  diffused  much  misery  in  college  circles. 
This  was  a  want  of  any  delicate  and  sufficient  perception  of  moral 
proportion  as  between  different  men  and  differing  proposals.  He 
appeared  insensible  to  incongruities  in  times  and  circumstances,  for 
example,  in  arranging  the  parts  of  a  college  curriculum,  or  in  placing 
persons  (himself  included)  in  relations  to  each  other  as  toward  any 
recognized  end  or  public  service.  A  concrete  instance  will  make  this 
clear.  When  Carter  became  president  in  1881,  Mark  Hopkins  had  been 
teaching  metaphysics  and  ethics,  or  as  it  is  now  called,  philosophy, 
for  forty-five  years.  He  had  taught  these  subjects  in  his  own  way 
indeed,  constantly  profiting  by  his  own  experience  in  teaching  them, 
without  much  help  from  current  treatises  or  from  the  use  of  text- 
books in  his  classes.  The  key-note  of  his  teaching  throughout  may 
be  found  in  the  question  very  frequently  put  to  a  pupil,  "  Wliat  do 
you  think  about  it  ? "  This  route  led  to  some  introspection  and 
discussion.  It  always  kindled  some  interest  in  these  subjects  even 
in  the  minds  of  the  common  run  of  students ;  for  it  may  be  said  on 
good  authority,  that  in  each  of  the  fifty  classes,  1849-99,  there 
were  not  more  than  two  out  of  forty  students  on  the  average  of  the 
classes,  who  had  any  special  aptitudes  or  ever  made  any  great 
proficiency  in  philosophy.  Nevertheless  the  almost  universal  ver- 
dict of  Dr.  Hopkins's  classes  in  their  after  years  was,  that  his  methods 
gained  the  utmost  attainable  in  college  undergraduates,  crude  at 
best,  having  had  an  average  distinct  preparation  of  about  two  years 
for  a  course  of  four  years  in  college.  He  himself  knew  very  little 
of  the  history  of  philosophy,  and  he  could  not  have  availed  himself 
much  of  it  if  he  had  known,  in  harmony  with  his  general  methods 
of  teaching  and  in  justice  to  the  generally  low  intellectual  condition 
of  his  pupils.  It  was  impossible  for  him  to  extort  from  his  pupils 
much,  if  any,  previous  study  or  reading  in  preparation  for  his  daily 
recitations.  A  very  few  would  read  something  in  some  author 
alongside  the  text-book;  more  than  half  would  fairly  prepare  the 
prescribed  lesson  in  the  text-book  ;  the  rest,  for  the  most  part,  by 
carefully  watching  the  openings  and  progress  of  the  discussions, 
could  get  along  comfortably  when  the  turn  came  to  them ;  and  then 
there  were  always  a  few  who  practically  got  nothing  at  all  out  of 
the  course.  No  one  knew  all  this  better  than  Dr.  Hopkins  himself. 
No  student  ever  long  deceived  him.  He  knew  the  tribe,  and  he 
knew  the  individual.  He  knew  his  own  resources,  and  his  own 
difficulties  and  deficiences.  He  did  the  best  he  could  with  the 
means  and  materials  at  his  hands. 

Franklin  Carter's  ideal  of  a  good  teacher  on  the  other  hand  was 
SB 


738  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

quite  diverse  from  that  of  Mark  Hopkins.  The  former's  model  was 
Samuel  Taylor  of  Phillips  Academy,  Andover,  under  whom  he  had 
been  extraordinarily  well  fitted  for  college  in  the  classical  languages. 
That  there  could  be  any  other  efficient  way  of  teaching  in  other 
departments  of  learning  than  by  "  making  the  pupil  work  "  (as  he 
usually  expressed  it)  in  study  hours  previous  to  the  recitation  hours, 
seemed  to  find  no  place  in  his  head  or  his  system  of  college  educa- 
tion. When,  in  1881,  by  a  curious  topsy-turvy,  the  president  had 
become  professor  and  the  professor  president,  Carter  gave  almost  his 
first  prominent  attention  to  the  department  of  philosophy.  He 
understood  in  a  general  way  the  great  consideration  due  to  Dr.  Hop- 
kins. No  doubt  his  prevailing  motive  in  bringing  in  another  man  to 
teach  subordinately  in  that  department  was,  to  "  make  the  Seniors 
work  "  ;  but  with  this  motive  it  was  plain  that  he  was  not  averse  to 
adopt  a  course  that  would  naturally  humiliate  Dr.  Hopkins.  So  at 
any  rate  the  latter  and  his  family,  and  many  others  too,  interpreted 
the  course  adopted ;  which  was,  to  invite  Granville  Stanley  Hall,  of 
the  class  of  1867,  since  distinguished  as  a  student  and  teacher  of 
psychology,  and  president  of  Clark  University,  to  deliver  an  annual 
course  of  lectures  to  the  entire  Senior  class  on  the  history  of  philoso- 
phy. If  it  had  been  left  optional  with  the  members  of  the  successive 
classes  to  take  the  course  or  not,  no  fault  could  have  been  found  with 
the  plan  at  any  point ;  or,  better  still,  if  Professor  Hall  had  been  re- 
quested to  lecture  in  his  own  way  on  such  portions  of  the  great  field 
of  philosophy  as  he  might  choose,  still  holding  the  entire  class  to 
the  lectures,  there  could  have  been  no  valid  objections  to  that;  for 
Hall  had  already  made  original  investigations  (largely  augmented 
since)  in  the  special  field  of  physiological  psychology,  in  whose 
results  he  would  certainly  have  interested  and  profited  majorities  in 
successive  classes.  Instead  of  either  of  these  alternatives,  he  was 
asked  by  Carter  to  lecture  on  the  history  of  philosophy,  and  par- 
ticularly of  German  philosophy,  who  added  the  astounding  prescrip- 
tion in  so  many  words,  "  Give  it  to  'em  stiff  on  Hegel ! " 

Hall  himself  verbally  told  the  present  writer,  in  implied  explana- 
tion at  least  of  his  failure  to  interest  the  classes  in  his  lectures,  that 
he  had  worked  under  definite  instructions,  couched  in  part  in  the 
above-quoted  sentence.  Here  was  incongruity  carried  to  the  pitch 
of  absurdity.  The  "  secret  of  Hegel "  had  not  then  been  agreed 
upon  even  by  the  most  advanced  of  the  philosophers  themselves ; 
some  of  these  affirm,  that  the  "  secret "  has  not  yet  been  fairly 
enucleated ;  and  there  may  be  a  few  who  say,  that  the  infirmities  of 
language  are  such  that  Hegel's  deepest  thoughts  cannot  be  conveyed 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    CENTENNIAL.  739 

over  to  other  men  through  such  weak  and  shifting  instrumentalities 
as  words.  In  the  winter  of  1898,  however,  appeared  a  new  and 
revised  edition  of  Dr.  James  H.  Stirling's  "  The  Secret  of  Hegel." 
This  writer  had  not  only  found  out  the  secret,  but  also  had  finally 
expressed  it  in  words,  as  follows :  — 

As  Aristotle  (with  assistance  from  Plato)  made  explicit  the  abstract  Univer- 
sal implicit  in  Socrates,  so  Hegel  (with  less  assistance  from  Fichte  and  Schelling) 
made  explicit  the  concrete  Universal  implicit  in  Kant.  The  steps  to  Hegel's 
ultimate  secret  are  his  m,  /or,  and  his  in  and  for  itself.  They  have  analogues 
in  Aristotle  ;  but,  unless  they  are  regarded  simply  in  their  derivation  from  Kant, 
they  will  be  misunderstood. 

Hall's  introductory  lecture  to  his  first  year's  course  was  attended 
by  Dr.  Hopkins  and  another  professor  who  sat  next  him.  Both  gave 
close  attention  to  the  entire  lecture.  As  soon  as  it  was  concluded, 
Hopkins  turned  his  face  to  the  other,  and  said,  "  I  do  not  know  any- 
thing about  this."  Both  then  rose  together  to  go  up  to  the  dais  to 
greet  Hall,  who  had  just  before  come  to  town.  Immediately  the 
greetings  were  over,  Hopkins  repeated  to  Carter  and  Hall,  who  stood 
side  by  side,  the  same  words  he  had  just  said  to  his  seatmate,  "J  do 
not  know  anything  about  this  ! "  Instantly  perceiving  by  the  blank 
faces  of  the  two  auditors,  that  he  had  said  something  mal  apropos, 
the  alert  doctor  made  it  worse  instead  of  better  by  adding,  "  but  1 
am  glad  to  learn  about  it ! "  It  was  not  on  the  whole  an  auspicious 
beginning  for  a  course  of  lectures  to  a  class  of  undergraduates  who 
were  compelled  to  attend  them.  Hall  began  as  he  had  virtually 
been  bidden  to  do,  with  Kant ;  and  many  of  the  class  were  con- 
siderably interested  in  the  biographical  details  given  of  the  outward 
life  of  the  German  sadler's  son  of  Scotch  descent ;  but  when  the  lec- 
turer passed  on  to  "  the  concrete  Universal  implicit  in  Kant,"  their 
interest  dropped  off.  Fichte  and  Schelling  and  Hegel  fared  no 
better  at  their  hands,  but  rather  much  worse.  Dr.  Hopkins's  mental 
and  moral  condition  as  being  "  glad  to  learn  about  this  "  was  more 
hopeful  than  theirs.  Professor  Hall  redeemed  his  second  year's 
course,  more  or  less,  from  the  indifference  and  repugnance  felt 
toward  the  first,  by  putting  in  at  the  end  a  number  of  lectures  on 
physiological  psychology,  which  took  hold  of  the  class  pretty  well, 
and  of  which  the  whole  course  should  have  consisted,  for  that  was 
Hall's  own  and  proper  field.  He  then  worried  through  the  third 
year's  similar  course  with  increasing  friction,  and  came  then  to  an 
end ;  for  practically  the  students  refused  to  hear  him  any  longer. 
Dr.  Hopkins  suffered  no  diminution  of  his  popularity  with  his 


740  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

classes  from  this  repeated  exhibition  of  the  methods  of  modern 
German  philosophy,  but  continued,  till  his  death  in  1887,  skilfully 
to  adapt  his  instructions  to  the  average  mental  and  moral  condition 
of  his  grateful  pupils. 

The  first  president  of  the  Society  of  Alumni  was  Dr.  Asa  Burbank, 
of  the  class  of  1797,  a  man  born  and  bred  and  professionally  trained 
in  Williamstown ;  and  the  first  annual  orator  before  the  society  was 
the  Rev.  Dr.  John  Woodbridge,  of  the  class  of  1804,  whose  theme  in 
1823  was  "  The  Obligations  of  Literary  Men  to  embrace  with  Ardor 
and  maintain  with  Constancy  the  Divine  Religion  of  the  Gospel." 
This  address  was  printed  and  widely  circulated.  For  about  fifty 
years  thereafter  the  annual  oration  (or  poem)  before  this  society  by 
one  of  its  own  members  rarely  failed  to  be  a  chief  attraction  of 
Commencement  week.  So  prominent  and  influential  became  the 
Society  of  Alumni  among  the  agencies  cooperating  in  the  upbuilding 
of  the  College,  that  its  semi-centennial  celebration  in  1843  was  con- 
ducted directly  under  its  auspices  and  officers.  As  the  years  and 
decades  went  by,  the  society  came  into  such  self-conscious  coopera- 
tion with  these  other  agencies  that  in  1868  a  carefully  matured 
plan  came  into  operation  by  which  the  alumni  as  such  were  there- 
after to  choose  five  out  of  the  seventeen  trustees  of  the  College, 
each  one  of  these  to  serve  for  a  term  of  five  years.  From  the 
beginning  until  then  the  College  Corporation  was  a  wholly  self- 
renewing  body  on  a  life-tenure.  There  had  come  to  be  some  dis- 
satisfaction with  the  trustees  as  a  body  of  exclusively  elderly  men. 
Friendly  conferences  were  held  as  between  the  society  and  'the 
corporation.  Friendly  conclusions  were  at  length  reached,  to  the 
effect  that  in  order  to  avoid  the  necessity  of  a  radical  change  in 
the  college  charter,  the  trustees  should  continue  to  fill  by  election 
the  vacancies  happening  in  their  own  body  through  death  or  resigna- 
tion, but  pledge  themselves  to  choose  one  person  each  year  already 
selected  from  their  own  number  by  the  Society  of  Alumni  by  ballot 
to  serve  for  five  years.  The  secretary  of  the  society  was  to  canvass 
by  mail  the  entire  body  of  alumni  for  their  votes  from  a  list  of  five 
candidates  nominated  at  their  previous  annual  meeting.  The  candi- 
date thus  receiving  the  majority  of  votes  was  to  be  certified  by  the 
secretary  to  the  trustees  for  his  ultimate  election.  The  whole 
burden  of  this  somewhat  complicated  machinery  fell  upon  the 
secretary  of  the  alumni,  who  was  always  a  member  of  the  faculty, 
and  who  of  course  found  his  task  burdensome  and  uncompensated, 
and  more  or  less  invidious.  Giles  Bacon  Kellogg,  of  the  class  of 
1829,  a  native  of  Williamstown  and  representing  by  descent  three 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE    TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  741 

or  four  of  its  oldest  families,  was  the  first  trustee  chosen  in  this 
manner  in  1868.  At  the  end  of  five  years  he  was  rechosen  in  the 
same  way  to  fill  the  vacancy  caused  by  the  expiration  of  his  first 
term  of  office. 

This  broadening  of  the  basis  of  suffrage  for  the  choosing  of  nearly 
one-third  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  was  in  the  line  of  the  spirit  of 
the  times,  and  was  satisfactory  to  the  Society  of  the  Alumni  for 
a  while  5  but,  as  is  common  in  such  cases  of  balanced  powers,  the 
alumni  did  not  remain  altogether  contented  with  the  degree  of 
direct  influence  secured  to  them  by  this  roundabout  method  of 
selecting  certain  members  of  the  trustees.  The  action  of  the  latter 
as  a  whole  still  seemed  to  many  of  the  former  as  too  tardy  and  old- 
fashioned.  The  New  England  colleges  generally  were  becoming 
relatively  restless  and  dissatisfied  with  the  results  of  the  current 
schemes  of  college  education  and  government.  Williams  was  no 
exception  to  the  rule.  The  Society  of  Alumni,  accordingly,  deter- 
mined to  take  a  further  step  in  the  way  of  supervision  and  securing 
some  practical  influence  on  the  methods  and  results  of  class-room 
instruction.  They  decided  to  raise  annually  a  committee  of  their 
own  to  visit  the  College  in  term-time,  to  attend  recitations  and 
lectures,  to  inquire  on  the  ground  of  both  teachers  and  students  how 
matters  were  progressing,  and  what  changes  (if  any)  were  needed  — 
this  visiting  committee  to  make  a  formal  report  in  writing  to  their 
principals  at  the  alumni  meeting  of  Commencement  week.  These 
successive  changes  of  method,  considered  as  one,  constituted,  by 
deliberate  design,  a  considerable  innovation,  and  lessened  relatively 
the  prestige  of  the  College  Corporation  as  a  body,  and,  of  course, 
also  that  of  the  president  as  an  individual  official.  To  carry  these 
changes  into  effective  execution  required  (1)  a  resident  executive 
officer  of  the  alumni  responsible  only  to  them ;  and  (2)  a  yearly 
visiting  committee  similarly  responsible,  whose  expenses  were  to  be 
paid  from  the  college  treasury.  The  new  system  worked  well  for  a 
number  of  years.  There  was  nothing  in  the  nature  of  it,  nor  in  the 
practical  operation  of  it,  that  should  hinder  satisfactory  results. 
The  entire  scheme  was  a  wholesome  recognition  that  the  College 
was  a  public  institution,  to  be  administered  in  the  sole  interests 
of  the  public,  and  to  be  responsive  through  each  of  its  three  main 
agencies  to  genuine  and  assured  changes  in  public  opinion.  Let  it 
be  repeated,  that  these  three  main  agencies  were  and  are,  (1)  the 
trustees,  (2)  the  faculty,  (3)  the  students  and  alumni.  Ever  after 
1821  the  third  body,  itself  more  accessible  and  flexible  to  general 
public  opinion  than  the  other  two,  had  been  increasingly  leaned 


742  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

on  by  the  other  two.  All  three  had  worked  together  in  almost 
unbroken  harmony.  As  an  experienced  and  trusted  member  of 
the  faculty,  the  new  secretary  of  the  alumni  represented  in  a 
certain  sense  all  three  of  these  governing  bodies,  though  he  was 
directly  and  chiefly  responsible  to  the  third  only.  If  either  of  the 
other  two  bodies  sought  to  use  him  officially  as  a  means  to  any  of 
their  special  ends,  his  duty  would  be  as  clear  as  the  light;  namely,  to 
ignore  them  absolutely  in  that  regard;  for  he  was  an  agent  only, 
and  could  have  as  such  no  personal  motives  or  ambitions.  His 
delicate  functions  were  to  gather  and  record  and  count  and  certify 
the  alumni  votes  for  alumni  trustees. 

When  Carter  became  president  with  his  peculiar  and  inadmissible 
views  of  what  constituted  the  College,  and  while  the  secretary  of 
the  alumni  was  collecting  their  votes  in  the  manner  expressly  pre- 
scribed to  him,  the  two  men  meeting  on  the  street,  the  president 
demanded  to  know  the  then  current  state  of  the  voting.  His  man- 
ner was  imperious.  He  had  no  right  to  ask  such  a  question.  The 
other  had  no  right  to  answer  it.  As  alumni  each  had  his  individual 
vote,  and  neither  had  a  moral  right  to  influence  the  votes  of  others. 
The  scheme  was  concocted  on  purpose  to  pass  over  to  the  body  of 
the  alumni  a  modified  power  that  formerly  belonged  to  the  body  of 
the  trustees.  But  Carter  was  unwilling  that  the  actual  transfer 
should  continue.  The  menace  in  the  eye  and  tone  of  the  man  on 
the  street  foretold  what  actually  happened,  namely,  that  not  a  stone 
would  be  left  unturned  to  get  back,  by  hook  or  by  crook,  into  his  own 
hands  the  virtual  selection  of  every  member  of  the  Board  of  Trustees, 
the  Society  of  Alumni  and  the  faculty  of  the  College  to  the  con- 
trary notwithstanding.  The  secretary  of  the  alumni,  on  the  other 
hand,  had  no  option  or  individuality  except  to  do  what  had  been 
bidden  him  to  do  by  those  whom  he  had  freely  consented  to  serve  as 
an  agent.  His  task  was  laborious  and  thankless,  but  somebody 
must  perform  it  for  the  common  good,  and  take  the  inevitable  con- 
sequences of  suspicion  and  odium.  He  had  no  motive  whatever  to 
do  anything  but  the  right  in  letter  and  spirit.  Silent  and  self- 
restrained,  accordingly,  because  knowing  his  duty  and  determined  to 
do  it  with  as  little  friction  as  possible,  the  other  party  to  the  casual 
meeting  on  the  street  turned  and  went  his  way  with  a  light  heart. 

Angered  and  transiently  thwarted,  the  president  began  immedi- 
ately his  secret  machinations  against  the  Society  of  Alumni  in  the 
person  of  their  hard-worked  secretary,  as  if  he  were  the  responsible 
evil-doer ;  and  these  intrigues  were  not  intermitted  until  his  private 
ends  were  measurably  reached  in  the  enforced  resignation  of  that 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  743 

official  and  in  the  practical  disfranchisement  of  the  alumni  as  such. 
Former  presidents  of  the  College  had  always  attended  the  general 
alumni  meeting  on  the  Tuesday  morning  before  Commencement, 
and  as  simple  alumni  had  taken  an  interested  part  in  the  exercises, 
and  had  helped  to  make  those  meetings  crowded  and  enthusiastic ; 
but  Carter  rarely  or  never  attended  that  meeting  in  propria  personcij 
while  he  always  had  his  brief  special  tools  and  toadies  there,  flat- 
tered beforehand  by  his  peculiar  recognitions,  and  usually  manifest- 
ing to  practised  eyes  whose  livery  it  was  that  they  wore.  He  secured 
in  this  way  annual  changes  in  the  conditions  under  which  the  alumni 
votes  were  to  be  gathered  or  counted  or  announced.  The  only  thing 
common  to  all  these  changes  was,  that  each  of  them  made  the  duties 
of  the  secretary  more  arduous,  more  perplexing,  more  possible  to  be 
cavilled  at  and  overthrown  by  a  vote  of  the  whole  body.  For  exam- 
ple, one  of  these  new  regulations  was,  that  the  secretary  should  not 
even  begin  to  count  the  votes  received  until  twelve  o'clock  of  the 
night  preceding  the  annual  alumni  meeting,  and  there  must  be  at 
least  one  other  alumnus  present  to  assist  in  the  counting !  It  took 
between  two  and  three  hours  of  the  night  to  count  the  votes  in  this 
manner.  This  feature  was  shortly  outworn  as  too  obviously  insult- 
ing to  the  integrity  of  the  secretary.  A  substitute  was  foisted  in 
some  time  afterward  to  the  effect,  that  the  secretary,  though  he 
might  count  the  votes  at  his  leisure,  should  not  announce  the  result 
to  anybody  under  any  circumstances,  until  twelve  o'clock  meridian 
in  the  general  alumni  meeting.  This  rule,  like  the  other,  was  in 
force  but  a  single  year,  and  had  a  singular  issue ;  for,  in  the  late 
evening  preceding  the  day  of  the  meeting,  while  the  trustees  were  in 
session,  a  classmate  and  friend  of  the  secretary,  John  W.  Dickinson, 
then  a  member  of  the  trustees  and  in  session  with  them,  came  to  the 
secretary's  house,  and  for  the  space  of  half  an  hour  or  more  endeav- 
ored by  various  devices,  all  friendly  in  tone  and  shrewd  in  contrivance, 
to  extort  from  him  the  state  of  the  votes  for  alumni  trustee.  Dick- 
inson did  not  say  that  he  came  on  this  errand  at  the  instance  of  the 
president,  nor  did  he  wish  the  other  to  infer  this,  but  it  was  impos- 
sible for  him  to  conceal  it.  The  other  man  knew  that  Dickinson  did 
not  personally  care  a  straw  for  the  state  of  the  votes,  and  he  could 
not  help  betray  his  true  character  as  one  sent.  Besides  he  was  deal- 
ing with  an  old  bird  that  knew  the  difference  between  chaff  and 
grain.  His  errand  proving  futile  for  obvious  reasons,  the  two  friends 
walked  back  together  to  the  building  in  which  some  at  least  of  the 
trustees  were  then  sitting,  and  there  parted  for  the  night. 

The   two   leading   candidates   from   the   alumni   that  year  were 


744  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

James  M.  Barker  of  the  class  of  1860,  and  Henry  H.  Anderson  of 
the  class  of  1848.  For  some  reason  not  at  all  relevant  to  the  prog- 
ress and  issue  of  these  intrigues,  Carter  was  very  desirous  that  Barker 
should  be  chosen.  As  a  matter  of  fact  it  was  a  case  of  tweedledum 
and  tweedledee.  Both  were  good  men.  Barker  had  been  trustee  for 
five  years,  he  lived  in  Pittsfield,  and  had  belonged  while  in  college 
to  one  of  the  later  formed  fraternities,  the  D.  K.  E.  Anderson  was 
a  son  of  the  long-time  secretary  of  the  American  Board,  was  a 
college  classmate  of  President  Chadbourne,  lived  in  New  York,  and 
had  belonged  to  the  earlier  formed  fraternity  of  the  Sigma  Phi.  It 
had  been  noticed  by  many,  and  left  unaccounted  for,  that  relatively 
few  of  that  society  had  ever  found  a  place  in  the  Board  of  Trustees, 
particularly  as  compared  with  members  of  the  contemporary  society 
of  the  Kappa  Alpha.  More  interest  was  generally  felt  on  this 
account  in  the  possible  election  of  Anderson.  College-bred  men, 
like  all  other  men,  are  fond  of  what  is  called  fair  play.  At  any 
rate,  it  was  injudicious  (to  use  no  stronger  term)  for  the  president 
to  fling  himself  headlong  into  this  canvass  in  the  way  he  did.  No 
man  knew  how  the  vote  stood,  nor  had  the  least  inkling  of  it,  except 
the  secretary,  who  had  counted  and  recorded  the  votes.  There  was 
a  general  though  vague  impression  that  Anderson  would  be  chosen ; 
and  Carter  had  determined  that,  even  if  he  were,  he  should  be 
"counted  out"  in  favor  of  Barker.  If  Dickinson  had  wormed  out 
of  the  secretary  how  the  vote  stood,  then  the  election  was  to  be  pro- 
nounced invalid,  on  the  ground  that  the  latter  had  divulged  what 
could  only  be  legally  announced  in  open  alumni  meeting  at  the 
specified  time.  Foiled  in  device  No.  1,  the  fertile  mind  of  the  presi- 
dent fell  back  on  a  second  possible  expedient.  One  of  the  rules 
prescribed  to  the  secretary  for  the  guidance  of  his  conduct  as  such 
had  been  drawn  loosely  and  ambiguously,  so  that  a  charge  of  its 
violation  either  in  letter  or  spirit  might  be  trumped  up  against 
the  secretary  so  as  to  pronounce  the  election  void,  and  the  alumni 
present  authorized  to  proceed  to  elect. 

The  alumni  meeting  the  next  morning  was  a  spectacle  to  gods  and 
man.  Nothing  like  it  was  ever  seen  before  in  any  connection  with 
Williams  College.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  anything  to  equal 
it  had  ever  been  witnessed  in  Tammany  Hall.  When  the  meeting 
opened  in  the  college  chapel,  the  conspirators  found  themselves  in 
a  difficult  quandary.  They  did  not  know  how  the  vote  stood  on 
record,  and  the  only  man  who  did  know  had  been  expressly  for- 
bidden to  tell  till  twelve  o'clock.  If  they  waited  till  that  hour,  and 
Anderson  were  declared  elected,  it  would  then  be  impossible  to 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  745 

count  him  out,  that  is  to  say,  to  reverse  the  verdict  of  the  whole 
body  of  alumni.  But  something  must  be  done  at  once  and  at  all 
hazards.  At  least  the  secretary  might  be  egregiously  insulted  at 
each  opportunity,  and  the  impression  be  produced  on  the  minds  of 
doubtful  alumni  present,  that  he  were  somehow  or  other  a  culprit  at 
the  bar,  that  he  had  been  guilty  of  some  malversation  in  office, 
nobody  knew  what.  Possibly  he  might  thus  be  provoked  into 
blurting  out  the  state  of  the  vote,  and  so  give  them  time  to  bring 
into  operation  their  subtle  contrivance  No.  2.  This  last  hypothesis 
did  not  serve  them,  for  the  secretary  seemed  to  be  the  only  man  in 
the  room  perfectly  at  his  ease.  The  great  magician  of  course  was 
not  present,  but  his  puppets  were  in  considerable  numbers,  and  the 
wires  between  them  seemed  to  be  in  good  working  order.  As  he 
pulled,  they  danced.  The  president  of  the  day  was  Milton  B. 
Whitney  of  the  class  of  1849.  He  had  taken  his  orders  direct  from 
headquarters,  and  had  consented  to  forego  the  honorable  task  of 
presiding  over  a  deliberative  body  in  accordance  with  honorable 
precedents,  bound  to  respect  the  rights  of  majorities  and  all  the 
decencies  of  parliamentary  law.  He  came  upon  the  platform  on 
the  rampage,  inflated  and  prancing.  The  secretary  read  the  min- 
utes of  the  last  annual  meeting.  Reference  was  made  in  them  in 
due  course  to  a  report  then  given  to  the  alumni  by  Charles  A. 
Davison  of  the  board  of  trustees.  As  soon  as  the  reference  was 
read,  Mr.  Davison  rose  and  interrupted  and  corrected  the  secretary 
verbally  as  to  its  purport.  This  was  unlucky  both  for  the  knot  of 
cavillers  on  the  floor,  of  which  Davison  was  a  centre,  and  for  the 
overcharged  Whitney  on  the  platform,  who  interjected,  "  The 
secretary  ivill  correct  Ms  minutes ! "  The  secretary  quietly  observed 
to  Davison  that  the  passage  objected  to  was  under  quotation  marks 
and  copied  verbatim  from  his  own  report,  which  was  at  that  moment 
in  the  secretary's  custody.  There  was  obviously  no  occasion  to  cor- 
rect the  minutes. 

The  meeting  went  forward  much  as  usual,  until  the  cabal  on  the 
floor,  after  more  or  less  of  whisperings  with  one  another,  thought 
it  best  to  make  the  main  attack.  The  goal  to  be  reached  was  so 
to  discredit  the  secretary,  in  some  way  or  other,  they  did  not  care 
how,  as  to  give  some  color  of  right  to  their  determination  to  pro- 
nounce his  record  of  votes  invalid,  and  to  assume  the  right  of  the 
meeting  to  choose  then  and  there.  Barker  was  to  come  in  vi  et 
armis,  under  their  supposition  that  Anderson  had  been  regularly 
elected.  The  cue  then  was  to  show  the  secretary  at  fault  in  his 
proceeding  at  some  obscure  and  ambiguous  point  of  his  prescribed 


746  W1LLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

duty.  James  White  of  the  class  of  1851,  who  had  spent  an  active 
and  reputable  business  life  in  Boston,  had  just  been  chosen  at  this 
session  of  the  trustees,  and,  under  Carter's  special  auspices,  treasurer 
of  the  College,  but  this  fact  was  not  known  at  the  moment  to  many 
of  the  alumni  present.  White,  who  was  a  man  of  excellent  char- 
acter, had  never  been  distinguished  for  perspicacity,  but  was  rather 
noted  for  the  lack  of  it,  especially  in  matters  of  complicated  and 
recondite  statement.  He  was  usually  a  modest  man,  and  was  a 
good  friend  of  the  secretary's,  as  they  had  been  three  years  in  col- 
lege together  as  undergraduates,  and  were  friendly  ever  after.  But 
White  was  naturally  exhilarated  by  his  election  to  the  responsible 
and  honorable  post  of  college  treasurer,  felt  under  deep  personal 
obligations  to  the  president  for  his  elevation,  and  was  assiduous 
at  the  latter's  request  to  begin  at  once  to  repay  service  by  service. 
It  fell  to  him,  accordingly,  to  state  to  the  alumni  wherein  the  dere- 
lictions of  the  secretary  had  consisted,  and  to  support  by  argument 
the  motion  now  formally  before  the  body,  namely,  that  the  recent 
election  of  trustee  be  formally  vacated.  Everybody  listened  intently 
to  what  he  said,  no  one  more  so  than  the  secretary  himself,  but 
the  latter  certainly,  and  so  far  as  afterward  appeared  011  general 
inquiry,  nobody  else,  could  construe  from  the  speech  what  the 
radical  or  even  superficial  fault  in  the  official  proceeding  had  been. 
His  assumed  task  proved  to  be  beyond  his  powers.  His  zeal  seemed 
to  have  no  rational  basis,  or  at  least  no  explainable  basis.  But  this 
fact,  as  often  happens  under  similar  conditions,  did  not  lessen  at 
all  the  zeal  of  the  persons  committed  to  the  scheme  to  carry  it  out 
to  the  end.  White's  most  intimate  friend  from  boyhood  was  Wil- 
liam E.  Merriman  of  the  class  of  1850 ;  they  were  fellow-townsmen 
in  Hinsdale  and  three  years  in  college  together,  and  as  Merrirnan 
had  been  less  successful  in  his  life-work  than  White,  he  became 
in  the  fair  sense  of  those  terms  a  protege  and  dependent  on  White. 
Of  course  the  one  would  naturally  be  in  at  the  inauguration  of  the 
other  as  treasurer  of  the  College,  and  be  ready  to  assist  in  any  such 
work  of  sycophancy  as  the  other  was  now  employed  in.  Accord- 
ingly, Merriman  rose  to  second  the  motion  to  pronounce  the  elec- 
tion invalid,  and  also  to  reinforce  the  argument  (if  possible)  on 
which  such  action  was  sought  to  be  grounded.  To  those  who  knew 
the  existing  relations  of  White  to  Carter,  and  the  steady  relations 
of  Merriman  to  White,  this  exhibit  of  secondary  toadyism  would 
not  have  been  assuring,  even  if  Merriman's  speech  had  been  plau- 
sible and  logical.  It  was  neither.  In  substance  it  was  as  weak 
as  water,  and  in  form  it  was  the  talk  of  Poor  Poll.  Its  effect  upon 


TOWN   AND   COLLEGE    TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  747 

the  alumni  in  two  opposite  directions  was  curiously  marked.  Upon 
about  half  of  those  present,  who  had  already  made  up  their  minds 
for  differing  reasons  to  smash  the  vote  and  humiliate  the  secretary, 
the  total  want  of  force  in  the  speech  led  them  to  make  up  in  noise 
what  was  lacking  in  reason.-  It  seemed  to  open  Pandora's  box. 
Samuel  H.  Scudder  of  the  class  of  1857,  probably  as  the  explosion 
of  some  old  grudge  thirty  years  old,  rose  to  express  two  or  three 
bitter  insults  to  the  secretary,  having  not  the  slightest  relation  to 
the  circumstances  in  hand.  He  sat  down  self-satisfied,  as  if  he 
had  done  a  gentlemanly  act,  and  one  sure  to  contribute  something 
toward  the  felicitous  end  in  view. 

His  brother,  Horace  E.  Scudder,  of  the  class  of  1858,  who  sat 
near  him,  rose  next,  as  if  it  were  a  fraternal  duty  to  give  a  moral 
support  to  the  good  cause,  although,  as  he  freely  confessed  in  a 
letter  of  apology  written  to  the  secretary  some  little  time  after, 
he  did  not  really  know  what  the  good  cause  was.  He  saw  lots  of 
smoke,  and  supposed  that  there  must  be  a  considerable  fire  some- 
where. His  speech,  courteous  in  terms  for  the  most  part,  assumed 
that  the  secretary  had  committed  some  great  sin  against  constituted 
order,  and  that  the  trustees  present  with  their  satellites,  and  the 
excited  spirits  around  him,  including  his  brother,  stood  for  violated 
law  and  the  sanctity  of  precedents.  He  administered,  therefore, 
proper  rebukes  to  his  old  college  teacher  for  his  hypothetical  mal- 
versations in  office,  without  indicating  in  the  slightest  the  nature 
of  the  malversations.  By  this  time  the  other  half  of  the  alumni 
had  experienced  the  opposite  effects  alluded  to  above.  Oliver  B. 
Hayes  of  the  class  of  1850  rose  in  personal  and  indignant  defence 
of  the  secretary.  What  has  he  done  ?  What  is  his  offence  ?  In 
the  name  of  all  that  is  fair  and  true,  what  is  the  accusation  against 
him  ?  He  has  been  our  secretary  for  ten  or  twelve  years  or  more, 
and  has  done  all  our  hard  work,  as  you  all  know,  gratis,  and  so  far 
as  any  of  you  all  know,  in  the  most  faithful  manner;  and  now, 
before  I  hear  any  more  of  this  loud  talk  around  me,  I  want  to  know 
what  it  is  that  our  sole  executive  officer  has  done,  or  at  least  what  he 
is  now  being  accused  of  having  done  ! 

Presiding-officer  Whitney  looked  daggers  at  Hayes,  and  evidently 
ached  for  a  chance  to  pronounce  him  out  of  order,  which  he  would 
have  doubtless  done  in  an  instant  and  silenced  him,  had  anybody 
ventured  to  raise  the  point :  and  the  new  Treasurer  White  looked 
anxious  while  Hayes  was  speaking,  and  there  was  a  good  deal  of 
buzzing  before  he  ceased,  to  the  effect  that  the  motion  before  the 
house  ought  to  be  put  at  once,  before  any  more  such  irrelevant  and 


748 


WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 


unfortunate  questions  should  be  put.  In  the  slight  confusion  caused 
by  the  closing  of  Hayes,  a  special  friend  of  Anderson's,  a  member 
of  the  Sigma  Phi,  a  lawyer  and  (as  it  proved)  an  orator,  obtained 
recognition  of  the  chair.  It  had  now  become  known,  or  at  least 
surmised,  by  all  of  the  alumni  present,  that  a  high-handed  though 
underground  attempt  was  being  made  to  break  up  the  result  of  the 
regular  election,  and  to  put  into  the  Board  of  Trustees  on  the  part  of 
the  alumni  a  man  who  would  have  no  proper  right  there.  The  com- 


COLLEGE   CHAPEL. 
Built  in   1859. 


parative  stranger  who  had  the  floor  secured  an  uncommonly  atten- 
tive hearing  for  a  calm  and  elegant  speech  in  behalf  of  precedents, 
in  favor  of  the  right  of  each  alumnus  to  deposit  a  free  vote  and  to 
have  it  properly  counted;  in  favor,  in  short,  of  exhibiting  in  the 
annual  meetings  of  the  Williams  Alumni  the  methods  and  manners 
of  scholars  and  gentlemen.  As  soon  as  the  speaker  was  seated,  the 
call,  "Motion !  Motion!  "  rose  in  the  room,  and  President  Whitney 
was  only  too  glad  to  put  it  before  any  further  damage  were  done  to 
its  chances  of  passing.  Many  of  the  alumni  did  not  vote  at  all,  and 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  749 

the  motion  was  declared  "  carried. "  As  it  was  not  yet  twelve 
o'clock,  the  secretary  quietly,  but  with  all  due  emphasis,  resigned 
his  office  as  such,  and  passed  out  of  the  east  door  of  the  chapel,  and 
so  round  to  its  front  on  his  way  to  his  house.  As  he  passed  the 
front  doors,  Keyes  Danforth  of  the  class  of  1846  and  Eugene  M. 
Jerome  of  the  class  of  1867  came  out  in  order  to  see  how  the  re- 
corded vote  actually  stood.  The  record-book  was  held  up  before 
their  eyes,  showing  a  plurality  of  110  votes  for  Barker  over  Ander- 
son !  "  The  devilish  fools  ! "  exclaimed  Danforth.  Jerome  was 
silent,  but  not  less  indignant.  Both  passed  back  into  the  chapel, 
and  each  whispered  to  his  neighbors  in  the  rear  of  the  room  the 
state  of  the  vote.  In  one  minute  that  part  of  the  room  was  filled 
with  derisive  laughter,  which  spread  into  a  general  guffaw ;  jeers  at 
the  extra-officious  presiding  officer  confused  and  astonished  him 
before  he  knew  the  cause  of  the  disorder,  and  still  more  after  he  had 
found  it  out ;  poor  Merriman's  face  carried  over  even  into  the  next 
day  a  dazed  and  damaged  and  hang-dog  look ;  and  it  was  no  very 
hazardous  conjecture,  judging  from  his  countenance  and  attitudes, 
that  the  new  treasurer  began  to  suspect  that  he  himself  had  made  a 
bad  beginning  by  so  conspicuously  drawing  his  bow  over  the  second 
fiddle  in  trying  to  keep  up  with  the  sly  and  false  and  cowardly  key- 
note of  his  recent,  but  now  absent,  benefactor.  But  what  was  now 
to  be  done  by  the  men  responsible  for  the  issue  of  the  annual 
alumni  meeting  ?  And  who  was  to  be  declared  the  choice  of  the 
alumni  for  trustee  for  five  years  ?  The  second  act  in  the  deep-laid 
scheme  was,  after  discarding  the  result  of  the  regular  election,  to 
call  on  the  alumni  present  to  choose  the  trustee  in  some  summary 
manner,  viva  voce,  hand-showing,  or  extemporized  ballot.  The 
sense  of  the  meeting  as  to  the  senseless  trick  that  had  been  sought 
to  be  played  upon  them  was  manifest  even  to  the  dullest.  If  the 
now  discomfited  and  disgraced  leaders  of  the  meeting  had  ventured 
to  carry  out  the  plan,  and  order  a  new  election  then  and  there, 
Henry  H.  Anderson  would  in  all  probability  have  been  chosen 
trustee.  The  fair-minded  members  of  the  body  (not  in  the  plot) 
were  disgusted  on  the  one  hand  with  the  gratuitous  insults  heaped 
on  their  secretary  without  the  shadow  of  a  reason  for  them,  and 
also,  on  the  other  hand,  at  the  meanness  of  the  attempt  to  "  count 
out"  an  honorable  gentleman  for  no  reason  whatever  except. that 
the  president  of  the  College  preferred  for  private  ends  another  man. 
Ludicrous  to  the  last  degree  was  the  backing  and  filling,  the  hawing 
and  geeing,  of  the  now  exposed  and  dilemma-caught  leaders  and 
servitors.  Gulp  after  gulp  they  swallowed  down  all  their  proud 


750  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

words  of  an  hour  before,  and  were  inclined  to  think  that  the  pains- 
taking and  regular  election,  although  its  result  had  not  been  de- 
clared in  due  time  and  form  by  their  late  worthy  secretary,  after  all 
expressed  the  deliberate  wishes  of  a  majority  of  the  alumni !  So 
James  M.  Barker  was  announced  as  elected ! 

There  is  no  proof  and  no  probability  that  Barker  approved  of  or 
was  even  privy  to  this  detestable  trick,  entered  into  by  the  president 
ostensibly  in  his  behalf;  nevertheless,  it  is  a  duty  to  record  the 
unquestionable  fact  that  Barker's  good  name  and  subsequent  useful- 
ness to  the  College  as  a  trustee  suffered  materially  from  the  associa- 
tion of  his  name  with  this  singularly  unworthy  procedure.  He  had 
occasion  to  pray  to  be  delivered  from  the  influence  of  his  superser- 
viceable  friends.  This  was  a  story  that  had  to  be  told  over  and 
over  again,  with  his  name  prominent  in  it,  wherever  a  knot  of  grad- 
uates gathered  to  talk  over  the  old  days  and  the  newer  days  of  the 
College.  Moreover  it  helped  to  put  Barker  into  unnatural  relations 
with  Carter  for  many  years  afterward,  not  favorable  to  the  self- 
respect  of  either  of  them,  and  not  conducive  to  the  independent  and 
broad-reaching  counsel  which  every  trustee  is  bound  to  render  to  his 
College  with  just  as  little  reference  as  is  possible  to  previous  per- 
sonal relations  and  alliances  within  the  body  itself.  The  story  of 
the  Board  of  Trustees  while  Franklin  Carter  was  at  the  head  of  it, 
will  never  be  written  out  nor  fully  known;  but  enough  escaped 
from  time  to  time  out  of  the  safety-valves  of  certain  members  into 
the  ears  of  judicious  friends  of  the  College  who  held  their  peace,  to 
make  indisputable  the  bitter  disputes,  the  crimnations  and  recrim- 
nations,  that  often  transpired  in  their  sessions.  The  effect  on  James 
White  of  his  initial  participation  in  a  piece  of  wretched  policy  pre- 
scribed to  him  was  morally  unwholesome  so  long  as  he  lived.  For 
about  ten  years  he  continued  to  be,  so  far  as  the  College  was  con- 
cerned, not  like  his  predecessor  in  the  treasury,  Joseph  White,  an 
independent  adviser  and  coadjutor  to  trustees  and  faculty  and 
alumni  alike,  but  rather  a  negative  echo  and  servitor  of  the  presi- 
dent. He  acquired  very  little  personal  and  responsible  influence  in 
the  College.  He  clung  to  his  chief  alike  in  the  right  and  in  the 
wrong,  as  if  the  latter  person  were  the  College  and  he  himself  no  part 
of  it,  thus  belittling  his  duty  and  his  opportunity.  In  some  not  closely 
discriminating  words  spoken  at  his  funeral,  the  president  praised 
the  late  treasurer  as  displaying  a  "  loyalty  to  the  College  "  beyond  his 
compeers ;  and  so  furnished  a  further  definition  of  that  much  abused 
phrase  undoubtedly  held  in  common  by  the  two  men.  The  ill-effect 
of  this  whole  alumni  passage  was  most  obvious  and  pronounced 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    CENTENNIAL.  751 

upon  the  College  Society  of  the  Sigma  Phi.  This  was  the  oldest 
but  one  of  the  college  fraternities,  and  their  members  comprised  a 
body  among  the  alumni  large  in  numbers,  influential  in  social  posi- 
tion, and  probably  representing  more  of  material  resources  than 
any  other  equal  number  of  college  graduates.  Man  for  man  they 
were  probably  as  friendly  to  the  College  as  any  other  equal  number 
of  graduates ;  although  for  reasons  for  which  they  were  not  at  all 
to  be  blamed,  they  had  never  received  anything  like  the  recognitions 
and  positions  from  the  College  that  fell  to  their  contemporaries 
of  the  Kappa  Alpha  Society.  But  here  was  a  positive  stroke,  whose 
source  could  not  be  mistaken,  that  would  have  made  any  body  of 
men  indignant,  and  have  alienated  them  from  the  College.  Not 
that  they  showed  a  vindictive  spirit.  They  manifested  in  word  and 
conduct  the  spirit  of  gentlemen  justly  and  deeply  offended.  Ander- 
son never  visited  Williamstown  afterward,  and  very  property  sent  his 
own  sons  to  Yale  College.  During  the  decades  following,  Eugene 
M.  Jerome  fairly  represented  on  the  whole  the  attitude  of  his  breth- 
ren of  the  society.  He  was  stirred  to  the  depths  by  what  he  wit- 
nessed and  by  what  he  knew.  But  when  his  personal  help  was 
needed  in  the  laborious  preparations  for  the  College  Centennial  of 
1893,  he  rendered  self-denying  services  as  toward  that  end  unsur- 
passed by  those  of  any  other  alumnus.  Jerome  came  out  of  the 
loins  of  the  very  earliest  Williamstown,  being  in  the  direct  line  of 
descent  from  Colonel  Benjamin  Simonds ;  and  as  a  prominent  resi- 
dent and  citizen  of  the  town,  he  enriched  by  himself  and  his  beauti- 
ful family  its  society  and  progress  throughout  his  middle  life. 

The  writer  has  in  his  possession  still  the  original  report  read  to 
the  Society  of  Alumni  by  their  visiting  committee,  of  which  Irving 
Magee  of  the  class  of  1857  was  the  chairman,  and  Jonathan  Wadhams 
of  the  class  of  1867  was  a  member;  and  the  historical  significance 
of  this  report,  as  showing  how  the  College  was  then  being  secretly 
administered,  was  so  considerable  as  to  justify  and  reward  a  brief 
notice  of  it  at  this  point.  The  society  had  wisely  and  deliberately 
undertaken,  while  Mark  Hopkins  was  still  president  of  the  College, 
and  with  his  cordial  consent  and  cooperation,  to  take  some  hand  in 
its  practical  guidance  and  government.  This  took  the  form  (1),  of 
securing  from  out  their  number  in  the  way  already  explained  five 
of  the  seventeen  trustees;  and  (2),  of  learning  at  first  hand  from 
a  visiting  committee  of  their  own  the  state  and  needs  of  the  College. 
The  bottom  purpose  of  both  these  plans  was,  to  have  in  their  own 
hands  the  means  of  knowing  in  general  how  the  College  was  getting 
on  and  of  influencing  in  general  that  ongoing,  independently  of  the 


752  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND   WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

impressions  and  representations  of  the  stated  authorities  of  the 
College.  The  visitors  might  indeed  ask  the  president  and  professors 
any  questions  they  chose,  but  they  were  to  make  up  their  own  minds 
from  what  they  saw  and  heard  in  the  various  lecture-rooms,  and 
from  all  other  data  open  to  their  observation  and  conclusion,  and 
to  report  direct  to  their  principals,  the  alumni.  Any  other  view  of 
their  functions  than  this  would  make  their  mission  and  its  results 
abortive  and  ridiculous.  President  Carter  did  not  think  that  he 
needed  any  assistance  from  the  alumni  in  administering  the  College, 
or  indeed  any  assistance  from  any  other  source ;  and  what  was  more, 
he  determined  that  there  should  be  no  investigations  into  the  state 
of  the  College,  and  no  public  reports  made  from  the  College  of 
any  kind,  unless  he  had  a  chief  hand  in  the  researches  and  in  the 
accounts  given  of  them.  We  have  just  seen  in  the  paragraphs 
above  what  practical  respect  he  paid  to  the  rights  of  the  alumni 
to  elect  their  own  trustee  in  their  own  way.  We  shall  now  see 
what  practical  respect  he  paid  to  rights  of  the  alumni  to  inquire  and 
report  as  to  the  state  of  the  College. 

When  Irving  Magee  gathered  his  committee  together  at  the 
annual  meeting  to  read  to  them  the  report  he  had  written  in  their 
conjoint  names,  preparatory  to  his  reading  it  in  public,  there  was 
a  passage  in  it  strongly  reflecting  on  one  of  the  professors  for  his 
manner  of  conducting  his  recitations.  The  other  members  of  the 
committee  interrupted  the  reading :  "  Have  you  visited  that  recita- 
tion-room ?  "  "  No."  "  Have  you  asked  any  of  the  students  attend- 
ing it,  whether  those  alleged  facts  be  so  or  not?"  "No."  "Who 
told  you  that  the  facts  were  so  ?  "  "  Franklin  Carter."  This  silenced 
but  did  not  satisfy  the  committee.  Indeed,  Magee  himself  was  not 
satisfied  with  the  truth  of  the  statements,  he  himself  being  the  sub- 
sequent witness ;  but  he  had  come  under  the  power  and  transient 
fascination  of  Carter,  who  had  dictated  to  him  the  very  words  of  the 
passage ;  and  so  Magee  read  them  the  next  day  with  emphasis  in 
the  open  alumni  meeting.  No  names  were  used,  and  not  one  in 
twenty  (if  so  many)  of  the  alumni  present  knew  to  whom  reference 
was  had.  In  the  course  of  the  day  and  evening,  however,  it  became 
known.  At  the  hotel  at  which  Magee  was  staying  (this  is  on  the 
testimony  of  eye-  and  ear-witnesses),  numbers  of  the  undergradu- 
ates gathered,  who  had  been  in  actual  attendance  at  this  lecture- 
room  for  one  or  two  years,  and  these  students  communicated  with 
Magee  in  a  manner  very  unpleasant  to  him.  They  said  in  his  hear- 
ing, that  the  averments  in  his  report  were  made-up  falsehoods;  they 
did  not  care  who  was  responsible  for  them,  they  were  false  and 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  753 

malicious;  and  that  the  professor  in  question  was  not  only  the 
best-liked  man  on  the  ground,  but  was  also  the  best  teacher  on  the 
ground,  —  interesting  the  pupils  in  his  subjects  more  and  getting 
more  real  work  out  of  them.  Magee  left  the  hotel  by  an  early  stage 
the  next  morning,  and  it  was  said  by  a  witness  of  his  departure  that 
his  countenance  evidenced  a  very  low  state  of  spirits.  He  was  one 
of  the  best  friends  the  College  had  in  its  whole  body  of  alumni. 
Being  settled  in  the  ministry  near  the  North  Eiver,  he  had  been 
assiduous  in  his  attendance  at  the  Commencements  and  constant 
in  his  interest  in  the  College  for  about  twenty-five  years.  He  came 
as  usual  the  next  year  after  making  his  report,  and  found  the  state 
of  things  different  from  what  he  had  expected.  The  president  did 
not  seem  to  be  glad  to  see  him ;  which  might  have  been  anticipated 
by  any  knowing  the  custom  of  that  official  to  use  men  for  his  secret 
ends  and  then  contemptuously  to  discard  them.  He  did  not  find  in 
the  alumni  meeting  any  visiting  committee  prepared  to  make  any 
report  on  the  state  of  the  College,  for  it  appeared  that  no  visitor 
from  out  of  town  had  come  upon  the  ground  during  the  year ;  A.  C. 
Sewall  of  the  class  of  1867,  then  the  minister  in  Williamstown,  was 
of  the  committee  but  not  its  chairman,  and  made  a  few  desultory 
remarks  for  which  the  meeting  seemed  to  care  little.  The  professor 
who  had  been  apparently  compromised  in  his  report  of  the  year 
before  greeted  him  cordially  and  was  warmly  greeted  in  turn ;  the 
clasp  of  hands  and  the  glance  of  eyes  indicated  a  mutual  under- 
standing and  a  thoroughly  mutual  regard.  But  the  good  man 
never  afterward  set  his  foot  on  the  soil  of  Williamstown  so  far 
as  is  known. 

Something  was  working,  and  working  powerfully  and  constantly, 
to  discourage  the  alumni  in  their  legitimate  undertakings  to  help 
the  College  along.  The  proofs  of  this  fact  were  as  clear  as  proofs 
can  be,  whatever  view  one  might  take  as  to  the  causes  of  it.  The 
interest  and  satisfaction  of  the  visitors  and  of  the  alumni  as  a  body 
in  their  visitors  and  in  any  report  these  might  make  at  the  annual 
meeting  dwindled  perceptibly  after  Magee's  report  in  1889.  Also 
the  numerical  attendance  of  the  alumni  themselves  on  the  annual 
Commencements  grew  less  and  less  from  the  same  date,  and  presum- 
ably, in  part  at  least,  from  the  same  causes.  In  1891  A.  C.  Sewall 
made  a  verbal  report  more  elaborate  indeed  than  his  brief  state- 
ments of  the  year  before ;  but  he  was  a  resident  of  the  town,  and 
might  be  supposed  to  reflect  the  views  of  the  local  authorities  of  the 
College,  which  was  no  part  of  the  purpose  of  the  institution  of  the 
visiting  committee.  In  1892  the  report  of  the  visiting  committee 
3c 


754  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

(such  as  it  was)  was  transmitted  by  telegraph,  and  read  to  the  few 
alumni  present  at  the  annual  meeting.  In  1894  no  visitor,  no 
report,  not  even  a  telegram,  appeared.  In  the  two  years  following, 
S.  W.  Dike  of  the  class  of  1863,  a  nominal  member  of  the  visiting 
committee,  did  all  that  a  faithful  and  able  alumnus  could  do  to 
revive  interest  in  the  Society  of  Alumni ;  and  W.  B.  Putney  also  of 
the  class  of  1863,  perceiving  that  the  steadily  diminishing  numbers 
of  alumni  present  was  a  discouragement  to  visitors  so  far  as  prepar- 
ing and  reading  any  report  was  concerned,  kindly  offered  to  meet 
the  expense  of  printing  for  circulation  among  the  entire  alumni  the 
annual  report  of  the  visitors.  The  report  of  these  in  1897,  of  wh'om 
L.  C.  Mygatt  of  the  class  of  1870  was  chairman,  was  printed  and 
circulated  in  this  way ;  but  through  no  apparent  fault  of  the  five 
worthy  names  appended  to  it,  the  report  itself  was  not  such  in 
topics  and  in  handling  and  in  hopefulness  of  tone  as  prognosticated 
anything  essentially  better  along  this  line  in  the  immediate  future. 

We  have  now  been  looking  (perhaps  too  long)  at  the  internal  and 
moral  condition  of  things  in  Williams  College  under  the  presidency 
of  Franklin  Carter.  These  are  the  essential  things.  These  are  the 
central  things.  A  college  consists  of  persons.  A  good  and  strong 
college  consists  of  good  and  strong  men  in  wholesome  and  hearty 
relations  with  each  other,  all  consciously  working  as  toward  a  com- 
mon end,  namely,  "  the  increase  and  diffusion  of  knowledge  among 
men."  These  persons,  as  already  indicated  more  than  once,  may 
fall  into  several  groups,  of  which  the  faculty  are  always  the  central 
and  most  important  one ;  while  the  common  end,  and  the  voluntary 
and  usually  gratuitous  services  of  the  others,  make  possible  and 
actual  a  good  degree  of  harmony  and  zeal  among  them  all.  A  col- 
lege is  a  republic,  —  a  republic  of  letters.  From  the  nature  of  it, 
the  sole  purpose  of  it,  and  the  mode  of  operation  within  it,  it  cannot 
tolerate  the  monarchical  idea  in  practice,  and  at  the  same  time  reach 
its  ends.  No  more  can  it  tolerate  in  practice  as  to  matters  essen- 
tially important  what  is  sometimes  called  "college  diplomacy,"  that 
is  to  say,  wheels  within  the  wheel,  or,  otherwise  expressed,  secret 
manipulations  by  or  for  or  against  any  college  official  in  any  one  of 
the  few  groups  constituting  the  college.  And,  lastly,  no  college 
can  tolerate,  and  reach  its  true  ends,  the  suspicious  temperament  and 
habit  in  its  officials.  Autocracy,  diplomacy,  settled  distrust,  are 
the  three  chief  foes  to  the  peace  and  success  of  colleges.  Equality 
of  privilege  as  between  the  groups,  and  as  between  the  members  of 
each  group;  open  discussion  and  fair  conclusion  in  all  matters  of 
radical  interest;  and  a  human  and  Christian  confidence  in  one's 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL. 


755 


neighbors  and  colleagues,  that  they  are  as  clear-headed  and  pure- 
minded  as  one's  self  (unless  proven  to  the  contrary),  —  are  the  three 
indispensables  to  efficient  college  progress.  Confidence  by  college 
officials  as  toward  each  other,  and  by  these  as  toward  classes  of  col- 
lege students  as  such,  is  rational,  and  is  rarely  misplaced,  except  in 
relatively  few  individuals  easily  separable  from  the  mass.  When 
members  of  a  college  class,  especially  in  the  beginnings  of  their 
course,  find  themselves  trusted  by  those  with  whom  they  have  most 
to  do,  the  influence  is  most  happy  in  all  vital  directions ;  on  the 
other  hand,  manifested  doubt  and  distrust  in  those  circumstances 


MORGAN    HALL. 
Built  in   1882. 


tend  to  poison  the  entire  atmosphere,  and  facilitate  the  inference  so 
easily  drawn,  that  those  who  find  it  difficult  to  trust  young  men  in 
general  are  themselves  unworthy  to  be  trusted.  The  experience 
in  Williams  College  certainly,  during  its  first  century,  seems  to 
demonstrate  this  proposition,  namely,  that  college  young  men  are 
more  worthy  of  confidence  in  all  essentials  than  any  equal  number 
of  young  men  in  the  other  walks  of  life. 

Considerably  distinct,  however,  from  these  internal  and  moral 
and  vital  conditions  in  the  common  college  life,  lie  certain  depart- 
ments external  and  financial  and  regulative.  These  fall  naturally 
and  properly  into  the  hands  of  the  president  for  the  most  part.  For 


756  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

some  of  these  functions  President  Carter  possessed  unusual  qualifi- 
cations, and  attained  remarkable  successes  in  them.  He  had  busi- 
ness capacities  of  a  high  order.  He  was  expected  to  enlarge  the 
funds  of  the  College.  He  addressed  himself  to  this  work  with 
promptness  and  pertinacity.  His  first  stroke  along  this  line  sur- 
passed any  single  stroke  achieved  in  this  way  in  the  history  of  the 
College.  By  personal  solicitations,  he  obtained  from  ex-Governor 
E.  D.  Morgan  of  New  York,  in  a  lump  sum,  $100,000,  of  which 
$82,400  went  into  the  fine  dormitory,  Morgan  Hall,  built  in  1882. 
This  while  Governor  Morgan  still  lived;  and  after  this  his  execu- 
tors paid  over  into  the  treasury  the  remaining  $17,000.  An  inciden- 
tal circumstance  of  some  interest  undoubtedly  contributed  something 
to  this  triumph  of  the  president.  Governor  Morgan  was  a  native  of 
Berkshire  County,  having  been  born  on  one  of  the  many  hills  of 
Washington  in  1811.  Many  other  very  considerable  sums  of  money 
were  obtained  by  President  Carter  through  personal  solicitations  of 
individuals  for  the  enlargement  and  embellishment  of  the  College. 
He  was  also  very  instrumental  in  securing  from  willing  donors  the 
sums  expended  in  1890  upon  Hopkins  Memorial  Hall,  amounting  to 
$87,800,  by  much  the  finest  building  upon  the  college  grounds.  In 
all  this  work  of  solicitation  he  was  incidentally  aided  by  his  posses- 
sion of  a  private  fortune,  and  by  his  command  upon  occasion  of 
manners  unusually  courtly. 

The  most  munificent  gift  ever  received  by  the  College  in  its  whole 
existence  hitherto  did  not  travel  hitherward  along  the  route  of  per- 
sonal and  official  solicitation.  It  came  of  its  own  accord.  It  was 
proffered  unsolicited.  This  was  the  first  and  chief  benefaction  of 
Frederick  F.  Thompson,  of  the  class  of  1856.  He  was  a  lifelong 
banker  and  broker  in  the  city  of  New  York,  with  a  summer  home 
in  Canandaigua  in  the  same  State.  His  first  conception  of  this  gift 
was  the  purpose  to  erect  a  massive  building  that  should  cost  one 
hundred  thousand  dollars,  to  be  dedicated  to  the  conjoint  uses  of 
chemistry  and  biology  and  physics.  Practical  difficulties  were 
encountered  in  the  planning  to  unite,  under  one  roof,  and  at  the 
same  time  keep  separate,  the  work  of  instruction  and  research  in 
these  three  great  departments.  Thompson's  wisdom  and  generosity 
surmounted  these  difficulties.  There  shall  be  three  laboratories 
ranged  side  by  side.  Each  department  shall  be  under  its  own  roof. 
It  will  nearly  double  the  cost,  but  the  advantages  to  the  College 
shall  be  just  as  great  as  they  can  be  made.  Accordingly,  the 
Thompson  Chemical  Laboratory  was  put  up  in  1892,  costing  $60,- 
000  j  the  Thompson  Physical  Laboratory  in  1893,  costing  $60,000; 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE   CENTENNIAL.  757 

and  the  Thompson  Biological  Laboratory,  also  in  1893,  costing 
$60,000.  Professor  Leverett  Mears  (Amherst  1874)  was  at  the 
head  of  the  instruction  given  and  the  work  done  in  the  chemical 
laboratory  from  the  first;  Professor  S.  F.  Clarke  (Sheffield  1874) 
was  similarly  the  chief  in  the  biological  laboratory ;  and  Professor 
Henry  Lefavour  (Williams  1883)  was  chief,  also  from  the  begin- 
ning, in  the  physical  laboratory.  This  magnificent  donation  in 
the  behoof  of  the  natural  sciences  was  not  by  any  means  the  sum 
total  of  the  pecuniary  benefactions  of  Frederick  Thompson  to 
Williams  College.  No  full  list  will  here  be  given  of  them. 
They  were  abundant  and  recurrent  and  diffused.  Very  expensive 
annual  courses  of  lectures  and  entertainments  for  the  College 
were  furnished  by  him  for  many  years.  He  gave,  also,  the  main 
impulse  to  the  College  infirmary,  a  quasi  hospital  for  sick  students, 
costing  ten  thousand  dollars.  The  Hoosac  Eiver  pours  into  the 
Hudson,  and  the  Hudson  rolls  on  into  the  bay  of  New  York. 
Frederick  Thompson  wrought  a  miracle,  causing  a  counter  current 
to  flow  up  the  Hudson  from  New  York,  —  and  even  into  the  upper 
waters  of  the  Hoosac,  where  its  tide  tarried  indeed  in  place,  but  its 
effects  will  flow  on  thence  forever. 

Following  is  a  list  of  the  gifts  of  the  late  Frederick  F.  Thompson  to  Williams 
College,  excluding  the  considerable  amounts  given  to  students  either  in  pay- 
ment of  term  bills  and  board  bills  or  for  other  purposes  : 

1882  — Library $500  1889-98  — Additions  to  "Prize 

1886  — Gymnasium  clock.     .  1,000                               for  Prizes "     .     .      $750 

1887  —  College  farm    .     .     .  10,500  1886-99  — President's    private 

1888  —  Library 500                               fund,  mainly  for 

Hopkins  Hall    .     .     .     25,000  entertainment 

1890  — Loan  fund    ....          450  course   ....  17,500 

1891-93  — Thompson  labora-  1893-99  —  Expenses    of    infir- 

tories 180,000  mary     ....        600 

1894  —  The  infirmary  .     .     .       5,100  1899  —  "  Sustentation    fund" 

1895  —  General    expenses  of  of  new  Y.  M.  C.  A. 

college 10,000  building    ....     2,000 

1896  —  General    expenses   of 

college 5,000        Total $265,900 

1898  —  General    expenses    of 

college 5,000 

In  connection  with  what  may  be  called  the  show  occasions  of  the 
College,  President  Carter  possessed  talents  that  enabled  him  easily 
to  distinguish  himself.  Many  of  his  speeches  at  the  annual  alumni 
dinner  at  home  were  in  every  way  felicitous;  and  some  of  those 
delivered  from  time  to  time  at  local  alumni  dinners,  as  in  New 
York,  Chicago,  and  Boston,  were  perhaps  equally  so.  A  few  of 
these  addresses,  particularly  of  those  at  home,  were  happily  humor- 


758  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

ous,  and  enjoyed  by  everybody.  When  he  felt  well  he  felt  very 
well,  and  countenance  and  conversation  and  formal  address  were  all 
in  conformity.  This,  however,  was  but  seldom.  His  temperament 
was  melancholic.  His  situation  was  trying  at  best,  and  all  the  more 
so,  in  fact,  because  he  was  out  of  adjustment  with  it  from  the  first. 
Mainly  for  personal  reasons,  some  of  which  have  been  sketched  in 
outline,  he  led  an  unhappy  life  in  Williamstown.  Nobody  could 
help  this.  It  was  in  the  make-up  of  the  man  and  of  his  surround- 
ings. If  those  external  circumstances  and  relations  at  which  he 
fretted  and  wore  himself  down  could  all  have  been  changed  to  his 
mind  at  the  moment,  he  would  not  have  been  the  happier  on  the 
whole.  The  worst  thing  about  it  was,  he  was  less  able  than  most 
men  to  disguise  his  inner  feelings.  His  countenance  was  a  true 
index.  He  did  not  desire  to  make  those  around  him  miserable,  but 
if  he  were  miserable  himself  he  could  not  conceal  it,  nor  cut  the 
cord  of  natural  sequence.  This  drawback  to  his  usefulness  as  a 
college  official  was  thought  to  grow  less  as  the  years  drew  on  toward 
the  close  of  his  presidency.  His  external  difficulties  and  conten- 
tions in  the  town  and  elsewhere  rather  increased  than  lessened,  but 
he  was  probably  able  to  maintain  toward  his  colleagues  and  pupils  a 
more  cheerful  aspect  on  the  whole.  His  teaching,  particularly  of 
theism  in  the  Senior  class,  became  more  and  more  successful  and 
enjoyable,  though  the  old  despairing  look  would  once  in  a  while  come 
back  and  cover  the  entire  hour.  At  one  such  time  a  Senior  of  the 
class  of  1898  whispered  to  his  fellow,  "Do  you  think  that  Dr.  Carter 
himself  really  believes  that  there  is  any  God  9  " 

The  more  solemn  tone  and  aspect  on  all  sorts  of  occasions  was 
more  natural  to  him,  which  gave  his  festive  strokes,  when  they 
came,  all  the  benefit  of  sharp  contrast.  Another  kind  of  surprise 
also  frequently  attended  his  serious  public  addresses.  Any  one  who 
took  occasion  to  note  these  from  year  to  year,  or  at  least  from  time 
to  time,  might  well  have  been  astonished  at  the  rapid  changeable- 
ness  in  the  opinions  expressed  and  measures  commended  in  them. 
If  it  were  true,  as  he  was  wont  to  explain  in  private,  "I  never 
know  what  to  say  on  those  occasions,"  it  was  still  more  true  that 
his  most  familiar  auditors  never  knew  what  he  would  say!  It  may 
be  wise  for  a  public  educator  to  have  little  pride  in  consistency  of 
utterance,  and  so  be  able  to  avail  himself  of  unanticipated  changes 
of  public  opinion;  but  if  there  be  possible  gains  to  be  gathered 
along  this  route,  the  hazards  of  it  are  sure  to  be  considerable  also. 
For  example,  in  Carter's  address  to  the  New  England  alumni  in 
Boston  in  February,  1898,  as  reported  and  given  below,  there  were 


TOWN   AND    COLLEGE   TILL   THE    CENTENNIAL.  759 

many  points  made  fitted  to  recall  to  many  present  his  intense  ani- 
mosity of  a  few  years  before  toward  professors  for  holding  these  pre- 
cise opinions  and  maintaining  the  exact  attitude  herein  commended. 

President  Carter  was  received  with  marked  enthusiasm.  At  the  outset  he 
spoke  of  the  disposition  now  manifest  in  colleges  to  emphasize  material  equip- 
ment, and  recalled  in  contrast  to  this  tendency  the  self-denial  of  the  early  men 
of  the  college.  The  material  and  physical  gain  in  all  institutions  and  professions 
is  largely  the  contribution  which  the  applications  of  science  to  industry,  com- 
merce, and  the  arts  have  made,  and  it  is  immense.  The  problems  which  great 
fortunes  and  startling  inequalities  among  the  people,  the  corruption  of  municipal 
government,  the  medievalism  of  much  modern  taxation,  the  complicated  rela- 
tions of  business  as  affected  by  currency  and  trusts  and  international  jealousies 
present  for  our  solution,  have  a  right  to  force  themselves  into  the  schools  of 
learning  as  never  before.  The  college  must  teach  the  solemn  responsibility  for 
good  government  resting  upon  every  citizen  in  our  republic,  and  must  also  teach 
faith  in  the  people,  faith  in  God's  guidance  and  the  supreme  patience  which 
these  faiths  underlie. 

There  were  pretty  constant  contradictions  like  this,  not  only  in 
Carter's  opinions  and  expressions,  but  also  in  his  general  policy  and 
personal  conduct.  To  know  him  as  he  was  at  any  one  time  only 
was  not  to  know  him  at  all.  To  learn  to  know  him  as  he  was  at  all 
times  was  a  task  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  of  accomplishment. 
To  anticipate  what  he  might  say  or  do  in  a  set  of  circumstances 
somewhat  new  was  beyond  the  ken  of  those  associated  with  him, 
and  of  course  tended  to  beget  in  some  of  these  a  fluidity  of  general 
sentiment  and  a  laxity  of  general  conduct,  demoralizing  to  the  Col- 
lege, and  proving,  later,  unfortunate  to  him.  And  yet  it  must  be 
regarded  as  certain  that  his  motives  in  general  were  better  than  his 
actions  in  general,  considered  as  a  public  official,  in  which  light 
alone  he  has  been  held  up  in  these  pages  throughout.  Owing  largely 
to  the  circumstances  of  his  youth  and  training,  he  never  came  to 
know  other  men  well,  and  he  never  came  to  know  himself  well. 
Without  any  ground  for  it,  he  discriminated  between  his  own  rights 
as  an  official  and  the  rights  of  other  officials  about  him,  —  both  of 
them  to  be  equally  and  at  all  times  respected.  This  discrimination 
became  perhaps  less  flagrant  in  the  later  years.  The  faculty  meet- 
ings, though  they  never  came  to  convene  regularly  as  of  old,  but 
only  occasionally,  at  the  call  of  their  faithful  and  patient  and  com- 
petent secretary,  Eben  B.  Parsons,  of  the  class  of  1859,  meeting  on 
the  average  once  in  two  or  three  weeks,  became  more  tolerable 
toward  the  last,  simply  because  they  became  less  and  less  signifi- 
cant. Little  was  left  to  them  to  do  or  to  decide  on.  Compulsory 


760  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

attendance  of  students  on  stated  religious  exercises  in  the  colleges 
became  a  topic  of  controversy  at  Williams  during  the  last  decade 
of  the  century;  but  at  no  time  heated  as  elsewhere.  Upon  this 
question  Dr.  Carter  represented  very  accurately  the  general  opinion 
of  the  alumni,  and  of  the  faculty,  and  of  the  local  friends  of  the 
College,  in  favor  of  such  attendance.  This  discussion  led  to  the 
appointment  of  a  college  dean,  whose  sole  function  at  first  was  to 
control  attendance  upon  the  stated  religious  services  of  the  College 
under  regulations  prescribed  by  the  faculty.  Little  by  little  his 
functions  increased,  until  he  came  to  exercise  practically  nearly  all 
of  the  duties  of  the  four  class  officers,  whose  authority  in  their 
respective  classes  shrunk  contemporaneously  with  that  of  the  fac- 
ulty meeting,  leaving  to  the  dean  the  practical  control  of  the  stu- 
dents, —  the  teachers  reporting  to  him  daily  their  absences.  Thus 
the  collegiate  idea  and  practice  dwindled  as  individualism  was 
strengthened.  This  tendency  was  marked  at  the  same  time  by  the 
multiplication  of  elective  at  the  expense  of  the  prescribed  studies. 

Several  of  the  professors  in  alternation  have  always  officiated  at 
morning  prayers;  the  presidents  in  succession  singly  officiated  at 
evening  prayers  so  long  as  these  were  continued ;  and  Sunday  even- 
ing prayers,  which  were  never  intermitted,  were  always  a  solemn 
and  impressive  duty  of  the  successive  presidents.  In  the  perform- 
ance of  this  duty,  Dr.  Carter  surpassed  his  predecessors  in  reverence 
of  demeanor,  in  solemnity  of  scriptural  reading,  and  in  appropriate- 
ness of  spiritual  petition.  This  service  became  attractive  to,  and 
was  frequented  by,  many  others  outside  of  the  strictly  college  circle. 
The  arrangement  of  all  its  parts,  especially  the  musical  portion  of 
the  service,  in  which  the  organ  and  a  special  choir  gained  a  new  sig- 
nificance in  connection  with  the  usual  congregational  singing,  was 
admirable,  and  manifested  alike  the  good  taste  and  piety  of  the 
president.  He  was  conservative  in  relation  to  the  older  Puritan 
doctrine  and  practice,  but  scarcely  more  so  than  the  one  prevailing 
on  the  whole  among  his  colleagues  of  the  faculty  and  the  Board  of 
Trustees.  Among  the  stronger  of  the  motives  actuating  him  to  as- 
sume the  presidency  of  the  College,  in  1881,  was  the  hope  that  he 
might  be  able  to  exert  a  strong  religious  influence  over  the  students 
as  a  body.  This  hope  was  dashed  on  account  of  a  lack  of  thorough 
acquaintance  with  the  mind  and  ways  of  students,  and  a  lack  of  tact 
in  approaching  and  moving  them  on  any  subject.  He  gained  very 
little  continuous  moral  hold  over  the  students. 

As  a  sermonizer,  or  preacher,  on  common  baccalaureate  occasions, 
President  Carter  was  in  no  way  remarkable.     He  usually  occupied 


TOWN    AND    COLLEGE    TILL   THE    CENTENNIAL.  761 

the  chapel  pulpit  on  the  first  Sunday  of  the  college  year,  and  occa- 
sionally at  other  times.  None  of  his  baccalaureates  were  printed. 
Perhaps  the  two  most  memorable  of  all  his  sermons  were  those 
commented  on  at  the  time  as  preached  to  himself,  and  whose  lesson 
was  thought  to  be  more  applicable  to  him  than  to  any  of  his  audi- 
tors ;  namely,  one  from  the  text,  "  With  what  judgment  ye  judge,  ye 
shall  be  judged  " ;  and  another  of  similar  tenor  from  the  text,  "  By 
thy  words  shalt  thou  be  justified,  and  by  thy  words  shalt  thou  be  con- 
demned." It  is  believed  by  those  most  competent  to  judge  of  this 
matter  through  long  opportunity  and  absence  of  prejudice,  that  the 
main  reason  why  Carter's  preaching  held  so  little  of  the  attention 
of  the  students  and  acquired  so  feeble  an  influence  over  them  was, 
that  they  had  come  to  distrust  him  in  matters  secular,  and  could 
not  easily  discriminate  him  as  a  religious  teacher,  in  which  sphere 
he  was  worthy  of  all  trust.  Whatever  else  the  president  might 
prove  to  be  to  them,  he  was  statedly  proving  himself  to  be  a  man 
of  manoeuvres.  Distrust  in  one  set  of  relations  begets  distrust  in 
other  relations.  A  man  who  descends  to  stratagems,  and  of  course 
to  commerce  with  such  men  as  stratagems  imply,  thereby  and  so  far 
forth  shows  himself  unworthy  of  confidence  in  any  of  the  relations 
of  life.  That  at  any  rate  is  the  usual  style  of  reasoning.  Such 
was  the  reasoning  here,  particularly  during  the  decade  1885-95. 
At  the  graduation  of  the  last  named  class,  there  was  witnessed  a 
scene  in  the  church,  on  the  baccalaureate  Sunday,  such  as  made  all 
judicious  friends  of  the  College  grieve  to  the  heart.  The  feelings  of 
the  baccalaureates  toward  the  president  seemed  to  be  indicated  in 
the  patent  facts  that  not  a  single  one  of  them  paid  any  visible  atten- 
tion to  his  sermon  as  it  proceeded,  and  not  a  single  one  of  them  rose 
to  his  feet  to  pay  respectful  attention  to  the  personal  address  at  its 
close,  as  had  been  the  unvarying  custom  for  just  one  hundred  years. 

For  about  five  years,  during  the  eighties,  John  H.  Denison,  of 
the  class  of  1862,  was  pastor  of  the  college  church  and  stated 
preacher  in  the  chapel.  He  was  a  man  of  profound  spiritual  insight 
and  knowledge  of  the  Scriptures,  who  knew  how  "  rightly  to  divide 
the  word  of  truth  "  at  all  times  to  his  college  congregation,  while 
the  state  of  his  health  and  his  sensitive  nervous  system  made  the 
duties  and  difficulties  of  his  post  so  wearing  upon  him,  that  he  left 
them  in  1889,  to  the  great  regret  of  his  brethren  in  general.  From 
that  time  on  the  delicate  task  of  securing  from  Sabbath  to  Sabbath 
suitable  preachers  from  abroad  was  met  by  President  Carter  with 
noticeable  skill  and  success. 

Probably  the  most  pregnant  and  permanent  improvement  brought 


762  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

about  by  Dr.  Carter  in  the  opportunities  furnished  the  entire  Col- 
lege relates  to  the  college  library.  Until  the  erection,  in  1846, 
through  the  liberality  of  Amos  Lawrence,  of  the  Lawrence  Hall 
library  building,  the  small  collection  of  books  was  very  little  fre- 
quented by  either  students  or  professors.  This  pleasant  and  acces- 
sible building  (figured  below)  cost  seven  thousand  dollars,  and  soon 
began  to  attract  some  visitors  and  book-takers.  John  Tatlock  was 
then  the  librarian,  and  a  few  new  books  were  purchased  from  time 
to  time,  but  the  library  was  not  regularly  opened,  although  it  pur- 
ported to  be,  and  contributed  very  little  to  the  intelligence  or  research 
of  the  College.  Nathaniel  H.  Griffin,  1856-76,  made  a  better  libra- 


LAWRENCE    LIBRARY    BUILDING. 

rian,  and  Truman  H.  Safford,  1879-88,  one  better  still;  and  the 
library  slowly  and  steadily  increased  and  widened  its  influence. 
With  the  accession,  as  librarian,  of  Charles  H.  Burr  of  the  class  of 
1868,  in  1888,  after  some  of  the  inevitable  perturbations,  the  library 
began  as  a  modern  library,  and  sprang  into  prominence  as  an  effi- 
cient educating  power.  Two  wings  were  added  to  the  original  build- 
ing in  1890,  at  a  cost  of  ten  thousand  dollars;  ample  rooms  were 
provided  for  readers  in  loco;  reference  books  of  all  sorts  were  gath- 
ered in  other  rooms  for  research  on  the  spot;  all  books  were  classi- 
fied in  sections,  and  students  allowed  access  to  the  shelves ;  portraits 
of  college  officials  and  alumni  covered  the  circular  walls  of  the  main 
room;  liberal  provision  was  made  for  the  purchase  of  new  books; 
and  the  library  was  opened  under  certain  restrictions  for  the  use  of 
the  students  on  Sundays. 


CHAPTEE  V. 

BACKWARD    AND    FORWARD. 

Turn  the  key  and  bolt  the  door,  — 

Sweet  is  death  fore  verm  ore. 

Nor  haughty  hope,  nor  swart  chagrin, 

Nor  murdering  hate  can  enter  in. 

All  is  now  secure  and  fast ; 

Not  the  gods  can  shake  the  past. 

—  EMERSON. 

WILLIAMSTOWN  was  always,  is  now,  and  is  likely  to  remain,  what 
is  called  a  small  place.  The  preceding  chapters  have  shown  well 
enough  that  it  has  been  useful  and  influential,  and  in  some  few 
aspects  remarkable  since  its  organization  as  a  town  in  1765.  But  it 
has  been  uniformly  small  in  population.  The  reader  will  perhaps  be 
pleased  to  see  in  a  table,  as  appended,  the  results  of  all  the  enumer- 
ations of  population  taken  in  the  town,  1776-1890,  both  inclusive. 

Year.  Population. 

Colonial  Census  1776  1,083 

"United  States  Census  1790  1,769 

"           "           "  1800  2,086 

"           "           "  1810  1,843 

"           "           "  1820  2,010 

"           "           "  1830  2,134 

"           "           "  1840  2,153 

"           "           "  1850  2,626 

State                      "  1855  2,529 

United  States       "  1860  2,611 

State                      "  1865  2,555 

United  States       "  1870  3,559 

State                     «  1875  3,683 

United  States       "  1880  3,394 

State                      "  1885  3,729 

United  States       "  1890  4,221 

In  1800,  2086  persons  were  found  in  the  town  by  the  national 
enumerators.  In  1865,  two-thirds  of  a  century  later,  the  State 
enumerators  discovered  but  2555  persons,  a  gain  in  65  years  of 

763 


764  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

only  469  souls.  During  those  65  years,  the  population  varied  at  no 
time  600  people  from  its  condition  at  any  other  time.  As  a  rule  in 
that  interval,  a  single  pair  of  parents  had  the  characteristic  then 
common  in  New  England,  namely,  a  large  number  of  children,  and 
had  it  not  been  for  pretty  steady  causes  of  outflow,  first  to  western 
Vermont,  and  then  to  central  and  western  New  York,  the  popula- 
tion would  have  increased  here  much  more  than  it  actually  did. 
Each  of  the  States  just  mentioned  had  its  "  Williamstown,"  occa- 
sioned by  early  emigrants  from  the  town  on  the  Hoosac.  The  origi- 
nal families  here  came  about  one-half  from  Connecticut,  and  the 
other  half  from  the  towns  in  Massachusetts  east  of  the  formidable 
Hoosac  Mountain.  The  difficulties  of  access  and  the  distance  were 
about  equal  whether  they  came  up  from  the  south  or  over  from  the 
east.  Some  slight  jealousies,  both  religious  and  social,  were  encoun- 
tered in  each  other  by  the  folks  from  the  Bay  and  the  folks  from  the 
Sound.  They  were  alike  a  strong  stock,  there  was  room  enough  for 
all,  the  land  in  its  virgin  strength  was  fertile,  and  the  families  mul- 
tiplied on  every  hand.  Not  until  the  opening  of  the  Erie  Canal  in 
1825  did  the  people  here  experience  a  steady  pull  toward  the  more 
fertile  and  workable  lands  around  the  lakes  of  New  York.  Between 
the  national  censuses  of  1830  and  1840,  Williamstown  gained  but 
19  to  her  population.  It  is  safe  to  conclude  that  most  of  the  over- 
flow in  that  decade  passed  into  central  New  York.  The  Fitchburg 
Railroad,  connecting  Williamstown  at  once  with  the  East  (through 
the  Tunnel),  and  the  West  (across  the  North  River),  was  the  main 
force  that  checked  emigration  from  it  and  tended  to  bring  new  pop- 
ulation into  it.  The  gain  in  five  years  from  the  State  census  of  1865 
till  the  national  census  of  1870,  was  1004.  The  gain  from  1885  till 
1890  was  similarly  492.  The  pretty  steady  increase  in  the  numbers 
in  attendance  upon  the  College,  although  the  students  as  such  are 
not  reckoned  in  the  census,  tend  indirectly  to  increase  the  population 
of  the  town.  The  immediate  proximity  to  North  Adams,  already  a 
city  and  growing  rapidly  with  but  slight  means  of  local  expansion, 
tends  also  to  increase  the  population  of  Williamstown.  The  so- 
called  State  Road,  constructed  between  these  two  centres  about 
1897,  not  only  facilitated  intercourse  of  all  kinds  between  them,  but 
also  enabled  men  doing  business  in  North  Adams  to  find  permanent 
homes  across  the  line  in  Williamstown,  where  the  building  expanses 
were  broader  and  pleasanter.  The  building  at  about  the  same  time  of 
the  electric  railroad  parallel  with  the  river  and  the  steam  road  fur- 
thered the  same  ends  more  directly.  The  two  towns  were  at  one  in 
their  origin  as  East  and  West  Hoosac,  and  in  their  common  relations 


BACKWARD    AND    FORWARD.  765 

to  Colonel  Ephraim  Williams  ;  and  they  have  seemed  to  be  growing 
more  united  in  their  interests  and  fellowships,  as  well  as  in  their 
local  habitations. 

The  mountainous  surroundings  of  the  western  town  have  a  geo- 
graphical peculiarity,  a  brief  description  of  which  will  now  pave  the 
way  to  some  historical  and  biographical  features  within  the  enclosure. 
The  highest  peaks  of  each  of  the  three  ranges,  together  encircling  the 
valley,  present  themselves  to  the  eye  in  groups  of  seven.  Namely, 
on  the  range  to  the  southeast,  Mount  Williams,  Mount  Fitch,  Grey- 
lock,  Mount  Moore,  Mount  Griffin,  The  Bluffs,  Simonds  Peak  ;  on  the 
range  to  the  northeast,  Smedley  Height,  Mount  Emmons,  Hudson's 
Height,  Mount  Hazen,  Mount  Sentinel,  The  Dome,  The  Domelet;  and 
on  the  western  range,  the  famed  "  Taconics,"  Leet  Hill,  Dodd's  Cone, 
Mount  Hopkins,  McMaster  Mountain,  Mount  Mills,  Comstock  Heights, 
Sabin  Heights.  There  have  been  graduated  from  Williams  College 
at  the  present  writing,  1899,  very  nearly  3700  graduates  in  all.  It 
would  be  a  comparatively  easy  task  for  any  one,  thoroughly  familiar 
with  the  history  of  the  College  and  with  its  special  rolls  of  honor,  to 
construct  three  groups  of  seven  alumni  each,  who  should  seem  in 
point  of  the  manifested  power  of  their  lives  and  hence  in  point  of 
reputation,  relatively  to  the  great  body  of  the  graduates  much  as 
these  foremost  groups  of  seven  peaks  each  seem  to  their  neighboring 
heights  and  to  the  lower  levels  of  the  town.  But  this  task  would 
prove  ungracious  in  its  details,  and  would  become  more  difficult  of 
determination  the  further  one  should  pass  from  the  very  highest 
eminence  of  character  and  achievement.  At  any  rate,  it  is  more 
feasible  to  essay  the  universal  suffrage  of  one's  competent  contempo- 
raries in  relation  to  the  position  of  seven  men  than  that  of  three 
times  seven  men.  Who  were  the  seven  most  eminent  of  the  gradu- 
ates of  Williams  College  in  the  first  century  of  its  existence  ?  We 
give  our  judgment  and  the  ground  of  it. 

AMOS  EATON 1799  .  .  Naturalist  and  Promoter. 

WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT     .         .  1813  .  .  Poet  and  Publicist. 

MARK  HOPKINS       ....  1824  .  .  Teacher  and  Preacher. 

DAVID  DUDLEY  FIELD    .         .         .  1825  .  .  Lawyer  and  Codifier. 

WILLIAM  DWIGHT  WHITNEY  .         .  1845  .  .  Scholar  and  Lexicographer. 

JOHN  BASCOM  .....  1849  .  .  Thinker  and  Orator. 

JAMES  ABRAM  GARFIELD        .        .  1856  .  .  Worker  and  Winner. 

1.  AMOS  EATON.  Born  in  Chatham  in  1776,  died  in  Troy  in  1842. 
The  significance  of  this  man's  life  and  labors,  in  a  scientific  and  ped- 
agogical sense,  as  described  by  numbers  of  well-informed  compeers, 


766  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

may  seem  to  modern  readers  as  exaggerated  and  almost  incredible. 
But  the  various  portions  of  this  manifold  testimony,  when  carefully 
compared  together,  seem  mutually  self-sustaining  and  corroborative. 
He  was  extraordinarily  precocious ;  and  yet,  unlike  ordinary  cases 
of  precocity,  his  work  at  full  maturity  and  even  to  old  age  was  as 
remarkable  as  in  his  prime.  He  was  the  son  of  Capt.  Abel  Eaton, 
a  worthy  farmer,  and  a  deacon  in  the  Orthodox  church  in  Chatham. 
The  father  was  a  native  of  Woodstock,  Connecticut,  in  1754,  and  the 
mother,  Azuba  Hurd,  was  a  native  of  Roxbury,  Connecticut,  in  1758. 
Her  father,  Amos  Hurd,  had  perished  of  starvation  in  the  last  French 
and  Indian  war,  probably  in  the  near  neighborhood  of  Williamstown, 
of  whom  the  brief  record  is,  "  died  in  the  campaign,  Nov.  29,  1759." 
The  Chatham  family  were  poor,  and  it  was  the  strong  religious  char- 
acter of  the  mother,  coupled  with  her  self-denying  economies,  that 
sent  both  Amos  Eaton  and  his  younger  brother,  Sylvester,  to  Wil- 
liams College.  Perhaps  it  was  in  part  because  he  had  been  born 
in  1776,  that  Amos  Eaton  was  selected  to  deliver  a  4th  of  July  ora- 
tion in  1790.  Of  course  it  was  a  creditable  performance.  About 
the  same  time  he  was  employed  to  carry  the  chain  for  a  local  land 
surveyor,  when  he  made  up  his  mind  to  learn  the  art  himself.  Being 
too  poor  to  buy  the  needful  instruments,  he  showed  his  practical 
sagacity  by  a  bargain  with  a  skilful  local  blacksmith,  who  wanted  a 
hand  to  "  blow  and  strike  "  for  him,  to  render  that  service  daytimes 
in  consideration  of  the  blacksmith's  work  for  him  night-times.  In 
this  way,  after  several  weeks,  a  good  surveyor's  chain  was  made  and 
a  well-shaped  needle.  Eaton  magnetized  his  needle  by  a  pair  of 
kitchen  tongs,  which  had  themselves  been  magnetized  by  long  stand- 
ing perpendicular  to  the  earth's  current.  The  bottom  of  an  old 
pewter  plate,  polished  and  graduated  by  his  own  hands,  made  a  pas- 
sable case  for  his  compass ;  and  he  was  soon  in  the  field  with  his 
home-made  instruments,  doing  little  jobs  of  surveying  for  his  obser- 
vant neighbors.  As  one  result  of  this  early  experience,  he  generally 
preferred  to  make  his  own  scientific  instruments  of  whatever  sort 
out  of  simple  materials  with  his  own  hands,  even  after  he  became 
well  able  to  purchase  them,  and  so  long  as  he  lived. 

Except  the  statement  that  he  was  graduated  with  a  high  reputa- 
tion for  scientific  attainments,  nothing  is  known  of  his  college  life 
and  special  companions  and  teachers.  Four  classes,  averaging  twelve 
graduates  each,  had  already  preceded  his  own,  which  consisted  of  fif- 
teen graduated.  If  there  ever  were  a  boy  who  showed  at  graduation 
what  he  was  predestined  to  become,  that  boy  was  Amos  Eaton,  and 
that  vocation  was  natural  science.  Nevertheless,  right  in  the  teeth 


AMOS    EATON, 
W.  C.,   1799. 


BACKWARD    AND    FORWAKD.  767 

of  the  manifested  will  of  God,  in  accordance  with  a  foolish  fashion 
then  prevalent,  he  was  put  apprentice  in  a  lawyer's  office  in  Spencer- 
town,  studied  later  in  New  York,  was  admitted  attorney  in  Albany 
in  1802,  and  practised  for  several  years  at  Catskill.  One  dare  not 
affirm,  absolutely,  that  all  this  was  dead  waste ;  for  it  may  be  that 
the  scientific  impulse,  which  he  could  no  more  resist  than  he  could 
resist  his  breathing,  took  on  a  more  practical,  every-day-useful  form 
in  consequence  of  these  legal  studies.  At  any  rate,  his  very  first 
publication  (there  were  more  than  forty  others  that  followed  it),  was 
entitled  "Art  without  Science."  It  was  a  small  pamphlet  printed 
in  1800.  In  this,  and  in  most  of  the  rest  of  the  productions  of  his 
pen,  truth  seems  to  have  been  investigated  more  for  the  sake  of  its 
practical  applications  than  for  the  sake  of  science  as  such.  For  ex- 
ample, he  sought  to  make  botany  of  quickening  and  broadening  use 
to  farmers  as  a  class ;  and  other  of  the  natural  sciences  to  mechanics 
and  other  producers  so-called.  While  still  in  the  law  office  in  New 
York,  he  borrowed  Kirwan's  "  Mineralogy,"  then  a  scarce  book,  and 
made  a  manuscript  copy  of  the  whole  of  it.  In  1810,  while  still  in 
some  sense  a  practising  lawyer  in  Catskill,  he  formed  an  institu- 
tion there  for  the  practical  study  of  botany,  and  prepared  for  the 
use  of  his  pupils  a  small  elementary  treatise  on  that  subject.  Refer- 
ring to  this  effort  long  afterward,  which  attracted  at  the  time  wide- 
spread attention  and  recognition,  he  said  himself,  "/  made  then 
the  first  attempt  in  this  country  at  a  popular  course  of  lectures  ivith  a 
view  to  make  practical  botanists  of  young  persons  of  all  conditions  and 
pursuits." 

In  1815  Amos  Eaton  abandoned  the  legal  profession  altogether, 
not  without  disgusts,  and  not  without  certain  scandals,  and  never 
resumed  it ;  the  scientific  impulse  had  completely  conquered,  and  he 
left  Catskill  with  his  family  for  New  Haven  to  avail  himself  of  the 
assistance  of  Professors  Ives  and  Silliman,  and  the  general  advan- 
tages afforded  by  Yale  College  in  the  way  of  lectures,  libraries,  and 
cabinets.  This  was  the  turning-point  of  Eaton's  life.  To  their  great 
credit  the  professors  mentioned  received  him  kindly,  opened  to  him 
their  private  libraries,  and  constantly  aided  him  by  their  personal 
counsel.  He  soon  became  qualified  to  take  the  field  as  a  scientific 
explorer,  and  the  desk  as  an  acceptable  lecturer.  Professor  Silli- 
man wrote  of  him  long  afterward,  "Professor  Eaton  passed  a 
winter  here  in  preparation  to  become  a  lecturer,  and  he  became  a 
distinguished  teacher."  This  was  the  winter  of  1815-16.  While 
in  New  Haven  he  translated  from  the  French  the  "  Botanical  Dic- 
tionary "  of  Professor  Richard  of  the  Medical  School  in  Paris,  with 


768  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

"  additions  and  corrections."  Even  the  classification  of  Linneas  is 
more  or  less  modified.  It  is  dedicated  to  Eli  Ives,  M.D.,  as  follows : 
"  Although  this  dictionary  has  not  received  the  benefit  of  any  cor- 
rections immediately  from  your  own  hand,  I  have  been  governed  by 
your  opinions  in  all  cases  of  doubt."  In  the  body  of  the  book  it  is 
incidentally  stated,  "The  manuscript  was  prepared  last  summer 
under  the  immediate  inspection  of  Professor  Ives  of  Yale  College." 
The  botanical  dictionary  was  published  in  New  Haven  in  1817  by 
Hezekiah  Howe,  and  a  copy  of  it  is  in  the  library  of  Williams  Col- 
lege, to  which  institution  as  his  own  Alma  Mater  Eaton  had  betaken 
himself  in  the  meantime;  arid  these  notices  just  quoted  from  the 
book  itself  imply  trips  back  and  forth  between  Yale  and  Williams, 
and  indicate  furthermore  the  best  of  feeling  in  the  bonds  of  natural 
science  between  Eaton  and  the  professors  at  New  Haven  and  the 
young  Professor  Chester  Dewey  at  Williamstown,  graduated  there 
in  1806  and  becoming  Professor  of  Mathematics  and  Natural  Philos- 
ophy in  1810.  Dewey  in  particular  and  the  whole  student  body  in 
general  welcomed  him  to  Williams,  not  indeed  as  an  additional  pro- 
fessor, for  the  college  was  too  poor  to  employ  another,  but  as  a  vol- 
unteer explorer  and  lecturer  in  the  natural  sciences.  His  students 
were  equally  volunteers  with  himself.  He  gathered  about  him  at 
the  start  almost  the  entire  Senior  class,  and  also  some  members  of 
the  lower  classes.  He  griped  these  men  to  himself  and  his  methods 
with  hooks  of  steel-.  It  was  the  dawning  of  a  new  day  of  studious 
'enthusiasm  in  Williams  College.  Before  the  volunteer  course  was 
over,  he  received  from  the  students  the  following  written  address  :  — 

As  the  course  of  Lectures  on  Mineralogy,  which  you  have  conducted  so  much 
to  the  benefit  of  your  class,  is  nearly  completed,  we  are  gratified  with  the  pros- 
pect of  attending  your  course  of  Lectures  on  Botany,  —  knowing  that  our 
improvement  in  that  branch  of  Natural  Science  would  be  greatly  facilitated  by 
a  systematic  description  of  vegetables,  and  being  destitute  of  such  a  system,  we 
render  you  thanks  for  the  one,  which  you  have  been  pleased,  gratuitously,  to 
present  to  us  for  publication. 

This  complimentary  address  was  signed  by  sixty-three  students, 
comprising  all  the  young  men  in  the  Senior  and  Junior  classes,  every 
member  of  the  Sophomore  class  with  the  exception  of  one,  and  all  of 
the  Freshmen  but  three.  This  was  a  personal  as  much  as  a  scien- 
tific triumph  for  Eaton,  for  it  rested  back  on  certain  open  and  ad- 
mirable qualities  of  the  man  even  more  than  on  those  attainments  in 
science,  which  were  indeed  already  remarkable.  At  this  very  point, 
a  distinction  is  to  be  noticed  and  emphasized,  without  laying  proper 


BACKWARD    AND   FORWARD.  769 

stress  upon  which,  the  success  or  non-success  of  college  teachers  can 
never  be  understood  or  explained.  If  an  analysis  of  Eaton's  manly 
traits  may  now  be  ventured  on  this  ground,  where  they  were  first 
conspicuously  displayed,  notwithstanding  the  dimness  that  has  gath- 
ered over  them  in  the  entire  century  since  his  graduation,  it  would 
be  substantially  this  :  —  (1)  Self-Confidence.  (2)  An  open  Trust  in 
others.  (3)  Jocoseness.  Self-confidence  is  a  very  different  thing 
from  self-conceit;  it  maybe  said  to  be  even  an 'opposite  thing  to 
self-conceit.  Self-confidence  is  an  egotism  based  on  palpable  reason. 
The  foundation  of  self-confidence  in  matters  relating  to  the  natural 
sciences  is  a  personal  conviction  of  the  uniformities  of  nature,  and 
hence  of  the  strength  of  scientific  classification.  Eaton  stated  to  his 
first  classes  in  Williamstown  that  there  were  nearly  1000  species  of 
plants  collectible  within  a  radius  of  ten  miles  of  New  Haven.  How 
did  he  know  this  ?  Because  he  had  examined  particular  specimens 
of  all  these  species.  One  species  varied  from  every  other  by  palpa- 
ble differences  practically  universal.  Nature  is  so  uniform  in  main- 
taining these  differences  from  age  to  age  and  from  continent  to 
continent,  that  a  real  lapsus  natures  in  these  essentials  is  a  wonder 
of  wonders.  Therefore,  scientific  statements  resting  on  these  ob- 
served classifications  may  be  made  with  all  assurance.  There  is  no 
guesswork  about  it.  With  a  just  confidence  in  his  own  powers  of 
observation  and  conclusion  within  these  fields,  practising  a  natural 
logic  that  was  essentially  inexorable,  Amos  Eaton  had  entered  upon 
an  assured  inheritance ;  he  spoke  as  one  having  authority ;  he  had 
no  doubt  about  it  himself,  nor  did  his  mien  allow  any  of  his  hearers 
to  entertain  any  doubt  about  it.  This  confidence  in  self  and  nature, 
that  is  to  say,  in  God,  was  and  is  and  ever  will  be  delightful  to  stu- 
dents. It  gently  and  powerfully  carries  everything  before  it.  And 
not  to  students  only.  Largely  in  virtue  of  this  princely  quality, 
Eaton  afterward  swayed  for  years  such  leaders  as  De  Witt  Clinton 
and  Governor  Seward  and  Founder  Van  Eensselaer ;  and  held  and 
persuaded  such  hard-headed  audiences  as  the  Legislature  of  the 
State  of  New  York,  and  gatherings  of  farmers  and  ordinary  citizens 
all  over  that  State  to  listen  to  popular  lectures  on  geology  and  kin- 
dred subjects. 

The  second  of  Eaton's  personal  traits,  hardly  less  conspicuous 
and  influential  than  the  first,  was  his  manifested  trust  in  others. 
He  carried  an  open  face  and  an  open  heart.  He  believed  in  the 
truthfulness  of  nature,  in  the  integrity  of  his  own  inental  and 
moral  organization,  and  (in  the  absence  of  evidence  to  the  contrary) 
in  the  equal  trustworthiness  of  other  men.  Students  particularly 

3D 


770  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

have  an  instinctive  distrust  of  teachers  who  distrust  them,  and  an 
equally  immediate  confidence  in  those  who  manifest  an  instinctive 
trust  as  toward  them.  They  are  not,  indeed,  apt  to  philosophize 
about  this,  and  probably  seldom  find  the  true  ground  of  it ;  but  the 
ground  of  it  is  firm,  nevertheless,  in  the  fundamentals  of  human 
nature.  Erom  the  necessities  of  their  construction  and  position, 
men  are  compelled  in  general  to  judge  of  others  by  themselves; 
and  it  is  only  by  the  slow  observation  and  still  slower  ripening  of 
experience  that  this  inevitable  rule  becomes  modified  in  its  action 
here  and  there.  When  a  public  teacher  is  found  extraordinarily 
distrustful  of  his  pupils,  he  cannot  conceal  this  attitude  of  mind 
from  them  if  he  tries,  and  the  more  he  tries  the  more  he  betrays 
it;  and  whether  he  tries  or  not,  the  suspicions  become  self-inter- 
pretations :  for  how  should  he  come  to  suppose  others  unworthy  of 
confidence,  when  he  is  thoroughly  conscious  of  being  worthy  of  con- 
fidence himself  ?  Ex  nihil  nihil  Jit.  A  specially  suspicious  man  is 
a  specially  untrustworthy  man  the  world  over.  A  specially  sus- 
picious teacher  is  deservedly  distrusted  by  his  pupils.  If  not  too 
old,  he  may  find  fitter  occupation  than  his  present  one  with  Pinker- 
ton's  detectives.  Now  Amos  Eaton  had  nothing  of  all  these  unusual 
suspicions.  As  a  boy  he  was  known  to  have  roughed  it  and  joyed 
in  it  with  other  boys ;  as  a  student  he  may  be  concluded  to  have 
measured  others  by  himself,  as  well  as  himself  by  others;  and  as 
a  man  it  is  certain  that  he  displayed  himself  worthy  of  all  trust, 
partly  because  he  found  men  in  general  trustworthy,  and  helped  to 
make  them  still  more  so. 

The  third  prominent  personal  quality  of  Amos  Eaton,  closely 
connected  of  course  with  the  former  two,  was  that  constant  atti- 
tude of  mind,  by  which  he  instantly  perceived  and  could  neatly 
express,  without  the  least  malice,  any  ridiculous  side  of  men  or 
things.  He  had  a  natural  and  inexhaustible  humor,  as  harmless 
as  it  was  enjoyable.  He  could  enliven  at  will  the  driest  scientific 
presentations  in  chemistry  or  geology  by  quaint  hits  right  or  left, 
by  which  the  point  was  sure  to  be  remembered  by  pupil  or  audi- 
tor, and  himself  sure  to  become  more  esteemed  and  endeared.  He 
was  as  willing  that  others  should  turn  a  joke  upon  himself  as  he 
was  ever  ready  to  exercise  the  same  privilege  upon  them.  In  this 
rare  respect  he  resembled  Mark  Hopkins.  It  was  difficult  for  the 
spriest  student  or  auditor  to  catch  either  of  them,  but  whenever 
it  was  fairly  done,  the  laugh  of  the  masterful  victim  was  the 
heartiest  and  longest.  It  fell  to  the  lot  of  Eaton  throughout  his 
life  at  intervals  to  suffer  the  severest  strokes  of  affliction,  particu- 


BACKWARD    AND    FORWARD.  771 

larly  in  the  persons  of  his  own  f amily ;  and  there  can  be  no  doubt 
at  all  that  this  cheery  temper  in  connection  with  his  profound  and 
practical  faith  in  the  benignity  of  the  Divine  Providence  both 
lightened  his  burdens  and  broadened  his  influence. 

Eaton  began  his  volunteer  work  at  Williams  in  March,  1817, 
comprising  courses  of  lectures  on  botany,  mineralogy,  and  geology ; 
and  the  encouragement  he  received  from  the  faculty  and  students, 
and  particularly  from  Professor  Chester  Dewey,  his  lifelong  friend 
and  coadjutor,  determined  him  to  attempt  courses  of  popular  lec- 
tures with  practical  instruction  to  such  classes  as  he  might  organize 
in  several  of  the  larger  towns  successively  in  New  England  and 
New  York.  The  dedication  of  the  second  edition  of  his  "  Manual 
of  Botany,"  published  in  1818,  to  the  Williams  president  and  pro- 
fessors, pleasingly  expressed  his  sense  of  obligation  in  these  words, 
"  The  '  Science  of  Botany '  is  indebted  to  you  for  its  first  introduction 
into  the  interior  of  the  Northern  States,  and  I  am  indebted  to  you 
for  a  passport  into  the  scientific  world."  He  went  first  to  North- 
ampton, where  he  is  said  to  be  the  first  man  in  America  to  enrol 
classes  of  ladies  in  the  study  of  natural  science.  Then  he  went  to 
Amherst,  where  Mary  Lyon,  the  founder  of  Mount  Holyoke  Seminary, 
became  his  enthusiastic  pupil,  and  later  in  Troy,  where  she  was  by 
invitation  a  member  of  his  family.  He  lectured  also  in  Lenox  and 
Stockbridge  and  other  towns  with  ever  widening  applause  and  per- 
manent reputation.  President  Gates  of  Amherst  College  said  finely 
of  him,  "  He  knew  how  to  ring  the  rising-bell  in  the  dormitory  of 
the  soul."  Great  matters  were  then  stirring  along  the  upper  Hud- 
son, which  was  a  more  important  stream  than  the  Hoosac,  the 
Housatonic,  or  the  Connecticut;  and  the  greatest  of  these  was  the 
marvellous  scheme  of  De  Witt  Clinton  to  unite  by  means  of  a  series 
of  canals  the  waters  of  Lake  Erie  with  the  upper  tides  of  the  Hud- 
son, for  purposes  of  public  transportation,  whose  success  or  failure 
was  largely  a  matter  of  scientific  geology.  Clinton  was  Governor 
of  New  York  during  nearly  all  the  progress  of  this  vast  work, 
namely,  from  1817  to  1825;  and  the  greatest  obstacles  he  experi- 
enced were  from  the  Legislature  of  the  State  and  the  practical 
incredulity  of  its  people.  In  1818  Governor  Clinton  sent  to  Amos 
Eaton  a  special  invitation  to  give  a  course  of  lectures  on  geology 
before  the  members  of  the  Legislature  in  session  at  Albany.  He 
went.  He  lectured  in  his  own  novel  and  inimitable  way.  He  so 
interested  the  leading  men  of  the  State  in  geology,  not  only  in  its 
relations  to  the  canals,  but  also  in  its  relations  to  agriculture,  that 
the  first  steps  were  then  and  there  taken  which  resulted  in  the 


77 '2  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

preparation  and  publication  of  that  great  work,  "  The  Natural  His- 
tory of  the  State  of  New  York."  Governor  Seward  in  his  Intro- 
duction to  this  work,  Albany,  1842,  said  of  Eaton :  "  He  described 
rocks  which  no  geologist  had  at  that  time  attempted  to  classify. 
We  are  indebted  to  Eaton  for  that  independence  of  European  clas- 
sification which  has  been  found  indispensable  in  describing  the 
New  York  system." 

It  is  probable  but  not  certified,  that  it  was  at  Albany  at  this  time 
that  Amos  Eaton  made  the  permanent  acquaintance  of  General 
Stephen  Van  Rensselaer,  the  greatest  of  the  Patroons,  and  the 
earliest  of  the  great  benefactors  of  practical  science  in  this  country. 
In  1820  he  employed  Eaton  to  make  an  exhaustive  agricultural  survey 
of  his  own  vast  estates,  the  original  Dutch  colony  of  Kensselaer- 
wyck,  extending  forty-eight  miles  one  way  and  twenty-four  the 
other,  and  now  covering  three  counties.  The  results  of  this  and 
further  similar  surveys  east  as  well  as  west  of  the  North  Biver 
were  published  in  1824  at  the  sole  cost  of  his  generous  patron.  He 
also  paid  Eaton  to  give  popular  lectures  on  geology  throughout  the 
State.  The  crowning  work  of  the  lives  of  both  these  men  centred 
in  the  establishment  in  Troy  of  a  school  of  the  highest  grade, 
entitled  the  "  Rensselaer  Institute,"  endowed  by  the  one  and  super- 
intended and  directed  by  the  other  till  his  death  in  1842.  President 
Brainerd  of  Middlebury  College  has  the  following  to  say  of  these 
two  men  in  relation  to  each  other :  — 

The  pioneer  explorer  in  American  Geology  was  Professor  Amos  Eaton.  He 
had  the  good  fortune  to  find  a  munificent  patron,  who  sustained  him  for  nine- 
teen years,  enabled  him  to  travel  more  than  seventeen  thousand  miles  in  explo- 
rations, and  published  his  reports  and  maps.  In  these  days  Geology  became 
the  rage.  It  was  talked  on  every  steamboat  and  canal  packet,  and  at  every 
public  watering-place.  Perhaps  the  fact  that  Eaton  had  more  than  seven 
thousand  pupils  or  auditors  had  something  to  do  with  it.  At  any  rate,  at  his 
death  in  1842,  every  State  in  the  Union  except  five  had  authorized  geological 
surveys. 

In  a  book  designed  and  entitled  and  constructed  as  is  the  present 
one,  it  would  be  a  grave  fault  to  omit  to  notice,  that  Ebenezer 
Emmons  of  the  class  of  1818  and  Albert  Hopkins  of  the  class  of 
1826,  whose  after  relations  both  to  the  town  and  college  were 
peculiar  and  long  continued,  owed  their  first  faltering  steps  in  their 
distinguished  scientific  career  to  the  skilled  and  helpful  hand  of 
Amos  Eaton.  Albert  Hopkins  described  in  his  later  life  his  own 
early  impressions  in  the  words  following,  to  wit :  — 


BACKWARD    AND   FORWARD.  773 

Professor  Eaton  was  one  of  the  first  to  popularize  science  in  the  Northern 
States.  For  this  task  he  had  some  peculiar  qualifications.  He  had  an  easy  flow 
of  language,  a  popular  address,  and  a  generous  enthusiasm  in  matters  of  science, 
which  easily  communicated  itself  to  his  pupils. 

I  well  remember  attending  a  lecture  of  his  in  my  native  town,  the  first  scien- 
tific lecture  I  ever  attended,  and,  if  I  may  judge  by  the  sharp  outline  of  it  still 
in  my  mind,  one  of  the  most  interesting  and  impressive.  Perhaps  the  "leafy 
month  of  June,"  the  subject  of  the  lecture,  "Flowers,"  and  the  presence  of  a 
large  number  of  interesting  young  persons,  may  have  added  something  to  the 
charm  ;  but  making  all  due  allowances,  I  am  sure  that  the  leciure  itself  must 
have  had  a  good  deal  of  intrinsic  merit.  Professor  Eaton  was  at  this  time  (1817, 
I  think)  nearly  in  his  prime.  His  person  was  quite  striking,  —  a  large  frame, 
somewhat  portly  and  dignified,  though  entirely  free  from  what  is  commonly 
called  starch.  His  face  was  highly  intellectual, — the  forehead  high  and  some- 
what retreating,  locality  strongly  marked,  and  the  organs  of  observation  and 
comparison  well  developed.  His  hair  at  that  time  was  black,  and  being  combed 
back,  rendered  his  fine  physiognomy  still  more  striking.  I  well  recollect  the 
flowers,  which  I  believe  his  young  pupil,  Emmons,  had  been  employed  to  collect 
for  the  occasion.  They  were,  in  the  first  place,  the  common  lilac,  which  I  had 
probably  seen  before  ;  however  this  may  be,  the  small  floret,  with  its  salver-form 
Corolla  and  long  tubular  throat,  into  which  the  Professor  dexterously  inserted 
his  pen -knife,  with  no  murderous  intent,  but  to  give  us  a  view  of  the  organs 
which  the  great  Linnaeus  had  selected  as  the  basis  of  his  classification,  —  this 
little  floret,  I  say,  is  the  first  I  now  recollect  to  have  seen;  and  seen  it  was,  and 
still  is,  with  great  distinctness.  Then  followed  the  Pedicularis,  and  some  plants 
more  difficult  in  their  analysis.  In  the  analysis  of  these  plants  Professor  Eaton 
made  use  of  his  Manual  descriptive  of  plants  in  the  vicinity  of  Williams  College, 
a  book  which,  with  some  imperfections,  was  highly  valuable  as  a  pioneer  work. 
Professor  Eaton  was  among  the  first  in  this  country  to  study  nature  in  the  field 
with  his  classes.  I  think  his  zeal  in  the  department  of  Botany  led  Professor 
Dewey  to  direct  his  discriminating  mind  to  the  study  of  plants.  At  this  time 
Dr.  Emmons  took  the  field.  In  fact  Natural  History  came  in  on  a  spring-tide 
and  has  never  lost  the  impulse  since. 

2.  WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT.  Born  in  Cummington  in  1794, 
died  in  New  York  in  1878.  In  a  former  chapter  of  this  book  are 
given  in  sufficient  detail  the  interesting  circumstances  connecting  him 
with  Williams  College.  His  astonishing  precocity  in  the  classical 
languages  and  in  poetry,  and  his  eminence  in  both  of  these  directions 
maintained  throughout  a  very  long  life,  have  no  need  to  occupy  us 
for  the  purpose  at  present  in  hand.  The  man  and  his  life-story 
possessed  a  great  fascination  for  his  countrymen.  Two  generations 
of  them  became  familiar  with  it  while  he  still  lived,  and  a  third 
generation  came  to  know  it  through  the  beautifully  truthful  biogra- 
phy of  his  father-in-law,  by  Parke  Godwin.  So  far  as  the  public 
were  concerned  both  before  and  after  Bryant's  decease,  the  emphasis 
was  usually  put  upon  his  wonderful  career  as  a  poet  both  at  the 


774  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

beginning  and  toward  the  close  of  his  life.  Almost  everybody 
knew  something  of  his  "  Thanatopsis,"  written  at  seventeen,  of  which 
the  poet  Stoddard  said,  "Thanatopsis  was  the  greatest  poem  ever 
written  by  so  young  a  man ; "  and  the  literary  classes  of  all  three  of 
these  generations  came  to  know,  that  "for  the  first  time  on  this 
continent  a  poern  had  been  written  destined  to  general  admiration 
and  enduring  fame.  It  in  fact  began  our  poetic  history,  and,  what- 
ever great  things  have  since  been  done  or  will  yet  be  done,  to 
'  Thanatopsis '  belongs  the  glory  of  the  morning  star,  which  glit- 
ters on  the  front  of  day,  and  only  fades  in  the  superior  light  it 
has  itself  announced."  So  at  the  close  of  his  life,  where,  to  use  the 
words  of  aline  in  one  of  his  early  poems,  he  was  "journeying  in 
long  serenity  away,"  the  attention  of  the  public  and  particularly  of 
all  lovers  of  Homer  was  strongly  drawn  and  held  to  his  complete 
translations  in  English  blank  verse  of  the  "  Iliad  "  and  "  Odyssey." 
This  was  wholly  an  old  man's  work.  It  was  commenced  in  1868, 
when  he  was  nearly  seventy-four  years  old,  and  completed  before 
the  close  of  1871.  It  was  therefore  rapid  work,  though  the  work 
of  a  brain  and  pen  already  accustomed  to  similar  work  for  more 
than  sixty  years.  He  had  the  advantage  of  all  the  previous  trans- 
lators of  Homer  into  English  verse,  (1)  in  having  their  good  work 
before  him  for  comparison  with  and  emendation  of  his  own ;  (2)  in 
possessing  a  better  command  than  any  of  them  of  a  full  vocabulary 
of  old  and  pure  and  strong  English  words;  and  (3)  by  escaping 
through  his  choice  of  simple  blank  verse  the  restrictions  and  infe- 
licities of  rhyme  and  metre,  under  which  most  of  the  rest  had 
placed  themselves.  It  was  apparently  the  conclusion  of  the  most 
competent  critics  in  this  country  at  least,  that  Bryant's  Homer  was 
more  nearly  Homer's  Homer  than  any  other  English  Homer  on  the 
shelves  of  their  libraries. 

As  already  intimated,  it  is  the  present  purpose  to  dilate  rather  on 
Bryant's  work  and  influence  as  a  publicist,  in  which  character  he 
was  far  less  known  to  his  countrymen  and  more  closely  connected 
with  his  college.  During  fifty  years,  1829-78,  he  was  an  editor 
on  the  New  York  Evening  Post,  and  for  the  most  of  that  time  editor- 
in-chief  and  the  principal  owner  of  the  paper.  He  virtually  con- 
trolled the  political  and  economical  policy  of  the  Post  for  that 
broad  interval  of  time.  He  either  wrote  himself  or  secured  and 
approved  the  writing  of  the  daily  leading  articles  of  a  widely  read 
and  widely  quoted  newspaper  in  the  commercial  centre  of  the 
United  States,  and  thus  exerted  a  commercial  and  political  influence 
difficult  indeed  to  weigh  in  exact  terms  but  certainly  and  satisfy- 


WILLIAM    CULLEN    BRYANT, 
W.  C.,   1813. 


BACKWARD    AND    FORWARD.  775 

ingly  prodigious.  The  Evening  Post  was  founded  in  1801  under  the 
auspices  of  Alexander  Hamilton  and  his  Federalist  friends,  by 
William  Coleman,  who  became  sole  editor  in  1809  and  continued  so 
till  1829,  when  Bryant  succeeded  him.  Jefferson  had  become 
President  of  the  United  States  in  1801,  and  the  Post  started  and 
continued  in  strong  opposition  to  the  prevailing  party  until  the 
close  of  the  second  war  with  England  (1815),  when  party  lines  were 
mostly  obliterated,  and  the  paper  became  and  continued  more  or 
less  independent.  Bryant  began  to  work  for  it  in  1826  in  a  subor- 
dinate capacity  under  Coleinan,  and  it  is  said  that  the  paper  began 
at  once  to  show  the  impress  of  a  finer  hand  in  more  discriminating 
notices  of  new  books,  in  more  frequent  extracts  from  foreign  jour- 
nals, in  the  presentation  of  the  claims  of  artists  and  of  a  better 
architecture,  in  more  careful  characterizations  of  public  men  and  in 
almost  daily  suggestions  of  reform  in  matters  relating  to  the  city 
government.  In  politics  there  was  no  sign  in  those  days  of  the  pres- 
ence of  a  new  hand,  except  on  the  subject  of  free  trade.  It  has  often 
been  publicly  pronounced,  that  Bryant  first  induced  the  Post  to 
advocate  that  doctrine,  but  this  was  not  the  case.  The  journal  was 
fully  committed  to  that  righteous  policy  before  the  day  of  his 
apprenticeship.  So  indeed  was  the  city  of  New  York,  through  its 
merchants  and  more  eminent  citizens.  There  were  calls  in  those 
days  for  free-trade  meetings  and  delegates  to  free-trade  conven- 
tions ;  and  one  may  find  in  the  files  of  old  newspapers  as  signers  of 
such  calls  and  delegates  to  such  conventions,  the  names  of  the  first 
citizens  and  greatest  merchants  of  New  York.  Let  seven  taken 
almost  at  random  serve  as  examples  of  the  rest  —  Albert  Gallatin, 
James  Kent,  Peter  Gay,  Isaac  Bronson,  John  Duer,  Morgan  Lewis, 
Peter  Bemsen. 

How  came  this  young  man  to  become  and  to  remain  a  Democrat 
and  a  free  trader?  There  were  none  of  his  kinsfolk  and  early 
acquaintance  of  that  way  of  belief.  His  father  was  a  strong  Feder- 
alist. So  were  all  the  ministers  and  teachers  of  his  boyhood.  By 
much  the  greatest  man  in  western  Massachusetts  was  Judge 
Theodore  Sedgwick,  next  to  Alexander  Hamilton  the  most  influen- 
tial member,  and  the  national  leader  of  the  Federalist  party.  Curi- 
ously enough  Theodore  Sedgwick,  second  son  of  the  judge,  fourteen 
years  older  than  Bryant,  with  whom  the  latter  was  very  intimate, 
early  adopted  the  tenets  of  the  Democratic  party,  and  was  a  ready 
and  powerful  speaker  and  writer  in  behalf  of  free  trade  until  his 
death  in  Pittsfield  in  1839.  Whether  this  Theodore  Sedgwick,  fore- 
most of  the  family  after  the  death  of  his  father  in  1813,  exerted  any 


776  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

direct  influence  politically  over  Bryant's  mind  is  not  specifically 
stated  or  inferrible,  but  it  is  altogether  likely,  for,  in  a  memoir  of 
his  friend,  he  describes  him  as  one  "  whose  character  deserves  to  be 
held  up  to  the  imitation  of  all  men  engaged  in  political  life,  or  in 
public  controversies  of  any  kind.  He  was  a  man  of  many  virtues, 
but  he  enjoyed  one  distinction  difficult  of  attainment,  that  of  being 
a  politician  without  party  vices.  In  the  question  respecting  the 
powers  of  government  and  the  proper  objects  and  limits  of  human 
laws,  he  took  part  with  great  zeal,  deeming  them  highly  important 
to  the  welfare  of  mankind."  Bryant,  however,  was  not  a  man  to 
take  opinions  of  a  radical  cast  from  anybody  without  thorough 
researches  of  his  own.  Such  researches  he  made  particularly  in  the 
first  half  of  the  decade  of  the  twenties,  reading  with  care  the  great 
debates  in  the  British  Parliament  in  the  time  of  Huskisson  (1820  et 
seq.),  through  whose  reasonings  and  exertions  the  old  restrictions  on 
the  trade  of  the  colonies  with  foreign  countries  were  removed,  the 
removal  or  reduction  of  many  import  duties  obtained,  and  even  con- 
siderable relaxations  of  the  Navigation  Laws  secured.  Huskisson 
is  allowed  on  all  hands  to  have  been  the  chief  practical  pioneer  of 
free  trade.  At  the  same  time  Bryant  took  up  the  then  current  lead- 
ing treatises  on  political  economy,  those  of  Adam  Smith  and  Jean- 
Baptiste  Say  and  David  Ricardo,  and  learned  whatever  they  had  to 
teach  him.  He  lived  long  enough  to  gain,  and  often  to  express  the 
opinion,  that  these  and  the  other  technical  writers  on  the  subject 
had  become  antiquated  and  practically  useless,  as  following  a 
method  that  is  non-scientific,  and  embracing  discussions  too  compre- 
hensive to  be  scientific  in  the  proper  use  of  that  term.  It  was  his 
view  that  political  economy  has  since  become  a  science,  and  that 
that  science  is  simply  and  solely  the  science  of  buying  and  selling. 

After  all  that  may  be  said  and  done  about  the  proper  use  of  books 
in  the  study  of  political  economy,  Bryant  possessed  an  additional, 
and  for  men  of  his  power  of  analysis,  a  superior  resource.  As  in  the 
"  Thanatopsis  "  he  described  a  world  of  things,  and  men  as  subject  to  a 
law  of  inevitable  decay,  appointed  of  God  and  unchangeable  by  men, 
so  he  saw  and  came  to  describe  with,  an  invincible  logic  day  by  day 
and  year  after  year,  —  burning  it  into  the  unwilling  minds  of  men, 
—  that  all  the  great  economic  movements  of  human  society  by 
which  the  wants  of  all  men  and  all  nations  are  reciprocally  supplied, 
are  as  uniform  and  regular  as  any  other  complicated  aggregate  of 
palpable  causes  and  effects;  and  that,  consequently,  for  any  so- 
called  government  to  interfere  in  any  artificial  manner  with  the  play 
of  these  divinely  appointed  laws  of  demand  and  supply  is  of  neces- 


BACKWARD   AND    FORWARD.  777 

sity  impoverishing  in  practice,  and  in  contradiction  to  one  of  the 
most  sacred  rights  of  men,  that,  namely,  of  freely  bettering  their 
own  condition  without  impairing  the  condition  of  anybody  else. 
This  argument  in  substance  satisfied  the  mind  of  Bryant  for  more 
than  fifty  years.  Only  a  few  months  before  his  death  he  exclaimed 
in  public,  "  /  have  been  fifty  years  in  this  service,  and  have  never 
wearied  of  it  ! "  One  of  those  associated  with  him  in  the  American 
Free  Trade  League,  of  which  he  was  the  first  president,  was  wont  to 
put  the  same  argument  in  the  way  following,  namely,  It  always 
takes  two  persons  to  make  a  commercial  exchange,  that  is  to  say,  a 
trade,  each  of  whom  renders  something  to  the  other  for  the  sake  of 
receiving  something  else  from  that  other ;  each  of  these  estimates 
less  what  he  is  about  to  part  with  than  what  he  is  about  to  receive, 
otherwise  he  would  not  part  with  it  to  that  end ;  usual  intelligence 
supposed  and  fraud  aside,  the  trade  if  consummated  is  profitable  to 
both  parties,  otherwise  it  would  not  take  place ;  now,  if  a  so-called 
Law  (Protection!)  comes  in  to  prohibit  or  restrict  this  trade,  the 
interfering  law  destroys  the  profit  of  each  of  two  persons,  or  of  two 
millions,  as  the  case  may  be.  What  are  the  motives  of  the  men 
who  always  conspire  to  get  such  a  restrictive  law  passed  by  the  Leg- 
islature ?  These  will  always  bear  looking  into  !  They  will  invaria- 
bly be  found  to  be  of  a  selfish  and  sordid  character.  No  instance 
to  the  contrary  has  ever  been  exhibited  in  the  world  of  trade- 
legislation. 

There  is  no  original  connection  obvious  between  free  trade  and 
politics  strictly  so-called.  Nevertheless,  there  are  derived  connec- 
tions very  plain  to  be  seen.  In  becoming  a  free  trader  Bryant  logi- 
cally and  almost  irresistibly  became  a  Democrat,  as  that  word  was 
used  in  contradistinction  with  Federalist.  He  had  been  reared  a  Fed- 
eralist, and  so  more  emphatically  had  Theodore  Sedgwick,  second 
son  of  the  great  judge.  Both  of  these  young  men  came  to  see,  as 
clearly  as  day,  that  protectionism  so-called  was  a  selfish  scheme  to 
plunder  the  public  for  the  enrichment  of  a  few,  and  so  to  be  resisted 
in  all  stages  and  at  all  hazards ;  and  they  saw  also  at  the  same 
time,  that  the  leading  statesmen  in  Congress  were  apt  to  take  posi- 
tion in  regard  to  so-called  "  protective  "  taxes,  according  to  their 
own  proclivities  of  constitutional  doctrine.  Those  who  were  in- 
clined to  protectionism  were  also  inclined,  or  rather  bound  by  the 
necessities  of  the  case,  to  broad  constructions  of  the  powers  of  the 
national  government ;  while  those  who  had  emancipated  themselves 
from  old  economic  errors  were  as  earnestly  disposed  to  a  rigid  exe- 
gesis of  the  clauses  of  the  Constitution.  Free  traders  naturally 


778  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

became  Democrats,  and  Democrats  were  logically  free  traders.  The 
only  deep-cutting  distinction  in  our  national  politics  from  the 
beginning  for  a  century  at  least  lay  along  the  line  of  State  Bights  as 
contrasted  with  an  elastic  construction  of  powers  granted  in  the 
Constitution  to  the  national  government.  The  following  formula 
expresses  as  perfectly  as  frangible  words  can  do  it,  the  exact  politi- 
cal and  economical  truth  combined :  —  Equal  opportunities  under  the 
law  to  all  citizens  ;  no  special  privileges  of  any  kind  to  any.  Bryant 
and  Sedgwick  and  thousands  of  other  intelligent  young  men  passed 
thus  through  the  open  door  of  free  trade  into  the  safe  fold  of  the 
Democratic  party.  Bryant's  mind  was  satisfied  with  the  results  of 
this  process  as  a  matter  of  historical  interpretation  of  the  Constitu- 
tion, while  it  continued  active  for  many  years  upon  a  broader 
phase  of  the  same  vital  question. 

What  are  the  functions  of  government,  if  any,  within  this  vast 
sphere  of  social  and  industrial  liberty,  which  is  capable  of  operating 
harmoniously  and  to  universal  advantage,  impelled  alone  by  per- 
manent and  indefeasible  impulses  ?  The  European  answer  to  this 
question  had  been  Laissez  faire,  Let  alone,  let  things  take  their 
natural  course.  If  Laissez  faire  were  regarded  as  the  mere  negation 
of  the  positive  restrictions  and  interferences  of  government  in 
matters  industrial  or  commercial  (the  two  adjectives  mean  the  same), 
then  Mr.  Bryant  would  accept  Laissez  faire  as  the  true  answer  to 
the  question.  But  he  wished  to  make  his  own  limitations.  What 
he  said  in  effect  was  this  :  Government  is  the  organ  and  repre- 
sentative of  the  whole  community,  not  of  any  class  or  of  any  frac- 
tion of  that  community.  Its  primary  and  substantial  function, 
therefore,  is  to  maintain  the  conditions  of  universal  liberty,  that  is 
to  say,  the  equilibrium  and  harmony  of  the  social  forces  so  that  the 
energies  of  the  individual  may  the  most  freely  act  and  expand, 
according  to  his  own  judgment,  his  own  capacities  in  particular, 
and  his  own  views  and  purposes  in  general.  Government  must  not 
undertake  directly  any  enterprises  of  its  own  of  any  kind,  whether 
religious  or  intellectual  or  artistic  or  economical,  but  must  secure  a 
safe  and  open  field  to  every  kind  of  enterprise  for  every  one  of  its 
members  in  an  individual  or  corporate  capacity.  Its  functions  are 
juridical,  that  is,  to  protect  and  maintain  existing  rights ;  and  not 
paternal  or  eleemosynary  that  is,  to  encourage  and  nurse  and  coddle 
interests.  The  supreme,  if  not  the  exclusive,  ends  of  government 
are  liberty,  justice,  order;  not  at  all  prosperity,  which  will  come  of 
itself  when  these  ends  are  measurably  reached.  This  was  Bryant's 
theory  of  the  State;  on  these  foundations  our  national  institutions 


BACKWARD    AND    FORWARD.  779 

were  distinctively  and  historically  built ;  these  principles  must  be 
carried  out  to  every  logical  and  practicable  result  through  the  State 
governments,  as  well  as  through  the  national  government,  or  else 
the  people  give  up  their  pretentious  to  democracy.1 

The  educating  power  of  these  points  of  political  philosophy,  urged 
editorially  in  the  columns  of  a  daily  newspaper  year  after  year  and 
decade  after  decade,  urged  not  in  the  abstract,  but  in  the  concrete  as 
illustrations  of  them  or  of  infractions  of  them  came  out  in  the  news 
of  the  day,  reenforced  also  by  those  ethical  and  Christian  considera- 
tions which  were  all  one  in  the  mind  of  the  editor-in-chief  with 
sound  politics,  and  both  alike  clothed  day  by  day  in  great  beauty 
and  simplicity  of  language,  expressing  the  convictions  of  the  writer, 
not  more  than  bespeaking  the  candid  attention  of  readers,  —  the 
educating  power  of  these  discussions  over  the  people  of  the  country, 
and  especially  over  the  great  political  party  with  which  the  Even- 
ing Post  rarely  broke,  so  far  as  organization  and  practical  work 
were  concerned,  cannot  be  adequately  expressed  in  words.  Bryant 
became  personally  identified  with  the  Evening  Post  perhaps  as  much, 
though  in  a  quite  different  sense,  as  Horace  Greeley  with  the  New 
York  Tribune.  Both  were  equally  sincere  and  philanthropic  men. 
But  Bryant  was  a  broad-minded,  well-educated,  much-travelled,  and 
aesthetically  gifted  man ;  and  his  life-work  consequently  was  put  in 
much  nearer  the  vital  foundations  of  society  and  progress,  than  that 
of  his  more  superficial  and  dogmatic  contemporary.  It  was  often 
said  of  Bryant  in  his  highly  honored  and  extraordinarily  useful  old 
age,  by  those  entitled  to  judge  and  to  compare,  "He  is  the  first  citizen 
of  the  Republic!" 

3.  MARK  HOPKINS.  Born  in  Stockbridge  in  1802,  died  in  Wil- 
liamstown  in  1887.  Discussions  of  heredity  are  perhaps  still  rather 
speculative  than  philosophical;  but  Mark  Hopkins  was  a  believer 
in  observably  transmitted  tendencies  in  his  own  case.  The  writer 
once  asked  him  about  his  relationship  with  Samuel  Hopkins,  the 
distinguished  New  England  theologian.  He  answered  with  mani- 
fested interest,  though  in  general  he  cared  little  for  genealogies, 
"He  was  my  grandfather's  brother."  More  demonstrably  than 
heredity  did  environment  influence  the  choices  and  the  career  of 
Mark  Hopkins.  Stockbridge  was  a  Puritan  town  in  the  best  sense 
of  an  adjective  whose  significance  is  already  becoming  dim.  It  was 
an  historic  town  in  the  sense  in  which  no  other  town  in  western 
Massachusetts  was  historic,  that  is,  having  its  origin  in  direct  acts 
of  the  General  Court  for  ends  and  purposes  of  the  Court's  own.  It 
1  See  Godwin's  Life  of  Bryant,  Vol.  1,  page  254  et  seq. 


780  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

was  in  its  origin  a  missionary  town  pure  and  simple.  After  the 
Stockbridge  Indians  had  left  the  place  for  good,  it  became  exclu- 
sively a  town  of  farmers.  The  farm  on  which  Mark  Hopkins  was 
born  and  brought  up,  was  one  of  four  farms  originally  set  apart  by 
the  General  Court  for  the  use  and  occupancy  of  four  English  fami- 
lies, which  should  serve  as  object-lessons  to  the  Indians  of  the  mis- 
sion undergoing  direct  instruction  at  the  hands  of  their  missionaries. 
When  Mark  Hopkins  was  born,  the  minister  and  the  squire  and  the 
doctor  were  the  only  parties  in  Stockbridge  differing  in  position  and 
influence  from  the  strong,  fee-simple  farmers  of  the  valley  and  the 
hillsides.  When  he  was  seventeen  years  old,  and  his  brother  Albert 
twelve,  Rev.  David  Dudley  Field  came  to  Stockbridge  as  pastor  of 
the  church,  bringing  with  him  his  eldest  son  of  the  same  name,  then 
fourteen  years  old,  and  a  second  son,  Stephen  J.,  nine  years  younger. 
There  was  an  Irish  boy  in  Stockbridge  at  that  time,  John  Morgan, 
born  in  Cork  in  1802,  that  is,  of  the  same  age  with  Mark  Hopkins. 
In  1888,  in  an  address  at  Williams  College,  David  Dudley  Field 
spoke  as  follows  of  circumstances  occurring  in  Stockbridge :  — 

In  the  year  1819  three  youths  met  for  the  first  time  in  the  academy  of  Stock- 
bridge.  Their  ages  were  not  far  apart,  and  they  were  all  in  training  for  a  college 
education.  Their  tastes  were  much  alike  ;  they  were  enthusiastic,  lovers  of 
knowledge,  and  untiring  in  its  pursuit.  They  went  to  the  same  college  and 
afterwards  into  different  professions,  but  they  always  kept  watch  of  ODC  another. 
Of  these,  two  died  in  maturest  age,  and  I  alone  survive.  The  first  to  leave  us 
was  John  Morgan,  of  whom  I  can  never  think  but  with  deep  emotion  and 
admiration  for  his  profound  learning,  his  guileless  nature,  and  his  devout  life. 
Long  useful  and  honored  as  professor  at  Oberlin,  he  now  sleeps  by  the  shore  of 
that  inland  sea  which  pours  its  waters  over  the  cliffs  of  Niagara.  The  second, 
Mark  Hopkins,  descended  into  the  grave  two  years  behind  his  comrade,  and  he 
sleeps  here  under  these  waving  trees. 

Mark  Hopkins  used  to  say,  that  he  had  no  reason  to  suppose  he 
should  ever  have  gone  to  college  at  all,  had  there  not  been  an  acces- 
sible college  in  Berkshire.  His  maternal  uncle,  Jared  Curtis,  was 
the  medium  of  communication  between  the  three  Stockbridge  boys 
and  the  slender  institution  at  the  opposite  extremity  of  the  county. 
Curtis  was  a  native  of  Stockbridge,  and  was  destined  by  his  parents 
for  the  ministry.  He  was  employed  as  a  tutor  for  two  years  in  the 
College,  1803-05,  after  his  graduation  in  1800,  and  then  for  ten 
years  thereafter  in  mercantile  pursuits,  reasons  existing  mainly  in 
his  own  mind  always  keeping  him  out  of  the  ordinary  pulpit.  For 
several  years  he  was  principal  of  the  Stockbridge  Academy,  con- 
stantly sending  up  boys  to  the  College,  and  so  becoming  from  his 


MARK    HOPKINS, 
W.  C.,   1824. 


BACKWARD    AND    FORWARD.  781 

early  boyhood  a  sort  of  shuttle  thrown  from  south  to  north  and  back 
again,  bearing  threads  forming  a  firm  web  between  Stockbridge  and 
Williamstown.  Licensed  to  preach,  and  going  into  central  New 
York,  he  was  providentially  appointed  a  chaplain  in  the  state  prison 
at  Auburn.  He  was  the  first  person  to  be  inducted  into  such  a  func- 
tion in  this  country.  Subsequently  he  was  appointed  chaplain  in 
the  state  prison  of  Massachusetts,  where  he  passed  about  thirty 
years  of  his  life  in  self-denying  labors  for  the  spiritual  good  of 
convicts.  The  changes  of  character  wrought  through  his  instru- 
mentality were  said  to  be  in  some  instances  wonderful.  He  died  in 
1862,  at  the  age  of  eighty-five.  His  two  nephews,  Mark  and  Albert 
Hopkins,  were  a  ground  of  much  pride  and  satisfaction  to  him,  and 
he  became  in  a  certain  sense  a  second  father  to  them  in  matters 
educational. 

Albert  Hopkins  described  in  a  letter  their  home  in  Stockbridge 
as  "  a  secluded  dwelling,"  and  Mark  was  heard  to  say  in  middle  life 
that  the  distance  from  it  to  the  district  school  was  not  far  from  two 
miles.  Mark  was  five  years  older  than  Albert,  and  the  two  labored 
on  the  farm  with  their  father  in  summer,  and  attended  the  district 
school  in  winter.  This  tended  to  develop  their  physical  constitu- 
tions, naturally  robust,  and  the  younger  became  noted  among  his 
schoolfellows,  and  afterward  in  college,  for  feats  of  strength  and 
physical  endurance.  Both  were  tall,  with  broad  shoulders,  wiry  in 
shape  and  motion,  and  slightly  bent  as  old  age  drew  on.  There  was 
a  difference  in  bodily  temperament,  the  elder  tending  to  indolence, 
and  the  younger  seeming  to  be  fond  of  exertion  even  for  its  own 
sake;  there  was  a  difference  in  intellectual  endowment,  and  in 
breadth  and  solidity  of  grasp,  the  elder  being  much  the  superior 
in  all  this  ;  in  matters  of  emotion  and  in  control  of  the  feelings  of 
others,  Albert  was  very  different  from  his  brother,  and  in  times  of 
religious  excitement  in  college  and  in  town  easily  came  to  the  front, 
and  held  his  position  there ;  while  in  steady  persistency  of  plans, 
and  in  all  the  elements  of  a  broad  intellectual  and  moral  leader- 
ship, Mark  Hopkins  was  the  greater  and  more  influential  man. 
Very  little  can  be  gleaned  about  their  early  life  in  Stockbridge, 
probably  for  the  reason  that  there  was  very  little  remarkable  about 
it.  A  single  paragraph  from  a  letter  written  by  the  younger  brother 
in  1840  is  significant  and  precious :  — 

Study  was  more  congenial  to  my  brother  Mark  than  to  me.  He  entered  upon 
the  pursuit  of  knowledge  prompted,  I  think,  by  a  love  for  it,  mixed  doubtless 
with  something  of  a  worldly  ambition.  For  myself,  it  was  rather  at  the  instance 
of  my  parents  that  I  commenced  study.  I  yielded  to  their  wishes,  and  think  I 


782  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

can  now  clearly  trace  in  those  promptings  of  parental  kindness  the  agency  and 
direction  of  God.  I  have  little  doubt  of  having  found  the  sphere  assigned  me 
and  designed  for  me  in  Providence,  —  a  sphere,  however,  for  which  I  could  not 
have  been  prepared  otherwise  than  by  pursuing  the  steps  marked  out  for  me  by 
them. 

(1)  There  was  an  element  of  largeness  about  Mark  Hopkins  in 
what  he  was  and  said  and  did  and  planned,  that  seemed  to  discrimi- 
nate him  from  most  (if  not  all)  other  men  of  his  generation  in  New 
England.  He  had  a  large  way  with  him  from  whatever  point  of 
view  one  might  observe  him.  He  had  a  striking  bodily  presence, 
awkward  rather  than  graceful  in  every  movement,  and  yet  every 
movement  rather  impressive  than  otherwise.  Whatever  he  said  in 
conversation  or  counsel  or  persuasive  discourse,  or  other  orations 
in  public,  was  sure  to  have  in  it  something  that  gave  the  hearer 
the  impression  that  it  was  something  of  his  own  that  he  was  say- 
ing, and  also  that  it  was  something  of  peculiar  scope  and  breadth. 
Even  trivial  things  he  pronounced  in  a  manner  that  seemed  to  give 
them  weight  and  consequence.  An  illogical  argument  fared  better 
in  his  hands  than  at  the  hands  of  anybody  else,  and  seemed  at  the 
time  more  convincing  than  when  one  went  over  it  afterward  alone, 
in  order  to  reassure  himself.  It  is  much  to  be  suspected  that  he 
sometimes  amused  himself,  as  well  as  more  often  deceived  himself, 
by  the  overpersuasion  he  was  enabled  to  effect,  particularly  with 
students,  by  reasonings  really  fallacious.  But  given  a  fair  cause, 
capable  of  being  supported  by  sound  arguments,  and  the  impression 
was  invariably  favorable  to  the  cause  and  favorable  to  himself, 
through  a  large  way  he  had  of  looking  at  things  in  general,  and 
that  cause  in  particular,  and  also  through  a  way  he  had  of  disarm- 
ing prejudice  by  disclaiming  advocacy.  Sometimes  he  seemed  at 
the  outset  to  be  about  to  give  away  his  case  wholly,  in  order  to 
take  it  back  again  amplified  and  reenforced  at  every  point.  It  was 
not  that  he  was  more  learned  than  other  speakers,  for  the  contrary 
was  rather  the  fact ;  it  was  not  that  he  was  more  earnest  and  elo- 
quent than  others,  for  he  rarely  rose  to  much  of  personal  warmth 
in  any  stage  of  the  discussion ;  but  it  was  that  he  made  it  plain  at 
the  outset  that  he  was  in  wide  command  both  in  thought  and  lan- 
guage of  the  whole  field,  and  seemed  to  demonstrate  that  it  was 
safe  and  sensible  for  every  hearer  to  go  with  him  readily  along  the 
broad  highway  to  his  foregone  conclusion.  Much  the  same  quali- 
ties appeared  in  all  his  printed  books,  and  tended  to  make  them 
popular  and  effective.  He  dreaded  to  be,  and  had  little  occasion 
to  be,  a  disputant ;  and  as  to  becoming  a  belligerent,  it  was  not  in 


BACKWARD    AND    FORWARD.  783 

his  make-up,  and  no  part  of  his  divine  call  in  the  service  of  his 
fellow-men. 

(2)  Few  are  the  men  of  whom  it  can  be  reasonably  said,  that 
they  produced  distinct  and  decided  currents  in  the  movements  of 
their  generation,  and  even  this  cannot  be  surely  affirmed,  until  that 
generation  be  well  past;  and  in  regard  to  Mark  Hopkins,  it  is 
already  pretty  clear  that  he  did  not  belong  to  that  select  few ;  but 
he  belonged  to  another  class  of  men  not  more  in  point  of  number, 
and  perhaps  eventually  even  more  influential ;  that  class,  namely, 
whose  members  have  the  ability  and  the  opportunity  to  impress 
themselves  and  their  own  germinant  ideas  recurrently  year  after 
year,  upon  scores  after  scores  of  gifted  young  men,  who,  in  turn, 
diffuse  their  own  impressions  upon  hundreds  and  thousands  of  their 
countrymen,  and  so  on  interminably.  Mark  Hopkins  was  first  of 
all,  and  more  than  all,  a  teacher  of  young  men.  He  chose  that 
early  as  his  function  in  life.  He  had  special  capacities  for  it  that 
were  congenital,  and  he  schooled  himself  in  it  by  patient  observa- 
tion, and  through  mistakes  and  recovered  tendencies  that  were 
better.  He  could  teach,  and  he  knew  it.  His  successive  classes 
knew  it.  The  community  knew  it.  The  country  came  to  know  it 
very  well.  This  process  went  on  practically  unimpaired  for  forty 
years.  He  taught  large  numbers  of  those  who  came  in  turn  to  be 
teachers,  and  who  transmitted  to  others,  if  not  a  method,  at  least 
the  spirit  of  a  method.  Here  and  there,  one  —  possibly  one  in  ten 
years  on  the  average  —  went  out  from  his  class-room  to  become  as 
good  a  teacher  as  himself.  It  was  as  a  living  teacher  that  Mark 
Hopkins  was  incomparable.  It  was  from  this  fount  flowed  his 
influence  and  his  distinction.  It  was  not  so  much  what  he  taught, 
considered  as  substance  of  doctrine.  He  founded  no  school  in 
metaphysics  or  ethics.  He  looked  directly  for  himself,  and  he 
taught  the  most  capable  of  his  pupils  to  look  directly,  upon  the 
phenomena  of  mind  and  morals  through  introspection  open  alike 
to  all.  He  could  not  be  said  to  teach  a  system  of  his  own  in  either 
of  the  two  great  branches  of  philosophy ;  although  it  is  true  that  he 
threw  into  new  relations  and  dependencies  certain  sections  of  both 
of  those  vast  fields  of  thought,  particularly  that  of  morals. 

What  was  vital  and  distinctive,  and  most  worthy  to  be  remembered 
is,  that  in  his  best  hours  he  put  himself  into  instant  and  constant  com- 
munication with  the  best,  that  is,  the  most  receptive,  of  his  pupils, 
to  investigate  with  him  while  he  investigated  anew  each  recondite 
topic  as  it  came  before  them.  He  asked  them  questions  in  order  to 
encourage  them  to  ask  questions.  There  were  hazards  in  this 


784  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

method,  of  course.  The  discussions  sometimes  straggled  on  to  no 
purpose  and  no  end.  There  were  always  some  in  each  class  who  did 
not  follow  to  profit  any  of  this  talk.  But  there  were  almost  always 
some  who  learned  something  in  every  excursion,  however  tentative 
and  apparently  futile.  To  learn  to  inquire,  to  learn  to  postulate,  to 
learn  to  discriminate,  and  to  learn  to  conclude  at  least  a  little,  was 
the  task  perpetually  laid  before  those  young  men.  In.  nearly  every 
class  of  the  forty  to  which  reference  has  just  been  made,  there  were 
one  or  two  or  more  who  caught  his  knack  of  studying  directly 
these  invisible  phenomena,  and  who  became  in  time  philosophers 
themselves,  if  not  in  the  strictly  technical  sense  of  that  term  (as  a 
considerable  number  of  them  did),  yet  philosophers  in  the  etymo- 
logical sense  of  the  term,  and  so  influential  in  transmitting  to  wide 
and  diverse  circles  of  men  elements  of  permanent  power  that  had 
their  start  in  the  Mark  Hopkins  lecture-room.  Again,  there  were 
in  each  of  those  forty  classes  one  or  two  young  men  who  were  pon- 
dering the  point  of  becoming  foreign  missionaries.  The  College  was 
considered  and  often  called  the  missionary  college.  The  Hopkins 
brothers  were  men  of  a  strong  missionary  spirit,  though  it  was  mani- 
fested in  each  in  a  peculiar  way.  These  inchoate  missionaries 
watched  and  welcomed  the  manner  of  instruction  in  that  lecture- 
room  with  an  interest  accentuated  by  some  prospect  of  their  need- 
ing to  use  it  themselves  in  a  foreign  land  through  a  foreign  language 
for  simple  but  divine  purposes.  After  Hopkins  became  president  of 
the  American  Board,  which  fell  in  1857,  Williams  graduates  in 
foreign  fields  renewed  their  interest  in  him  and  in  his  books,  and  on 
their  return  to  this  country  from  time  to  time,  they  as  well  as  others 
continually  going  out,  looked  upon  him  as  their  intellectual  and 
spiritual  father ;  to  the  general  result  that  he  came  into  moral  pos- 
session of  remarkable  influence  even  in  the  lands  of  the  heathen. 
Providence  opened  up  to  him  both  at  home  and  abroad  paths  of  ac- 
cess and  impression  trod  in  the  same  sense  and  to  the  same  degree 
by  no  other  public  educator  among  his  contemporaries. 

(3)  Mark  Hopkins  became  a  distinguished  preacher.  That  was 
not  his  original  calling.  He  had  no  special  preparation  of  any  kind 
for  that  profession.  It  was  incidental  to  his  professorship  in  1830, 
and  particularly  to  his  presidency  in  1836.  He  always  recognized 
the  authority  of  the  Bible  in  the  common  English  version,  and  never 
took  any  occasion  to  inquire  critically  into  the  sources  and  sanctions 
of  that  authority.  No  such  questions  ever  really  came  before  his 
mind.  He  happily  escaped  altogether  the  problems  sweeping  down 
irresistibly  upon  the  next  generation  of  Christian  ministers.  He 


BACKWARD    AND   FORWARD.  785 

found  by  experience  the  enlightening  and  healing  power  of  all  parts 
of  the  Scriptures,  and  he  interpreted  them  to  others  in  the  light  of 
those  principles  of  knowledge  and  duty  that  he  accepted  for  himself. 
He  exhibited  on  ordinary  occasions  ordinary  Christian  truth  in  a 
plain  and  forcible  way.  These  sermons  cost  him  very  little  time  in 
their  preparation.  They  were  useful,  but  in  no  way  extraordinary. 
But  when  the  unusual  occasion  and  opportunity  offered  itself,  he  was 
prompt  to  meet  it  with  elaborate  preparation,  and  with  results  that 
were  striking  and  permanent.  Such,  for  example  merely,  was  his 
special  sermon  before  the  American  Board,  1845,  and  the  Election 
sermon,  1839,  and  the  series  of  Baccalaureate  sermons  in  general, 
1850-72,  of  which  "Strength  and  Beauty"  (1851),  "Eagles' 
Wings  "  (1858),  "  Spirit,  Soul,  and  Body "  (1869),  made  the  most 
powerful  impression  at  the  time  of  their  delivery.  To  these  labored 
and  finished  discourses  of  the  days  of  his  scarcely  diminished  strength, 
should  be  added  a  reference  in  this  connection  to  three  or  four  of  his 
unwritten  addresses  at  the  annual  meetings  of  the  American  Board 
delivered  in  his  capacity  of  president  of  that  body  during  the  last 
decade  of  his  life.  Eepresentatives  of  all  the  continents  and  of  the 
islands  of  the  sea  present  singly  or  in  groups  at  these  annual  gather- 
ings were  astonished  as  well  as  delighted  at  the  breadth  and  fore- 
cast and  unmistakable  power  of  these  apparently  ex  tempore  speeches 
of  a  man  about  eighty  years  old. 

4.  DAVID  DUDLEY  FIELD.  Born  in  Haddam,  Connecticut  in  1805, 
where  his  father  of  the  same  name  was  pastor  of  the  Congregational 
church,  died  in  New  York  in  1894.  The  father  moved  to  Stock- 
bridge  as  pastor  when  this  the  eldest  son  was  fourteen  years  old, 
who  came  at  once  under  the  instruction  and  influence  of  Jared  Cur- 
tis of  the  Williams  class  of  1800,  and  into  intimate  associations  with 
Mark  and  Albert  Hopkins.  Mark  was  three  years  older  than  Dud- 
ley. The  friendship  thus  begun  in  boyhood,  and  continued  in  col- 
lege, prevailed  unweakened  throughout  a  long  lifetime,  till  the 
earthly  tie  was  snapped  in  1887  by  the  death  of  the  elder.  The 
next  year,  in  a  public  address  here,  the  other  said  of  his  friend : 
"He  was  to  me  as  a  brother.  We  started  on  the  voyage  of  Life  to- 
gether, from  the  same  shore,  each  in  his  own  bark,  but  keeping  always 
within  hailing  distance  of  each  other.  I  knew,  as  he  knew,  that  if  evil 
befell  either,  the  other  would  hasten  to  the  rescue.  We  have  had  our 
good  and  our  evil  days,  but  the  good  have  prevailed  over  the  evil.  Now 
from  my  bark  still  lingering  on  the  sea,  I  wave  my  parting  salutation  to 
him  safely  landed  on  the  shore." 

Entering  college  as  a  Freshman  in  1821,  young  Field  at  once 
SB 


786  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

distinguished  himself  as  the  scholar  of  the  class,  a  rank  he  held 
till  the  close  of  his  course.  He  also  proved  himself  an  active  leader 
in  all  legitimate  enterprises,  such  as  college  students  are  likely  to 
be  interested  in.  As  a  single  example  of  this,  he  organized  a  con- 
siderable body  of  the  students  in  1824,  when  La  Fayette  was  visiting 
this  country  and  about  to  pass  through  Berkshire,  to  go  down  to 
Pittsfield,  and,  as  representing  the  College,  to  pay  their  reverence 
to  the  great  Frenchman.  This  incident,  trifling  in  itself,  presaged 
in  a  boy  of  nineteen  a  natural  leadership  among  men  when  life 
should  open  before  him  more  fully,  and  especially  a  peculiar  interest 
in  the  great  events  of  the  world  and  in  its  public  men.  This  visit 
of  La  Fayette,  which  lasted  more  than  a  year,  was  one  long  ovation. 
Congress  made  him  a  gift  of  $200,000  and  of  24,000  acres  of  land. 
He  entered  into  friendly  relations  with  President  Monroe ;  with 
John  Quincy  Adams,  who  was  elected  President  during  his  sojourn ; 
with  John  Adams,  and  Albert  Gallatin,  and  Daniel  Webster;  and 
he  was  also  Jefferson's  guest  at  Monticello.  While  still  a  college 
student,  Field  had  determined  to  become  a  lawyer,  and  in  the 
autumn  after  his  graduation  he  studied  for  a  short  time  in  Albany, 
and  soon  passed  down  to  New  York  to  enter  the  office  of  Henry  and 
Robert  Sedgwick,  both  sons  of  Judge  Theodore  Sedgwick,  and  both 
graduates  of  Williams  College  in  1804.  Field  was  admitted  to  the 
bar  in  1828,  and  practised  with  the  Sedgwicks,  his  teachers,  until 
the  death  in  1831  of  Henry,  the  elder  and  abler  of  the  two  brothers, 
when  he  entered  into  partnership  with  the  other,  Kobert,  who  also 
fell  a  victim  to  excessive  professional  labor,  and  died  in  1841. 
From  that  time  certainly,  even  if  not  before,  David  Dudley  Field 
stepped  into  the  very  front  rank  of  American  practitioners  at  the 
bar,  and  held  this  place  unquestioned  by  anybody  for  fully  forty 
years. 

The  influence  of  the  Sedgwicks  upon  Field  was  at  least  in  a 
general  way  as  distinct  and  pronounced  as  was  that  of  the  members 
of  the  same  family  upon  Bryant,  as  previously  noted  in  these  pages. 
Next  to  Field  himself,  Henry  Sedgwick  was  the  most  distinguished 
lawyer  graduated  at  Williams  College  in  its  first  century.  It  is  not 
generally  known,  but  it  is  certainly  true,  that  the  dissenting  opinion 
given  by  Judge  Theodore  Sedgwick  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Massa- 
chusetts in  1810,  in  the  case  of  Greenwood  versus  Curtis,  was 
written  by  his  son,  Henry  Dwight.  It  is  still  more  relevant  in  the 
present  connection  to  notice  that  the  Sedgwick  brothers,  and  par- 
ticularly Henry,  were  earnest  advocates  of  law  reform  and  of  a 
codification  of  the  laws,  while  David  Dudley  Field  was  still  in 


DAVID    DUDLEY    FIELD, 
W.  C.,    1825. 


BACKWARD    AND    FORWARD.  787 

college.  In  1822  Henry  Sedgwick  published  an  elaborate  pamphlet 
entitled  "  The  Evils  and  Absurdities  of  the  Practice  of  the  English 
Common  Law."  He  also  published  in  the  North  American  Review 
various  articles  on  the  common  law,  its  possible  modifications,  and 
its  practicable  codification  in  connection  with  some  of  the  leading 
principles  of  the  civil  law  of  Rome.  The  common  law  of  England, 
as  it  was  practised  in  the  American  colonies  and  later  in  most  of 
the  American  States,  was  a  huge,  indigestible  mass  of  judge-made 
law,  full  of  contradictions,  quite  inaccessible  to  the  minds  of  the 
people  for  whose  benefit  alone  it  had  been  ostensibly  pronounced, 
and  consequently,  as  Sedgwick  claimed  and  proved  in  his  pamphlet 
of  1822,  full  of  "evils  and  absurdities."  Edward  Livingston,  a 
graduate  of  Princeton,  belonging  to  a  family  in  New  York  fully  as 
distinguished  as  the  Sedgwicks  in  New  England,  probably  ante- 
dated by  a  little  the  labors  of  the  Sedgwicks  in  behalf  of  a  simple 
and  rational  codification.  While  studying  law  with  his  brother 
Robert,  Edward  Livingston  had  devoted  special  attention  to  the 
Roman  jurisprudence.  The  purchase  of  Louisiana  by  the  United 
States  was  accomplished  through  the  negotiations  of  his  brother 
with  Napoleon  at  Paris ;  and  a  marvellous  set  of  circumstances 
made  Edward  Livingston  a  citizen  and  lawyer  of  New  Orleans ;  and 
in  1820  he  had  been  appointed  to  draw  up  a  code  of  civil  procedure 
for  Louisiana.  This  proved  so  admirable,  that  he  was  shortly  after 
empowered  to  reduce  to  a  system  the  then  confused  body  of  the 
civil  laws  of  Louisiana.  He  had  to  aid  him  the  some  time  before 
completed  Code  Napoleon,  also  the  nomenclature  of  Scotch  law,  and 
a  familiar  acquaintance  with  all  that  was  most  valuable  in  the 
English  jurisprudence.  Thus  was  produced,  and  reported,  and 
adopted  in  1823,  the  "Civil  Code  of  Louisiana,"  undoubtedly  the 
most  successful  adaptation  of  the  civil  law  to  the  conditions  of 
modern  society  ever  made.  The  Sedgwick  brothers  made  the  most 
they  could  out  of  the  Louisiana  labors  of  Livingston,  although  the 
conditions  in  the  State  of  New  York  were  very  different  from  those 
in  the  French  colony  and  State  of  Louisiana.  There  was  of  course 
no  such  prejudice  there  against  Latin  forms  and  principles  as  a 
similar  movement  was  sure  to  encounter  in  the  Dutch  and  English 
usages  intrenched  on  the  banks  of  the  Hudson. 

What  makes  all  these  statements  pertinent  to  the  present  place 
and  purpose  is,  that  two  extraordinarily  gifted  lawyers,  both  gradu- 
ates of  Williams  College  in  1804,  were  among  the  very  first  in  this 
country  powerfully  to  advocate  in  the  name  of  the  people  the  great 
cause  of  the  simplification  and  certitude  of  the  laws.  Both  died 


788  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

before  the  cause  had  been  thoroughly  argued  over  the  continent; 
but  they  had  admitted  into  their  counsels  and  imbued  with  their 
spirit  another  graduate  of  Williams,  destined  to  eclipse  them  both, 
—  a  young  man  of  powerful  frame,  of  tireless  industry,  of  incisive 
and  ever  broadening  mental  grasp  and  dignity,  who  expended  hercu- 
lean labors  in  his  life-work  initiated  by  them,  and  who  lived  to  see 
the  practical  triumph  in  most  of  the  States  of  the  Union  of  parts  at 
least  of  his  own  codifications  of  the  law.  It  was  in  several  respects 
like  Gladstone's  apprenticeship  to  Sir  Robert  Peel  in  the  English 
House  of  Commons.  Peel  was  Gladstone's  master  and  model. 
What  Peel  began,  Gladstone  ultimately  completed  and  amplified. 
Peel  was  almost  forgotten  in  the  longer  parliamentary  life  and 
broader  sweeps  of  the  policy  of  Gladstone.  So  the  Sedgwicks  fared 
in  their  relations  to  Field.  They  helped  to  teach  him  not  only  the 
law  as  it  was,  but  also  the  law  as  it  ought  to  become.  But  the 
pupil  came  after  a  while  to  surpass  his  teachers  in  both  these 
respects.  Time  is  a  great  element  in  success  and  in  reputation. 
Gladstone  sat  for  sixty-three  years  in  Parliament.  Field  pleaded  at 
the  bar  in  New  York,  and  labored  conspicuously  and  successfully  at 
home  and  abroad  in  behalf  of  betterments  of  the  law  both  civil  and 
international,  for  sixty-three  years  also.  The  beneficent  results  of 
codification  in  this  country  were  best  displayed  in  the  States  of 
Louisiana  and  California.  So  far  as  the  latter  was  concerned  in 
this  regard,  there  was  a  point  of  much  interest  connected  with 
David  Dudley  Field,  and  with  Williams  College  too.  Stephen  J. 
Field  of  the  class  of  1837,  of  which  he  was  the  valedictorian, 
studied  law  with  his  brother  in  New  York,  and  after  his  admission 
to  the  bar  became  his  partner  till  1848,  when  for  the  second  time  he 
went  abroad,  and  passed  a  year  and  a  half  in  Europe,  employed 
chiefly  in  expanding  his  early  knowledge  of  the  French  and  other 
continental  languages.  Returning  in  the  autumn  of  1849,  he  joined 
in  the  emigration  then  just  beginning  to  California,  settled  in  a  place 
where  now  stands  the  city  of  Marysville,  and  was  elected  informally 
the  first  alcalde  or  judge,  holding  office  until  the  organization  of  the 
judiciary  under  the  first  constitution  of  the  State.  The  jurisdiction 
exercised  by  him  in  the  anomalous  condition  of  society  in  California 
at  that  time  was  practically  unlimited.  As  a  member  of  the  Legis- 
lature of  1850,  he  framed  the  Judiciary  Act  of  the  State,  most  of 
whose  provisions  were  retained  in  the  later  code,  over  whose  sub- 
stance and  form  he  exerted  the  controlling  influence.  In  the  same 
capacity  as  a  legislator  and  at  the  same  time  he  framed  the  mining 
laws  of  the  State,  later  adopted  by  other  mining  regions  of  the 


BACKWARD    AND    FORWARD.  789 

country,  and  at  length  by  the  Congress  of  the  United  States.  As  a 
judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  California  from  1857  to  1863,  Field 
by  his  decisions  and  influence  permanently  settled  the  law  of  real 
property  for  his  State.  President  Lincoln  in  1863  appointed  Judge 
Field  an  associate  justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States, 
whose  functions  he  fulfilled  for  a  longer  time  than  any  other  occu- 
pant of  that  bench  had  ever  done,  when  he  resigned  them  in  1897. 

What  Edward  Livingston  and  the  Sedgwicks  had  well  begun  in 
behalf  of  law  reform,  David  Dudley  Field  carried  on  indefatigably 
throughout  a  long  life.  As  early  as  1839,  two  years  before  the  death 
of  the  younger  Sedgwick,  he  published  his  first  essay  on  the  subject, 
pointing  out  again  the  defects  of  the  old  system,  and  the  necessity  of 
the  reconstruction  of  the  modes  of  legal  procedure.  This  was  fol- 
lowed up  by  a  succession  of  similar  articles  till  1847,  when  the  Legis- 
lature of  New  York  appointed  him  a  commissioner  on  practice  and 
pleadings,  and  as  such  he  took  the  leading  part  in  the  preparation 
of  the  code  of  procedure,  whose  design  it  was  to  abolish  the  old 
distinctions  between  the  forms  of  action,  and  particularly  to 
obliterate  the  difference  between  legal  and  equitable  suits,  so  that 
all  the  rights  of  the  parties  may  be  determined  in.  one  action.  In 
1857  the  Legislature  appointed  him  at  the  head  of  a  new  commission 
to  prepare  a  political  code,  a  penal  code,  and  a  civil  code,  works 
designed  to  contain,  with  the  two  codes  of  procedure,  the  whole 
body  of  the  Law.  These  codes  were  all  laboriously  prepared  and 
reported ;  but  their  adoption  was  bitterly  opposed  by  the  great  body 
of  the  lawyers  of  the  State,  because  the  codes  tended  to  make  com- 
mon and  easy  the  knowledge  of  the  law,  which  the  lawyers  wished 
to  keep  as  a  monopoly  of  their  own.  Said  Mr.  Field  in  his  old  age, 
namely,  in  1886 :  "  This  condition  of  things  will  last  forever,  unless 
the  people  take  the  matter  into  their  own  hands.  The  lawyers  as  a 
body  never  did  begin  a  reform  of  the  law,  and  judging  from  experi- 
ence, they  never  will.  The  reform  must  be  the  work  of  laymen, 
aided  by  a  minority  of  the  lawyers."  This  was  spoken  in  general. 
On  the  same  occasion  he  spoke  in  particular  as  follows : 

Perhaps  I  may  be  expected  to  say  something  about  codification  in  the  State 
of  New  York,  the  pioneer  Commonwealth  in  the  work  of  law  reform,  though  I 
am  sorry  to  say  it  has  paused  in  mid  career.  We  have  had  here  as  earnest  a 
contention  as  was  ever  had  in  any  work.  Of  the  five  codes  prepared,  three  have 
become  laws.  The  Political  Code  need  not  be  brought  into  the  discussion,  for  it 
is  chiefly  a  compilation  of  existing  statutes,  relating  to  the  government  of  the 
State  and  the  functions  of  its  public  officers.  The  Civil  Code,  the  most  impor- 
tant of  all,  has  been  once  rejected  by  the  Assembly,  and  twice  passed  by  both 


790  WILLIAMSTOWX    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

Assembly  and  Senate,  but  failed  to  receive  the  approval  of  the  Governors.  The 
onslaughts  that  have  been  made  upon  it,  the  falsehoods  that  have  been  told 
respecting  it,  the  means  that  have  been  resorted  to  for  its  defeat,  would  form  a 
chapter  of  legal  history  which  I  hope  yet  to  see  written,  amusing  and  instructive, 
for  the  information  of  the  world,  touching  the  devious  ways  of  prejudice  and 
ignorance.  It  has  been  objected  that  the  code  is  too  long,  and  that  it  is  too  short ; 
that  it  has  too  many  new  phrases ;  and  too  many  old  ones  ;  that  it  changes  the 
law,  and  does  not  change  it ;  and  so  on  to  the  end  of  the  score  of  objections. 

The  Sedgwick  brothers  were  not  only  good  lawyers  and  strenuous 
if  not  original  advocates  of  law  reform,  but  they  were  also  good 
Democrats  in  the  Jeffersonian  sense  of  that  good  word,  and  conse- 
quently were  devoted  free  traders  and  radical  antislavery  men.  In 
each  and  every  of  these  regards,  David  Dudley  Field  warmly  adopted 
the  views  and  the  practical  line  of  action  of  his  teachers,  because  the 
views  commended  themselves  to  his  inner  sense  of  what  was  fair 
and  right  and  divine.  These  views  grew  stronger  and  stronger 
within  him,  and  were  expressed  in  firmer  and  firmer  outward  action, 
as  he  grew  older  and  as  experience  of  the  influence  and  results  of 
the  opposite  sentiments  demonstrated  to  his  mind  their  inequality 
and  injustice  and  iniquity.  He  acted  politically  with  the  Democratic 
party  so  long  as  its  leaders  were  faithful  to  the  fundamentals  of 
Jefferson ;  and  in  1856  he  publicly  broke  away  from  that  historical 
organization  for  reasons  expressed  in  the  opening  paragraph  of  his 
speech  in  convention  at  Syracuse,  which  was  in  terms  following,  to 
wit :  — 

Fellow-Democrats :  The  time  has  come  for  Democrats  to  declare  their  inde- 
pendence of  those  packed  conventions  which  have  lately  assumed  to  dictate  the 
measures  and  the  candidates  of  the  Democracy.  That  party  of  glorious  memory, 
.which  once  spoke  and  acted  for  freedom,  has  fallen  into  the  hands  of  office- 
holders and  political  adventurers,  serving  as  the  tools  of  a  slaveholding  oligar- 
chy. For  more  than  ten  years  the  measures  of  the  General  Government  have 
been  directed  mainly  to  the  increase  of  Slave  States.  One  measure  has  followed 
upon  another,  each  bolder  than  the  last,  until  we  have  violence  ruling  in  the 
Federal  Capitol,  and  civil  war  raging  in  the  Territories. 

The  reference  in  this  passage  to  "  violence  ruling  in  the  Federal 
capitol,"  was  to  the  cowardly  and  murderous  assault  on  Senator 
Sumner  by  Congressman  Brooks  of  South  Carolina.  Mr.  Field 
never  wavered  in  his  private  and  public'  opposition  to  slavery,  in 
season  or  out  of  season,  till  it  was  exterminated  on  this  continent. 
His  speech  before  the  Peace  Congress  of  the  States  at  Washington 
in  February,  1861,  was  a  marvel  of  conciliatory  firmness  and  philo- 
sophical forecast,  displaying  an  ability  to  read  to  the  bottom  the 


BACKWARD    AND    FORWARD.  791 

hearts  of  men  both  South  and  North.  He  resumed  his  political 
affiliations  with  the  Democratic  party  upon  the  nomination  for  the 
presidency  of  Governor  Tilden  of  New  York,  in  1876.  He  and 
Governor  Tilden  had  been  neighbors  for  years,  and  each  knew  the 
ability  and  uprightness  and  steadfastness  of  the  other;  and  when 
the  infamous  purpose  of  the  leaders  of  the  Republican  party  to 
"count  out"  Governor  Tilden,  who  was  elected,  and  to  "count  in" 
Governor  Hayes,  who  was  not  elected,  manifested  itself,  Mr.  Field 
published  a  pamphlet  in  January,  before  the  "  count, "  and  another 
in  March,  after  the  "count,"  both  maintaining  the  constitutional 
and  righteous  election  of  Tilden  in  such  an  irrefragable  manner, 
at  every  point,  that  no  attempt  was  ever  made  by  anybody  to  over- 
throw or  even  to  weaken  the  arguments.1  The  twenty-two  years 
already  elapsed  between  the  prediction  of  Mr.  Field  as  to  the  per- 
petrators of  that  portentous  fraud  and  the  present  writing,  con- 
firmed the  substance  of  it  over  and  over  again.  —  "  The  moral  sense 
of  the  whole  American  people  was  shocked.  No  form  of  words  can 
cover  up  the  falsehood ;  no  sophistry  can  hide  it;  no  lapse  of  time  wash 
it  out.  It  will  follow  its  contrivers  wherever  they  go,  confront  them 
whenever  they  turn,  and  as  often  as  one  of  them  asks  the  suffrages  of 
his  countrymen,  he  may  expect  to  hear  them  reply,  '  Why  do  you  reason 
with  us,  why  seek  to  persuade  us  into  giving  you  our  votes,  you  that 
have  taught  us  such  a  contempt  for  votes,  that  one  fraudulent  certificate 
is  better  than  ten  thousand  of  them  f ' ' 

Mr.  Field's  fidelity  to  the  noble  cause  of  free  trade  was  unswerv- 
ing from  youth  to  age.  On  accepting  the  presidency  of  the  Ameri- 
can Free  Trade  League,  in  succession  to  Mr.  Bryant,  he  paid  a 
notable  compliment,  in  words,  to  the  latter  for  his  lifelong  services 
to  the  people  against  the  greed  and  plunder  of  the  protectionists ; 
while  he  paid  at  the  same  time,  in  act,  a  still  more  notable  com- 
pliment to  the  good  cause  by  consenting  to  bestow  in  its  behalf  the 
scanty  leisure  he  could  find  or  make  from  his  own  most  exacting 
vocations.  In  the  writer's  judgment,  there  was  never  a  prouder 
moment  in  the  history  of  Williams  College  than  that  moment  when, 
in  the  city  of  New  York,  scanned  by  the  eager  gaze  of  a  crowd  of 
earnest  and  disinterested  men,  her  most  distinguished  son,  all  things 
considered,  passed  over  to  her  next  most  distinguished  son,  all 
things  considered,  the  robe  of  an  office  worn  by  both  simply  and 
solely  for  the  unmixed  good  of  the  whole  people  and  of  the  whole 
world ! 

Even  more  than  William  Cullen  Bryant,  and  much  more  than  any 
i  See  Vol.  II.  of  the  Works  of  David  Dudley  Field,  pp.  88-127. 


792  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

other  one  of  all  the  sons  of  Williams,  did  David  Dudley  Field  hold 
a  position  of  great  honor  and  influence  in  each  of  the  countries  of 
western  Europe.  This  was  owing  in  part  to  the  admiration  of 
the  European  lawyers  and  judges  for  the  compactness  and  symmetry 
and  beauty  of  his  Civil  Code  of  New  York.  England  has  always 
been  known  as  a  proud  country.  She  has  always  been  specially 
proud  of  her  common  law.  Nevertheless  Field  lived  to  see  enact- 
ment after  enactment  of  the  British  Parliament,  embodying  princi- 
ples and  forms  originally  from  the  civil  law  of  Rome,  but  so 
combined  and  transfused  with  the  spirit  if  not  the  letter  of  the 
common  law  of  England,  largely  the  work  of  Field  himself,  that 
Lords  and  Commons  saw  the  superiority  of  the  new  to  the  old,  and 
legislated  it  into  the  British  statute-book.  Most  of  all  did  this 
homage  appear  in  the  "  Supreme  Court  of  Judicature  Act."  Shortly 
after  the  passage  of  that  act  by  Parliament  some  one  asked  Mr.  Field 
in  the  writer's  presence,  "Did  not  Parliament  borrow  from  your 
Code  in  that  Act  ?  "  His  exultant  reply  was,  "  It  is  my  code  !  " 
In  still  greater  part,  however,  was  Mr.  Field's  European  position 
owing  to  his  labors  in  conjunction  with  the  foremost  publicists  of 
Europe  in  behalf  of  a  Code  of  International  Law.  The  success  in 
the  United  States  and  in  England  of  the  New  York  codes  led  on  to 
those  more  cosmopolitan  attempts  to  improve  the  law  of  nations. 
In  a  banquet  given  to  Mr.  Field  in  London  by  the  Law  Reform 
Society,  of  which  Lord  Brougham  was  the  president,  it  was  said  that 
those  New  York  codes  were  being  introduced  into  the  most  distant 
British  colonies,  so  that  "  an  American  was  giving  law  to  Australia." 
When  at  length  a  commission  was  appointed  by  the  English  crown, 
composed  of  three  lord  chancellors  and  other  eminent  legal  authori- 
ties, to  consider  and  report  on  the  whole  subject  of  a  revision  of  the 
body  of  the  English  law,  in  their  first  report  to  Parliament  they 
spoke  of  the  revised  codes  of  New  York  as  a  marvel  of  achievement, 
and  also  referred  to  Mr.  Field  by  name  as  having  rendered  to  them 
valuable  assistance  in  explaining  personally  the  details  of  these 
codes,  and  their  method  of  revision,  thus  shedding  light  on  their 
own  future  labors.  As  these  labors  went  forward,  John  Bright  was 
led  to  say  that  he  "  wished  they  had  some  man  like  Mr.  Field  in 
England  to  do  for  this  country  what  he  had  done  for  America." 

At  a  meeting  in  1866  at  Manchester  of  the  British  Association  for 
the  Promotion  of  Social  Science,  Field  called  the  attention  of  that 
body  to  the  unsettled  condition  of  international  law,  which  led  to 
frequent  disputes  between  nations  like  that  relating  to  the  ship 
Alabama,  and  made  a  proposal  for  a  general  revision  and  reform  of 


BACKWARD    AND    FORWARD.  793 

the  law  of  nations  to  be  ultimately  adopted  by  all  civilized  coun- 
tries in  the  interest  of  universal  peace  and  good-will.  In  accordance 
with  the  suggestion  a  commission  was  appointed  to  prepare  a  formal 
international  code,  consisting  of  eminent  jurists  of  Europe  and 
America.  As  a  member  of  this  commission,  and  acting  on  his  own 
proposal,  Mr.  Field  labored  for  seven  years,  and  completed  in  1873  a 
work  entitled  "  Outlines  of  an  International  Code,"  which  he  presented 
to  the  Social  Science  Congress  of  that  year.  It  met  with  very  favor- 
able criticism  from  eminent  jurists  all  over  the  world.  But  what- 
ever of  this  sort  might  emanate  from  a  British  association  was  sure 
to  encounter  prejudice  from  nations  for  any  reason  hostile  to  Eng- 
land, and  so  in  that  year,  1873,  Mr.  Field  became  the  first  president 
of  a  new  association  formed  at  Brussels  for  the  same  purpose  as  the 
other,  namely,  the  form  and  the  codification  of  the  law  of  nations. 
It  was  differentiated  from  the  other  mainly  in  this,  that  it  pro- 
claimed as  one  of  its  chief  objects  the  substitution  of  arbitration  for 
war  in  the  settlement  of  all  international  disputes. 

So  and  in  other  similar  labors  of  broad-minded  beneficence,  always 
including  painstaking  toward  the  welfare  of  Williams  College, 
passed  the  old  age  of  David  Dudley  Field.  On  his  eighty-seventh 
birthday,  Feb.  13,  1892,  he  wrote  the  following  lines  which  were 
specially  printed  over  his  own  name.  A  copy  was  sent  to  one  of  the 
professors  of  the  College,  and  at  the  same  time  a  photograph  of 
himself  taken  on  the  same  day,  both  of  which  are  herewith  repro- 
duced. 

LINES   WRITTEN   ON   MY   87TH   BIRTHDAY. 

What  is  it  now  to  live  ?    It  is  to  breathe 

The  air  of  Heaven,  and  behold  the  pleasant  earth, 

The  shining  rivers,  the  inconstant  sea, 

Sublimity  of  mountains,  wealth  of  clouds, 

And  radiance  o'er  all  of  countless  stars. 

It  is  to  sit  before  the  cheerful  hearth 

With  groups  of  friends  and  kindred,  store  of  books, 

Rich  heritage  from  ages  past, 

Hold  sweet  communion,  soul  with  soul, 

O'er  things  now  past,  or  present,  or  to  come, 

Or  muse  alone  upon  my  earlier  days, 

Unbind  the  scroll,  whereon  is  writ 

The  story  of  my  busy  life, 

Mistakes  too  often,  but  successes  more, 

And  consciousness  of  duty  done. 

It  is  to  see  with  laughing  eyes  the  play 

Of  children  sporting  on  the  lawn, 

Or  mark  the  eager  strifes  of  men 


794  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

And  nations,  seeking  each  and  all, 
Belike  advantage  to  obtain 
Above  their  fellows  ;  such  is  man  ! 
It  is  to  feel  the  pulses  quicken,  as  I  hear 
Of  great  events  near  or  afar, 
Whereon  may  turn  perchance 
The  fate  of  generations,  ages  hence. 
It  is  to  rest  with  folded  arms  betimes, 
And  so  surrounded,  so  sustained, 
Ponder  on  what  may  yet  befall 
In  that  unknown  mysterious  realm 
Which  lies  beyond  the  range  of  mortal  ken, 
Where  souls  immortal  do  forever  dwell, 
Think  of  the  loved  ones  who  await  me  there, 
And  without  murmuring  or  inward  grief, 
With  mind  unbroken  and  no  fear, 
No  cares  and  no  resentments  even, 
Calmly  await  the  coming  of  the  Lord. 

DAVID  DUDLEY  FIELD. 
February  13,  1892. 

In  taking  its  final  leave  of  David  Dudley  Field,  a  book  entitled 
" William stown  and  Williams  College"  cannot  forbear  printing 
another  poem  of  his  written  almost  exactly  fifty  years  earlier  than 
the  one  just  quoted. 

GREYLOCK. 

Thy  summit,  Greylock,  gives  the  straining  eye 
Visions  of  beauty  o'er  that  glorious  land, 
That  lies  around  thee  ;  valleys  broad  and  green, 
Teeming  with  corn,  and  flocks,  and  men's  abodes ; 
And  countless  hills ;  and  the  far  mountain  ridge, 
Whose  roots  strike  deeper  than  the  ocean's  depths, 
And  whose  blue  line,  traced  on  the  distant  sky, 
Hangs  like  the  edges  of  a  watery  cloud  ; 
The  old  and  shadowy  woods  ;  the  slumbering  lakes, 
Bright  in  the  summer  noon  ;  the  thousand  streams, 
Binding  the  earth  with  silver  ;  villages 
Scattered  among  the  hills  ;  and  frequent  spires, 
Greeting  the  sunlight. 

But  thyself,  vast  pile 

Of  congregated  mountains,  whose  tall  peaks, 
Where  the  clouds  gather  and  the  eagle's  build, 
And  the  strange  pine  puts  forth,  stand  over  there, 
Like  the  old  pillars  of  the  firmament, 
Thyself  hast  more  than  beauty  ;  and  thy  dark 
And  yet  untrod  defiles,  whence  comes  no  sound, 
But  from  the  screaming  bird  and  murmuring  tree, 


BACKWARD   AND    FORWARD.  795 

And  thy  deep  chasms,  where  falls  the  avalanche, 
And  the  white  torrents  pour,  have  an  intense 
And  dread  sublimity,  too  great  for  words. 
For  ever,  since  the  world  began,  thy  eye, 
Gray-headed  mount,  hath  been  upon  these  hills. 
Piercing  the  sky,  with  all  thy  sea  of  woods 
Swelling  around  thee,  evermore  thou  art, 
Unto  our  weaker,  earthly  sense,  the  type 
Of  the  Eternal,  changeless  and  alone. 

5.  WILLIAM  DWIGHT  WHITNEY.  Born  at  Northampton  in  1827, 
died  at  New  Haven  in  1894.  It  is  impossible  to  explain  the  marvel- 
lous career  of  Whitney,  by  all  odds  the  most  scholarly,  that  is  to 
say,  the  most  learned,  man  ever  graduated  at  Williams,  without  a 
considerable  reference  to  his  remarkably  scholarly  and  learned 
ancestry.  Special  heredity  played  no  large  part,  at  least  no  very 
visible  part,  in  the  development  of  any  one  of  the  four  celebrities 
already  characterized  in  the  present  connection ;  but  when  we  strike 
this  our  only  great  linguist  and  lexicographer,  we  instinctively  feel 
that  he  was  endowed  with  something,  that  he  was  saturated  with 
something,  that  could  have  come  to  him  in  no  other  way  than  the 
way  of  special  inheritance ;  what  one  merely  sharing  in  but  the 
common  lot  of  descent  could  by  no  possibility  acquire  as  an  individ- 
ual in  one  short  life.  Industry,  moral  integrity,  aspiration,  a  dis- 
tinctive goal,  and  special  environment  will  do  wonders  for  a  man,  and 
make  him  a  torch-bearer  of  a  certain  kind ;  but  all  these  and  kin- 
dred qualities  of  themselves  can  never  make  such  a  man  as  Whitney 
was,  nor  such  a  torch-bearer  as  he  became.  Intelligence,  character, 
power,  are  cumulative  in  human  life  along  the  line  of  families.  "  Of 
the  fathers  upon  the  children  unto  the  third  and  fourth  generation." 
The  more  noted  of  the  families  and  kindred  concerned  in  the  descent 
and  at  least  in  the  broad  training  of  Professor  Whitney,  were  those 
of  DWIGHT,  STODDARD,  EDWARDS,  and  WHITNEY. 

A  few  years  ago  the  present  writer  was  standing  on  the  platform 
of  the  station  of  the  Providence  Railroad  at  Dedham.  Near  by  was 
an  elderly  gentleman,  both  waiting  for  a  coming  train,  of  very  intel- 
ligent mien  and  evidently  to  the  manor  born,  whom  the  stranger 
ventured  to  accost  by  asking,  "  Do  you  know  where  is  the  site  of 
the  house  in  Dedham  which  John  Dwight  occupied  about  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years  ago  ? "  "  I  do ;  and  we  are  now  standing 
within  a  few  feet  of  the  place ;  some  of  the  posts  of  this  platform 
are  set  in  that  very  ground."  In  the  first  volume  of  the  Dedham 
Kecords,  lately  printed,  the  first  entry  in  the  register  of  births  is  the 


796  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

following: — "1635.  Mary.  Daughter  of  Jn°  and  Hanna  Dwight, 
borne  25  of  ye  5m°."  As  the  year  was  then  reckoned  to  commence 
March  1,  Mary  Dwight,  the  first  white  child  born  in  Dedham,  was 
born  (says  Savage)  July  25,  1635,  which  was  the  year  of  the  first 
incorporation  of  the  town.  Timothy,  son  of  John,  was  born  in  Eng- 
land about  1633,  became  freeman  in  Dedham  in  1655,  and  was  often 
a  representative  to  the  General  Court.  Timothy  has  been  a  favorite 
Christian  name  in  the  family  for  at  least  two  centuries,  and  two 
members  bearing  that  name  have  been  presidents  of  Yale  College. 
Henry  Dwight,  son  of  Timothy,  grandson  of  John,  resided  in  Hat- 
field,  married  in  1702  a  daughter  of  the  famous  Joseph  Hawley  of 
Northampton,  was  a  man  of  large  public  spirit  and  filled  important 
offices,  became  the  ancestor  of  all  the  Springfield  Dwights  and  pre- 
sumably of  Anna  Dwight  who  was  the  wife  of  Lieutenant  Zebadiah 
Sabin  of  Williamstown.  The  descendants  of  John  Dwight  in  New 
England  in  each  generation  were  about  as  notable  for  character  and 
public  influence  as  were  the  descendants  of  Robert  Sedgwick,  who 
settled  in  Charlestown  the  very  year  that  the  other  settled  in 
Dedham. 

John  Whitney,  a  great-grandson  of  Sir  Robert  Whitney,  who 
became  a  knight  under  Queen  Mary  in  1553,  migrated  from  London 
to  Watertown  in  1635,  bringing  with  him  five  sons,  with  wife  Elinor 
—  John,  Richard,  Nathaniel,  Thomas,  and  Jonathan.  He  was  the 
first  of  the  name  in  America,  and  the  one  from  whom  the  great 
majority  of  the  Whitney s  in  the  United  States  were  descended. 
In  1834,  seventeen  of  the  name  had  been  graduated  at  Harvard, 
three  at  Yale,  and  ten  at  other  New  England  colleges.  The  family 
at  Northampton,  whence  William  Dwight  Whitney  entered  Wil- 
liams as  a  Sophomore  in  1842,  was  prominent  and  highly  connected. 
Solomon  Stoddard  had  been  the  pastor  in  Northampton  from  1672 
till  1729,  and  had  exerted  a  prodigious  influence  there,  both  theo- 
logically and  in  every  other  way.  His  grandson,  Jonathan  Ed- 
wards, was  chosen  colleague-pastor  with  Stoddard  in  February, 
1727,  and  thereafter  for  a  full  century,  till  February,  1827,  when 
William  Dwight  Whitney  was  born,  was  a  presence  and  power  in 
Northampton,  being  held  by  some  in  a  way  of  affectionate  venera- 
tion and  by  others  in  a  way  of  indurated  opposition  —  by  both 
classes  in  such  a  way  as  to  stimulate  intellectual  action.  The 
public  schools  were  of  such  a  character  that  young  Whitney  fitted 
for  the  Sophomore  year  in  college  without  leaving  town,  and  found 
himself  easily  at  the  head  of  his  class  in  Williams  so  soon  as  he 
had  opportunity  to  exhibit  his  relative  rank.  He  was  then  but 


WILLIAM    DWIGHT   WHITNEY, 
W.  C,,    1845. 


BACKWARD    AND    FORWARD.  797 

fifteen  years  old.  The  first  place  had  been,  during  Freshman  year, 
in  a  sort  of  dispute  as  between  two  other  members  of  the  class, 
who  yielded  their  claims  so  soon  as  Whitney  discovered  his  own. 
The  classical  languages  were  then  at  a  low  ebb  in  college,  perhaps 
lower  than  at  any  other  time,  relatively,  during  the  century,  and 
the  natural  sciences  were  still  maintaining  that  sort  of  preemi- 
nence they  had  held  for  three  or  four  decades,  and  the  studies  of 
Dr.  Hopkins's  department  were  assuming  the  first  place,  which 
they  then  kept  for  three  or  four  decades.  While  he  was  in  college, 
Whitney  showed  no  signs  of  language-preference  over  other  studies; 
he  was  easily  from  the  first  the  best  linguist  in  his  class,  but  he 
took  no  special  pains  with  his  classics ;  rather  he  devoted  himself 
to  the  natural  history  studies,  and  to  the  Natural  History  Society, 
—  anything  that  took  him  into  the  fields,  and  into  the  woods  with 
his  gun,  and  upon  long  walks  for  rare  plants.  He  was  already  a 
good  botanist,  and  was  studying  birds  particularly.  "If  he  saw 
a  bird,  he  could  imitate  its  notes ;  if  he  heard  its  voice,  he  could 
name  the  singer."  He  had  a  rare  mechanical  skill  in  mounting 
birds,  and  in  other  similar  manipulations;  and  he  left  among  the 
collections  of  the  Natural  History  Society  a  large  number  of  the 
local  birds  beautifully  mounted. 

Young  Whitney  seemed  to  come  under  the  special  influence, 
from  the  beginning,  of  Professor  Albert  Hopkins.  He  was  such 
a  lad  as  "  Prof.  Al"  naturally  took  to ;  although  in  the  course  of 
a  long  life  the  teacher  never  encountered  just  such  another  pupil. 
The  professor's  taste  for  natural  history,  and  his  acquaintance 
with  its  various  branches,  made  him  instrumental  in  peculiarly 
fostering  such  tastes  among  the  students,  and  in  sustaining  their 
interest  in  the  Natural  History  Society  of  the  College.  Neither 
professor  nor  pupil  wished  to  pitch  his  tent  in  any  one  department 
of  the  great  field.  Each  was  training  his  eye  in  his  own  way  to 
see  specialties  on  the  earth,  and  under  the  earth  (geology),  and 
over  the  earth  (astronomy).  The  professor  was  married  in  the 
summer  vacation  of  1841,  when  he  was  thirty-four  years  old,  and 
Whitney  entered  college  just  a  year  later,  and  remained  on  the 
ground  for  three  full  years.  It  is  certain  that  these  two  unique 
personalities  came  into  interesting  and  mutually  influencing  rela- 
tions with  each  other ;  but  the  details  are  not  now  known,  except 
that  Professor  Whitney  had  an  extraordinary  and  life-long  estimate 
of  Professor  Hopkins,  both  as  a  naturalist  and  as  a  supernaturalist. 
President  Mark  Hopkins  at  that  time  taught  the  entire  studies  of 
each  Senior  year.  When  the  class  of  18-45  passed  out  from  under 


798  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

the  hand  of  Professor  Hopkins  at  the  close  of  the  Junior  year, 
and  came  into  a  new  circle  of  studies  involving  new  standpoints, 
there  was  a  marked  change  thereafter  on  Whitney's  part  in  mental 
attitudes.  Not  that  he  ceased  to  maintain  a  lively  interest  in  the 
progress  of  the  physical  sciences.  More  than  once,  for  example, 
after  his  graduation,  he  took  part  in  important  geological  surveys. 
At  the  institution  and  gradual  upbuilding  of  the  Sheffield  Scientific 
School  at  New  Haven  he  took  a  leading  part  for  twenty  years,  as 
well  in  council  as  in  teaching,  having  no  prejudices  in  behalf  of 
the  old  college  and  university  ways,  and  but  slowly  devoting  him- 
self by  choice  and  profession  to  what  may  be  called  literary  pur- 
suits, that  is  to  say,  to  the  profound  study  of  the  speech  and  so 
to  the  history  of  mankind.  The  initial  turn  with  him  was  when 
he  got  hold  of  Bopp's  "  Sanskrit  Grammar."  The  veteran  Professor 
Salisbury  guided  Whitney  in  his  incipient  study  of  Sanskrit,  and 
then  founded  the  professorship  which  enabled  him  through  life  to 
pursue  his  original  Oriental  researches.  These  researches,  with  all 
his  other  gifts  and  gains,  enabled  him  to  develop,  as  no  other  man 
had  ever  done,  the  Indo-European  languages  as  a  class  by  them- 
selves, and  to  differentiate  from  the  Sanskrit,  the  eldest  sister  of 
the  family,  the  German  and  French  and  English  branches  of  that 
great  linguistic  stock.  There  was  a  clarity  and  a  simplicity  and  a 
certainty  about  the  language-affiliations  as  brought  out,  for  example, 
in  "  The  Essentials  of  English  Grammar,"  perhaps  his  most  perfect 
work  of  this  kind,  found  nowhere  else  in  the  world.  His  "  Language 
and  the  Study  of  Language,"  his  first  publication,  with  perhaps  some- 
thing less  of  ease  and  fluency,  completely  exhibits  the  organic  unity 
of  his  system.  Whitney  was  a  consummate  systemizer.  His  Ger- 
man and  French  grammars  show  the  same  facility  and  beauty  and 
comprehensiveness.1 

Professor  Whitney's  father  was  a  bank  president  in  Northamp- 
ton, and  put  his  boy  at  once  into  the  bank  when  he  came  home 
from  Williams  at  eighteen,  having  just  delivered  the  valedictory 
oration.  This  was  in  1845.  Here  he  stayed  for  three  or  four 
years,  becoming  an  adept  in  every  one  of  the  banking  processes  as 
then  practised.  This  fact  of  personal  familiarity  with  practical 
banking  gave  point  and  interest  to  the  words  of  Professor  Whitney 
to  the  alumni  the  last  time  he  was  in  Williams  town  at  Commence- 
ment. He  had  come  up  to  attend  the  fortieth  anniversary  of  his 
graduation.  With  several  of  his  classmates  also  in  attendance,  he 

1  See  the  Whitney  Memorial  Meeting,  a  volume  edited  by  Charles  R.  Lanraan, 
assisted  by  Professor  March,  President  Gilman,  and  several  others. 


\ 
BACKWARD    AND    FORWARD.  799 

had  visited  in  the  morning  their  old  Senior  recitation-room  in  Grif- 
fin Hall.  That  room  had  been  built  expressly  by  President  Griffin 
for  his  own  work  with  the  Senior  class.  Dr.  Hopkins  had  simi- 
larly used  it  in  succession  for  nearly  forty  years ;  and  now  Whitney 
et  alii  found  to  their  great  surprise  the  National  Bank  of  Williams- 
town  in  busy  occupation  of  the  premises.  The  bank  had  been  or- 
ganized in  January,  1884,  partly  for  the  convenience  of  the  college 
treasury,  and  partly  in  the  business  interests  of  a  country  town. 
The  College,  as  such,  took  a  portion  of  the  bank  stock  as  an  invest- 
ment, and  persons  in  one  way  or  another  connected  with  the  College 
took  most  of  the  rest ;  Frederic  Leake,  a  retired  banker  and  citizen, 
who  had  taught  French  in  the  College  for  some  years,  became  the 
first  president  of  the  bank,  and  Charles  S.  Cole  of  the  class  of  1870 
became  the  first  cashier.  But  there  was  no  convenient  room  in  the 
village  for  its  practical  operations.  The  old  Senior  recitation-room 
happened  at  that  time  to  be  unused,  and  was  temporarily  appro- 
priated by  the  bank,  and  proved  a  convenient  place  of  business, 
both  to  town  and  college,  for  several  years.  When  Whitney  was 
put  forward  to  represent  his  class  at  the  alumni  dinner  in  the 
afternoon,  the  incident  of  finding  the  money-changers  in  the  most 
sacred  place  in  the  temple  was  a  godsend  to  him  and  proved  the 
making  of  his  speech.  The  incongruity,  that  is  to  say,  the  humor 
of  it,  went  without  saying;  while  the  significance  of  the  speech 
as  a  whole  lay  in  the  betrayal  of  considerable  remains  of  the  old 
prejudice,  even  in  one  of  the  most  liberal  and  broad-minded  of  men, 
whose  father  and  himself  had  given  some  of  their  best  years  to  the 
highest  forms  of  buying  and  selling,  that  after  all,  to  buy  and  sell 
as  a  business  in  some  sense  soils  the  hands  of  the  exchangers.  This 
old  prejudice  must  go  out  root  and  branch.  Williams  College  has 
done  a  good  deal,  both  scientifically  and  practically,  to  exalt  all 
forms  of  trade  into  their  God-appointed  niches. 

James  White  of  the  class  of  1851,  while  serving  as  treasurer  of  the 
College,  was  chosen  as  the  second  president  of  the  bank,  and  Cashier 
Cole  then  afterward  succeeded  Mr.  White  as  treasurer  of  the  Col- 
lege, and  John  B.  Gale  of  the  class  of  1842  became  the  third  presi- 
dent of  the  bank.  As  owner  also  of  one  of  the  two  chief  business 
blocks  of  the  village,  situated  on  Spring  Street,  Mr.  Gale  furnished 
the  bank  as  tenant  its  convenient  and  permanent  quarters  for 
business. 

William  D  wight  Whitney  closed  his  astonishing  career  as  a 
scholar  and  lexicographer,  fulfilling  the  duties  as  the  editor-in-chief 
of  the  "  Century  Dictionary."  This  magnificent  work,  in  ten  majestic 


800  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

volumes,  was  first  offered  for  sale  complete  and  unlimited  in  the 
June  days  of  1898,  while  the  present  pages  were  in  process  of  com- 
position. Whitney's  strictly  lexicographical  labors  began  in  early  sys- 
tematizing and  simplifying  the  definitions  of  "Webster's  Dictionary," 
and  then  in  contributing  material  to  the  "  St.  Petersburg  Sanskrit 
Dictionary."  These  labors  continued  in  the  planning  and  direction 
of  his  "  German  Dictionary,"  and  finally  in  the  broadest  superintend- 
ency  of  the  "  Century  Dictionary,"  which  has  been  said  to  be  a  sort  of 
apotheosis  of  Webster.  He  had  his  say  in  securing  the  adoption  of 
the  plan  for  the  etymology,  and  for  the  handling  of  most  of  the 
philological  material  from  the  modern  languages  ;  and  many  of  all 
the  ingenious  devices  of  arrangement  and  notation,  particularly  to 
indicate  pronunciation  of  letters  of  varying  sound,  were  of  his  own 
personal  contriving. 

6.  JOHN  BASCOM.  Born  in  central  New  York,  May  1,  1827. 
It  has  been  usually  thought  both  in  ancient  and  modern  times  to  be 
hazardous  and  unwise  for  any  one  to  attempt  any  elaborate  and  per- 
manent estimate  of  another,  while  the  latter  is  still  living  on  the 
earth.  In  the  present  connection  the  writer  was  placed  in  a  strait 
betwixt  two,  —  either  to  mutilate  outright  a  carefully  culled  category 
of  the  seven  college  celebrities,  or  to  defy  in  one  instance  a  dictum 
which  in  general  time  has  consecrated  as  just.  He  chose  the  latter 
alternative,  and  took  his  risks ;  for  what  the  verdict  of  posterity  in 
this  particular  case  will  be,  posterity  alone  can  discover. 

Next  to  Whitney  in  our  present  list  of  seven  notable  graduates  of 
the  College,  it  is  plain  that  Bascom  was  more  indebted  to  notable 
ancestors  than  any  one  of  the  number.  His  mother  was  Laura 
Woodbridge,  a  daughter  of  Major  Theodore  Woodbridge  of  the 
Revolutionary  army  of  Connecticut,  who  was  a  son  of  the  Rev. 
Ashbel  Woodbridge,  Yale  College  1724,  chaplain  of  a  Connecticut 
regiment  in  the  old  French  war,  and  was  a  Fellow  of  Yale  College 
at  the  time  of  his  death  in  1758 ;  his  tombstone  bears  this  memorial : 

A    GREAT    SCHOLAR,  AN  EXCELLENT    DIVINE,  A  FAITHFUL  MINISTER, 

A    WISE    PEACE-MAKER,  HE    SHONE  WITH  UNCOMMON  LUSTRE  IN  EVERY 

RELATION  OF  LIFE.  This  great-grandfather  of  John  Bascom  on  the 
Woodbridge  side  seems  to  furnish  at  most  salient  points  a  fair  type 
of  his  descendant.  By  going  back  one  step  to  Rev.  Timothy,  who 
was  born  in  Wiltshire  in  1656,  who  came  to  New  England  with  his 
father  in  1663,  and  was  graduated  at  Harvard  College  in  1675,  and 
became  minister  of  the  First  Church  in  Hartford  in  1683,  we  seem 
to  strike  an  additional  set  of  qualities  and  functions  somewhat 
typical  at  any  rate  of  his  great-great-grandson.  He  was  one  of  the 


BACKWARD    AND    FORWARD.  801 

ten  principal  ministers  of  Connecticut  named  by  the  General  Assem- 
bly as  trustees,  and  authorized  to  found  Yale  College  in  1699;  he 
was  Fellow  of  Yale  from  1700  to  1732 ;  was  offered  the  rectorship 
after  the  resignation  of  Rector  Cutler  in  1722 ;  and  he  was  largely 
concerned  with  the  political  affairs  of  the  colony,  serving  on  impor- 
tant committees  named  by  the  General  Assembly.  Miss  Talcott 
says,  "All  my  investigations  in  the  old  records  of  Hartford  show 
that  Mr.  Woodbridge  was  a  very  prominent  figure  here  all  his  life." 
He  died  in  1732,  the  year  that  Washington  was  born.  The  will  of 
this  Timothy  Woodbridge,  and  also  extant  records  of  his  eldest  son 
Timothy,  show  the  family  to  be  decided  men  of  business  and  large 
holders  of  real  estate,  and  taking  hard  and  grasping  views  of  prop- 
erty rights  in  general.  The  will,  for  example,  has  this :  "  and  my 
Negro  Girll  named  Lydia,  desiring  if  my  Wife  should  assent  to  it,  that 
my  daughter  Susannah  Treat  May  have  said  Negro  girll,  paying  a 
reasonable  price  for  her.  And  whereas  I  have  disposed  of  the  principall 
part  of  my  Reall  Estate  to  my  three  Sons  by  Deed  of  Gift  my  Mind 
and  Will  is  that  the  remainder  of  my  Estate  "  etc.  The  son  Timothy 
referred  to  was  graduated  at  Yale  in  1706,  and  was  ordained  at 
Simsbury  in  1712.  For  a  minister,  he  was  an  active  man  in  busi- 
ness, and  pugnacious  to  the  last  degree.  He  engaged  in  the  manu- 
facture of  steel,  and  also  in  the  making  of  turpentine,  of  which  last 
he  shipped  in  1728  no  less  than  five  tons  at  one  time.  By  this  sharp 
turn  for  business,  and  harsh  sense  of  his  own  property  rights,  he 
became  involved  in  vexatious  lawsuits,  and  in  great  difficulties  with 
his  parish.  The  story  of  the  famous  copper  mines  of  Simsbury,  and 
the  state  prison  of  Connecticut  in  connection  therewith,  compromise 
considerably  the  good  name  of  this  Timothy  Woodbridge,  and  also 
of  two  other  Woodbridge  clergymen,  his  near  relatives,  namely, 
John  of  Springfield,  and  Dudley  of  Simsbury,  who  jointly  took  the 
contract  of  "  The  Mining  Company  of  Simsbury  for  the  smelting  of 
the  ore."1 

On  the  Bascom  side,  also,  Professor  John  Bascom  came  of  distin- 
guished lineage.  Thomas  Bascom  was  one  of  the  original  company 
settling  in  Dorchester,  in  1634 ;  but  removing  with  others  to  Wind- 
sor, in  1639,  and  thence  to  Northampton  about  1660,  where  the 
family  seat  remained  till  1733.  Samuel  Bascom  of  the  fourth  gen- 
eration, through  Thomas  2d  and  Thomas  3d,  removed  to  what  is  now 
Warren  in  Worcester  County  in  1744,  where  Aaron  Bascom  was 
born  in  1746.  He  was  graduated  at  Harvard  College  in  1768,  and 
was  ordained  the  next  year  as  the  first  pastor  over  the  church  in 
1  See  Phelps  in  History  of  Newgate,  passim. 

3F 


802  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

Chester,  where  he  spent  the  remaining  years  of  his  life,  thus  minis- 
tering to  one  flock  for  forty-five  years.  He  is  said  to  have  been  "  a 
very  useful  and  laborious  minister."  He  was  usually  denominated 
"  Priest  Bascom,"  and  is  known  to  have  been  puritanic  in  his  the- 
ology and  imperious  in  his  personal  manners.  He  sent  three  of  his 
sons  to  Williams  College,  all  graduating  in  the  highest  rank  as 
scholars,  Samuel  Ashley  in  1799,  and  John  in  1807,  and  Eeynolds 
in  1813.  The  two  latter  became  ministers  of  the  Gospel,  and  died 
nearly  at  the  same  time,  Reynolds  at  Camden,  South  Carolina,  in 
1827,  and  John  at  Genoa,  New  York,  in  1828.  The  last  had  married 
Laura  Woodbridge  in  1813,  and  these  became  the  parents  of  Pro- 
fessor John  Bascom  in  1827.  The  family  were  extremely  poor  at 
the  time  of  the  father's  death,  and  afterward ;  and  the  burden  of  the 
education  of  their  brother  fell  upon  the  three  sisters,  and  particularly 
upon  the  middle  one  of  the  three,  named  Mary,  who  showed  an  aston- 
ishing push  and  power.  While  still  young,  she  came  to  New  England 
to  fall  under  the  moulding  hand  of  her  aunt,  Mrs.  Wright,  one  of  the 
daughters  of  Priest  Bascom  of  Chester.  Emma  Willard's  celebrated 
school,  the  Troy  Female  Seminary,  then  in  the  flush  of  its  prosperity, 
opened  its  privileges  to  gifted  girls  who  were  poor,  on  what  may  be 
called  the  instalment  plan,  that  is,  portions  of  the  expense  of  their 
education  were  advanced  by  the  seminary  to  be  repaid  by  the  bene- 
ficiaries from  the  proceeds  of  their  own  teaching,  especially  at  the 
South,  where  there  was  at  that  time  a  strong  demand  for  female 
teachers  at  good  wages.  Mrs.  Wright  made  all  these  arrangements 
with  the  seminary  for  her  niece,  Mary  Bascom  ;  and  she,  in  turn, 
for  both  of  her  own  sisters.  All  three  were  thus  graduated  at  Troy, 
and  all  taught  at  the  South  in  partial  payment  for  their  education. 
The  brother  meanwhile  went  to  the  public  school  at  home,  and  so 
fitted  for  college  in  mathematics,  which  he  acquired  throughout  with 
extraordinary  ease ;  and  began  the  study  of  the  classical  languages, 
which  always  came  hard  to  him  relatively.  To  complete  his  prepara- 
tion for  college  he  went  but  for  two  terms  to  the  Homer  (New  York) 
Academy,  of  which  his  sister  Mary  was  then  the  principal.  He 
entered  Williams  as  a  Freshman  in  1845,  just  after  William  D wight 
Whitney  had  graduated.  His  sister  paid  his  college  expenses 
throughout  the  four  years ;  and  only  a  few  days  before  his  gradua- 
tion, in  1849,  she  passed  suddenly  into  the  great  and  blessed  Uni- 
versity above. 

During  these  four  years  John  Bascom  was  a  very  marked  man  in 
college.  Not  only  was  there  no  other  in  his  class  who  could  stand 
any  sustained  comparison  with  him  in  silent  power  and  positive 


BACKWARD    AND    FORWARD.  803 

influence,  but  there  was  no  student  in  college  during  his  time  who 
could  do  this,  and  it  may  be  fairly  questioned  whether  there  were 
ever  a  student  here  maintaining  during  four  years  such  an  easy  and 
acknowledged  supremacy  in  all  good  things  above  all  his  compeers. 
It  was  not  that  he  was  a  better  scholar  in  general  than  many  others ; 
Beckwith  of  his  own  class  maintained  a  higher  rank  in  technical 
marks  throughout,  and  was  graduated  with  the  valedictory ;  and 
Carpenter  of  the  same  class,  who  died  in  1898  as  Chief  Justice  of 
the  Supreme  Court  of  New  Hampshire,  had  a  clearer  practical 
insight  into  men  and  things  in  general :  these  two  were  the  only 
other  students  in  his  class  with  noticeably  fine  intellectual  endow- 
ments and  a  clean  purpose  fully  to  cultivate  them.  The  present 
writer  was  a  Freshman  while  Bascom  was  a  Senior,  and  shared  in 
the  universal  admiration  of  his  time  for  the  latter's  splendid  talents 
and  character;  but  the  opportunity  for  observation  at  that  time 
and  an  intimate  association  afterward  during  forty  years,  more  or 
less,  did  not  convey  along  with  the  impression  produced  in  his  own 
mind  the  power  to  convey  to  others  in  words  an  adequate  delinea- 
tion of  his  peculiarities  or  their  sources.  An  attempt  must  never- 
theless now  be  made  once  for  all. 

He  entered  college  eighteen  years  old,  six  feet  tall,  as  straight  as 
an  arrow,  with  sandy  hair  and  complexion,  a  pronounced  Eoman 
nose  springing  from  between  eyes  always  bright  though  usually 
quiet,  the  whole  countenance  and  bearing,  whether  on  the  wicket- 
field  or  in  the  recitation-room,  indicating  a  restful  self-possession 
and  an  easy  mastery  over  all  that  belonged  to  him,  with  a  corre- 
sponding indisposition  to  meddle  with  anything  that  belonged  to  any- 
body else.  He  seemed  to  claim  nothing  from  anybody,  to  need 
nothing  from  anybody,  while  manifesting  indirectly  an  unmistaka- 
ble purpose  to  defend  all  that  was  his  own.  The  first  positive  and 
profound  impression  made  upon  his  classmates  in  recitation  was  the 
entire  ease  with  which  he  handled  his  Euclid,  then  used  as  a  college 
text-book.  Whether  it  were  proposition  or  problem,  it  was  all 
child's  play  to  him.  He  paid  little  or  no  attention  to  demonstrations 
as  given  in  the  book.  What  is  to  be  proved  ?  What  is  to  be  solved  ? 
A  half-dozen  ways  were  equally  facile  to  his  hand.  One  mental 
glance  gave  exits  in  plenty,  each  equally  valid.  It  was  so  in  succes- 
sion with  all  the  mathematics  of  the  course,  whether  pure  or  applied. 
He  strode  over  these  fields,  while  his  classmates  toiled  and  tugged. 
He  was  not  looked  upon  as  a  wonder,  as  was  young  Safford  at  Har- 
vard, but  he  was  looked  on  as  a  genius,  which  indeed  he  was.  This 
facility  was  not  an  acquisition,  it  was  a  congenital  bestowment  or 


804  WILLIAMSTOWN    AXD    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

inheritance.  He  himself  always  thought  and  spoke  of  it  as  one  and 
the  same  gift  with  his  intuitional  insight  in  philosophy.  This  last 
indeed  surprised  and  gratified  his  classmates  during  their  Senior 
year,  but  it  gave  him  no  such  reputation  and  honorable  isolation  as 
the  mathematical  powers  had  done.  His  face  in  college  and  ever 
afterward  indicated  a  remarkable  purity  as  well  as  elevation  of 
thought.  He  had  been  brought  up  wholly  by  and  with  his  mother 
and  sisters.  This  may  have  had  ultimately  some  drawbacks,  but  its 
moral  advantages  to  a  boy  in  college  are  obvious  enough.  He  was 
practically  subjected  to  no  temptations  of  any  kind.  He  was  sure  of 
himself,  sure  of  pecuniary  support,  sure  under  a  kind  Providence 
of  his  future  career.  He  chose  his  own  companions,  and  they  were 
always  the  best  to  be  had. 

He  had  made  a  profession  of  religion  before  entering  college,  and 
fell  at  once  under  the  personal  religious  influence  of  Professor  Albert 
Hopkins,  participating  in  his  daily  prayer-meetings,  and  feeling  no 
repugnance  to  those  views  of  biblical  truth  which  he  crowded  home 
on  the  students  with  incredible  force  and  fervor.  President  Mark 
Hopkins  exerted  no  such  stimulating  power  over  this  student  by  his 
philosophical  teachings  of  the  Senior  year.  Not  that  the  boy  was 
ready  yet  to  question  the  foundations  of  the  Scottish  philosophy,  or 
of  any  other  school  in  metaphysics,  of  all  which  he  then  knew  very 
little ;  but  his  mind  was  waking  up  to  a  consciousness  of  its  own 
special  endowments,  and  to  an  independence  of  the  minds  of  others, 
which  showed  itself  in  a  singular  choice  of  the  law  as  his  profession 
for  life,  mainly  because  his  mother  and  sisters  confidently  expected 
him  to  be  a  minister,  as  his  father  and  uncle  and  their  father  before 
them  had  been ;  at  the  same  time  and  contributing  toward  the  same 
end,  he  became  conscious  of  an  inherent  love  of  pragmatical  assertion 
and  even  of  dogmatical  contention,  as  well  as  of  a  capacity  for  phil- 
osophical generalization.  So  he  was  graduated  with  the  law  in  full 
view.  But  first  he  taught  an  academy  for  a  year  at  Hoosac  Falls. 
Two  of  his  trustees  and  patrons,  Deacon  Wilder  and  Lawyer  Ball, 
were  men  of  science  as  well  as  of  business,  the  former  exhibiting  a 
fine  collection  of  geological  specimens  which  ultimately  came  to  the 
College,  and  the  other  a  working  chemical  laboratory  in  complete 
order.  All  these  things  quickened  Bascom's  attention  to  the  vast- 
ness  of  Nature,  to  the  comprehensiveness  of  her  laws,  and  to  the 
sesthetical  side  of  her  manifestations  both  on  the  grand  scale  and  on 
the  minute  also.  Close  observation  of  Nature's  processes  and  results 
came  to  be  a  habit  of  his  life.  He  took  long  walks  and  rides  and 
drives,  always  with  his  eyes  open.  One  special  consequence  of  this 


BACKWARD   AND   FORWARD.  805 

must  be  noted  here,  namely,  his  mind  came  to  be  filled  with  outward 
images  of  all  sorts  capable  of  illustrating  the  abstract  and  recondite 
topics  with  which  he  was  so  largely  to  deal  both  as  a  writer  and 
speaker ;  and  this  facility  of  illustration  affected  his  style  in  a  pleas- 
ing and  useful  manner;  for  the  copious  use  of  figurative  language 
served  to  adorn  in  spots  a  written  style  otherwise  rather  rugged  and 
repulsive,  often  to  explain  a  statement  that  would  go  hard  without 
it,  and  sometimes  in  the  highest  reaches  of  philosophical  discussion 
where  appropriate  words  are  few,  if  not  wanting  altogether,  to  carry 
the  thought  along  indirectly  but  effectively  over  what  would  other- 
wise have  been  impassable  crevasses  of  expression. 

A  single  year  of  a  lawyer's  office  in  Rochester,  with  its  consequent 
acquaintance  with  average  clients  and  quarrels,  was  enough  to  satisfy 
Bascom  that  this  was  not  the  life  for  him,  and  he  turned  to  the 
Auburn  Theological  Seminary,  where  he  encountered  in  Dr.  L.  P. 
Hickok  his  best  teacher  in  philosophy,  one  of  the  most  stimulating 
thinkers  and  leaders  he  ever  had,  and  certainly  his  warmest  personal 
friend  in  the  generation  just  in  advance  of  his  own.  Dr.  Hickok  had 
the  moral  advantage  over  Dr.  Hopkins  so  far  as  this  particular  pupil 
was  concerned,  in  that  the  pupil  had  had  some  additional  years  of 
self-development  with  an  accompanying  experience  of  men  and 
things  very  precious  in  that  considerable  interval  of  time. 

It  is  probable  that  Dr.  Hickok  never  had  another  pupil  in  phi- 
losophy, unless  it  were  his  own  nephew,  Julius  H.  Seelye,  at  once  so 
receptive  and  capable,  and  ultimately  so  independent  and  coequal. 
Dr.  Hickok  carried  out  his  intuitional  philosophy  to  the  extent  of 
practically  denying  that  there  could  be  any  empirical  philosophy  at 
all.  Bascom  hesitated  along  this  pathway,  carried  his  doubts  to  his 
teacher  to  have  them  removed  temporarily,  but  at  length  planted  in 
his  own  mind  the  empirical  philosophy  as  firmly  as  the  other  and 
harmoniously  with  it.  When,  accordingly,  Dr.  Hickok  published 
the  "  Rational  Cosmology,"  teacher  and  pupil  broke  as  philosophers, 
but  continued  steadfast  as  friends.  In  the  meantime,  Dr.  Bushnell 
of  Hartford,  looking  at  all  problems  prevailing  from  the  religious 
side,  contributed  to  harmonize  the  ethical  and  the  religious  with  the 
philosophical,  and  Bascom  derived  more  help  from  Bushnell  as 
toward  his  own  ultimate  solutions  than  from  any  other  thinker. 
This  he  was  always  prompt  to  acknowledge. 

Nothing  has  hitherto  been  said,  though  it  cannot  any  longer  be 
delayed,  about  a  peculiar  factor  in  the  make-up  of  John  Bascom, 
namely,  an  intense  and  immeasurable,  and  yet  for  the  most  part  sup- 
pressed, personal  ambition.  This  colored  every  day  of  his  active 


806  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

life,  and  controlled  every  substantial  turn  in  it,  and  had  much  to  do 
with  his  ultimate  satisfactions  or  his  lack  of  them ;  and  yet  very  few 
of  his  acquaintances  were  ever  aware  of  its  dominating  power  over 
him.  He  took  without  question  everything  that  offered  or  seemed 
to  offer  itself  which  was  large  and  good.  He  did  not  distrust  his 
ability  to  accomplish  any  task  whatever  that  seemed  to  promise  for 
his  private  gain  or  for  the  public  welfare.  Perhaps  it  may  be  said  in 
general,  that  he  did  not  overestimate  his  intellectual  and  executive 
abilities  taken  as  a  whole.  But  he  did  overestimate  his  ability 
altogether  to  do  certain  things,  which  nevertheless  he  promptly 
undertook.  Accordingly,  to  take  an  early  example,  so  soon  as  his 
mind  was  fully  set  on  a  theological  and  preaching  career,  he  deter- 
mined to  master  absolutely  the  Hebrew  language,  especially  as  he 
had  not  gotten  in  college  a  very  firm  hold  of  either  Latin  or  Greek. 
The  persistent  attempt  to  accomplish  this,  together  with  much  other 
reading  contemporaneously  carried  on,  caused  a  serious  collapse  of 
his  eyes ;  and  he  was  suddenly  confronted  with  a  possible  future 
quite  different  from  that  which  he  had  latterly  sketched  out  for  him- 
self. We  can  all  see  now  that  this  was  well  for  him  in  the  ultimate 
outcome,  terrible  as  the  shock  was  at  the  time ;  for  such  ability  as 
was  unquestionably  his,  and  such  ambition  as  was  confessedly  his 
also,  coupled  with  full  vigor  in  all  physical  organs,  would  have  cer- 
tainly led  on  to  a  different  man  and  Christian  from  that  actully  pre- 
sented in  life.  While  thus  halted  by  Providence,  and  hesitating  what 
course  he  should  take,  he  was  invited  to  a  tutorship  in  his  Alma  Mater; 
a  third  avenue  seemed  thus  to  open  before  him,  all  equally  clouded 
perhaps  by  the  visual  misfortune,  —  lawyer  or  minister  or  teacher, 
which?  It  was  curious  and  dubious  and  pathetic.  He  took  the 
tutorship  for  a  year  and  a  half,  but  it  did  not  prove  any  great  suc- 
cess, mainly  because  Bascom  was  not  a  natural  class-room  teacher 
and  never  became  such,  although  class-room  teaching  became  his 
life-work,  and  also  partly  because  tutor's  work  was  in  Latin  and 
Greek,  for  which  he  had  neither  fondness  nor  sufficient  preparation. 
Then  naturally  came  theology  again  for  a  year  or  two,  this  time  at 
Andover;  and  as  there  always  was  a  decided  bent  toward  public 
speaking,  and  now  some  opportunity  for  ex  tempore  preaching,  things 
seemed  to  be  drifting  in  the  best  direction  attainable  under  the  cir- 
cumstances; when,  in  1855,  six  years  after  graduation,  he  was 
elected  to  the  professorship  of  Rhetoric  at  Williams.  Technical 
rhetoric  was  not  to  his  taste  nor  scarcely  to  his  capacity,  while  practi- 
cal oratory  was  abundantly  adapted  to  both.  If  it  had  been  a  profes- 
sorship of  philosophy  at  any  well-established  college,  the  case  would 


BACKWARD    AND   FORWARD.  807 

have  been  perfectly  clear  to  his  mind,  and  to  the  mind  of  anybody 
who  knew  him  well.  But  in  rhetoric  the  case  was  different.  Dr. 
Hopkins,  who  practically  called  him  to  this  chair  in  Williams,  had 
grave  doubts  about  his  succeeding  well  in  it.  These  doubts  he  frankly 
imparted  to  Professor  Perry,  then  a  colleague  who  urged  the  appoint- 
ment, conceding  the  technical  unfitness  of  the  candidate.  Bascom 
himself  hesitated  to  accept  on  very  much  the  same  grounds,  and  on 
another  ground  also,  of  which  mention  will  be  made  in  a  moment ; 
and  he  told  the  writer  more  than  forty  years  afterward,  that  he 
thought  it  might  have  been  better  for  his  happiness  and  his  reputa- 
tion, if  he  had  declined  the  professorship  offered,  and  had  either 
awaited  another  one  elsewhere  more  to  his  mind  and  talents,  or  had 
resolutely  clung  to  the  preacher's  desk  and  its  collateral  opportuni- 
ties. However,  he  accepted  the  professorship  at  Williams,  and 
worked  in  it  for  twenty  years  under  considerable  limitations  partly 
personal  and  partly  external.  In  this  interval  of  time  he  published 
his  treatise  on  Rhetoric,  which  was  reissued  in  1882  with  the  collabo- 
ration of  H.  H.  Morgan  (Williams  College  1859)  in  a  second  edition. 
The  special  grounds  of  Bascom's  hesitation  alluded  to  above  was 
marked  changes  in  his  philosophical  and  theological  beliefs  during 
the  six  years  preceding,  which  he  feared  would  encounter  prejudice 
and  opposition  from  Dr.  Hopkins  particular \y,  and  which,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  did  encounter  these  strongly.  But  why  should  a 
professor  of  rhetoric  come  in  contact  and  collision  with  the  con- 
clusions of  a  professor  of  philosophy  and  Christian  theology  ? 

(1)  Because  it  was   not  in  Bascom's  nature  to  conceal  from  his 
colleagues  anything  of  importance  working  out  toward  a  conclusion 
in  his  own  mind.     His  impulse  to  think  aloud  was  very  strong,  and 
helpful  to  himself  and  others.     He  could  not  bear  to  wait  until 
everything  correlative  was  cleared  up  and  rounded  out.     On  the 
contrary,  beyond  most  men,  he  felt  bound  by  inclination  and  even 
by  conscience  also,  to  unfold  privately  and  publicly  partial  results 
so  far  as  he  had  well  gotten  at  them  at  the  time.     A  college  is 
always  a  place  where  ethical  themes  are  in  agitation,  as  between 
the  professors  themselves  and  these   and   the   foremost   students. 

(2)  At  that  time  Sunday  services  were  held  in  the  chapel  twice  a 
day,  the  president  always  preaching  in  the  morning,  and  four  or  five 
professors  alternating  in  the  afternoons.     Bascom  of  course  took  his 
turns  with  the  rest.     While  he  never  sought  occasions  in  the  desk 
for  differing  with  Dr.  Hopkins,  such  occasions  thrust  themselves 
upon   him.      The   doctrine   of  the   Atonement,   and   a   consequent 
doctrine  of   the  Trinity,  as  these  were  then  held  in  most  of  the 


808  WILLTAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

churches  of  New  England,  were  points  at  which  Bascoin  had  already 
clearly  put  himself  in  the  opposition,  and  it  could  not  well  be  that 
the  sparks  should  not  now  and  then  fly.  Hopkins  had  never  had  any 
technical  theological  training  at  all,  had  read  theological  books  but 
very  little,  yet  it  had  come  about  naturally  enough  (all  things  con- 
sidered) that  his  opinions  on  these  topics  were  generally  supposed 
to  be  finally  authoritative.  There  were  always  some  few  students  who 
delighted  to  hear  Bascom  in  g^asz'-opposition,  and  who  frequented 
his  study  more  or  less  for  conversation  on  these  themes.  .But  in 
general  a  prejudice  was  excited  and  cultivated  against  him  as  an 
innovator  in  religion.  And  it  was  astonishing  to  observe  with  what 
vitality  this  feeling  continued  to  manifest  itself,  notwithstanding  the 
fact  that  little  by  little  a  large  portion  of  the  clergy  of  New  England 
came  to  occupy  theological  positions  practically  identical  with  his  own. 
When  Dr.  Hopkins  resigned  the  presidency  of  the  College  in  1872, 
there  was  a  continuation  of  this  manifested  prejudice,  and  probably 
an  intensification  of  it.  As  Hopkins  was  to  continue  to  teach 
philosophy  and  theology  as  a  professor,  and  did  so  for  fifteen  years 
longer,  more  or  less,  it  was  not  strange  that  Chadbourne  and  the 
trustees  refused  to  give  Bascom  a  chair  in  Philosophy,  which  he 
very  much  desired,  and  which  would  have  attached  him  to  the 
College  for  life,  though  doubtless  at  the  expense  of  some  friction 
in  high  places.  Really,  Chadbourne  did  not  want  Bascom  on  the 
ground  in  any  capacity,  and  this  made  the  one  more  than  willing  to 
recommend  the  other  to  the  regents  of  the  University  of  Wisconsin 
as  president  there,  a  place  which  Chadbourne  himself  had  just  left 
after  a  brief  tenure  of  it.  Bascom  accordingly  went  to  Madison, 
where  he  had  an  untrammelled  career  of  almost  fourteen  years.  In 
1886  Edward  Herrick  Griffin  succeeded  Mark  Hopkins  as  Professor 
of  Moral  and  Intellectual  Philosophy  for  three  years,  when  John 
Edward  Eussell  assumed  the  chair.  During  these  rapid  changes, 
the  bottom  grounds  of  which  were  very  curious  and  not  worth  the 
telling  in  sober  history,  Bascom  returned  from  Madison  to  Williams- 
town,  where  his  homestead  had  remained,  with  unimpaired  powers 
and  un quenched  ambition.  But  the  religious  prejudice  against  him 
had  survived  the  changes  in  the  presidency  also,  and  some  other 
similar  feelings  as  well,  and  so  he  could  ,gain  no  opportunity  to 
teach  college  classes  in  his  chosen  line  of  research  and  achievement. 
This  was  a  renewedly  keen  disappointment  to  him.  In  saying  that 
Bascom  was  an  extraordinarily  ambitious  man,  it  must  be  borne  in 
mind  that  the  etymological  sense  of  that  word,  the  going  about  to 
seek  for  something  desired,  was  not  the  prominent  element  in  his 


BACKWARD    AND    FORWARD.  809 

case.  He  rarely  applied  for  places  he  coveted  and  that  he  was  con- 
fident he  was  well  able  to  fill,  though  he  usually  let  it  be  known  to 
some  one  concerned  that  he  wished  for  the  place ;  but  the  steadiness 
and  strength  of  the  ambition  revealed  itself  rather  after  it  had  been 
again  and  again  foiled  and  thwarted.  In  his  old  age  he  said  delib- 
erately and  repeatedly  to  a  friend,  though  without  a  tinge  of  bitter- 
ness :  "  The  College  has  always  had  a  malign  influence  over  me"  — 
referring  particularly  to  this  odium  theologicum.  After  the  return  in 
1887  he  preached  occasionally  both  in  college  and  in  town  and  else- 
where for  many  years,  always  with  power  and  eloquence,  but  never 
popularly,  because  his  thought  was  too  deep  and  his  mode  of  reason- 
ing too  difficult  for  the  common  mind  to  follow  them  readily.  He 
lectured  also  in  various  places,  particularly  on  temperance  ;  and  he 
was  repeatedly  a  candidate  for  Governor  of  Massachusetts  on  a  plat- 
form demanding  the  prohibition  of  the  sale  of  intoxicating  drinks. 
He  was  an  unquestioned  orator  in  the  pulpit  and  on  the  lecturer's 
platform.  His  character  was  of  the  highest  in  every  respect.  He 
was  the  centre  of  a  genuine  admiration  on  the  part  of  his  neighbors 
and  of  a  very  wide  circle  of  friends  and  acquaintances.  He  was 
an  active  and  courageous  and  disinterested  citizen.  He  was  the 
acknowledged  leader  for  his  town  in  all  matters  of  village  improve- 
ment and  of  aesthetic  adornment  in  every  direction,  setting  a  modest 
and  economical  example  to  all  in  and  through  his  beautiful  estate  on 
Park  Street. 

Yet  it  must  be  conceded  that  he  did  not  take  that  steady  and 
solid  satisfaction  in  his  own  life  and  work  that  such  a  man  seemed 
to  be  fully  entitled  to.  This  was  painful  to  his  best  friends  to 
observe.  Because  it  was  instructive  also  to  those  who  observed  it, 
and  may  be  instructive  to  some  who  come  after,  a  few  reasons  for 
this  will  be  hinted  at  in  this  and  the  following  paragraphs,  in  con- 
nection with  some  careful  statements  of  what  was  the  great  work  of 
his  life.  Premising  in  words  what  has  been  already  implied,  there 
was  a  considerable  want  of  adjustment  in  general  throughout  his 
active  life  between  his  personality  and  his  environment.  Speaking 
after  the  manner  of  men,  he  was  pre-ordained  to  investigate,  affirm, 
modify,  reaffirm,  readjust,  and  carry  forward  toward  an  ultimate 
solution  the  problems  of  philosophy.  What  is  philosophy  ?  He 
shall  tell  us :  — 

Philosophy  is  a  presentation  of  the  ultimate  reasons  of  belief.  Its  purpose  is 
to  define  the  forms,  nature,  and  force  of  knowledge.  Physical  phenomena  arise 
in  Space,  and  are  united  by  causes.  Mental  phenomena  arise  in  Consciousness, 
and  are  united  by  reasons.  The  two  forms  of  phenomena  are  in  such  living 


810  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

interaction  that  causes  modify  reasons  and  reasons  redirect  causes.  It  is  the 
first  business  of  Philosophy  to  define  knowledge  in  reference  to  these,  its  two 
original  constituents,  and  in  reference  to  their  interaction  on  each  other.  The 
one  element  is  present  to  the  mind  as  Sensations,  the  other  as  Conceptions,  while 
the  two  are  woven  together  reflectively  under  experience.  The  nature  of  these 
two  terms,  sensations  and  conceptions,  and  their  respective  validity,  is  the  pri- 
mary problem  of  philosophy.  The  answer  we  give  it  will  modify  all  our  notion 
of  the  nature  of  the  reflective  process  by  which  sensuous  impressions  and  mental 
ideas  are  united  in  judgments  through  all  the  diverse  forms  of  knowledge.1 

The  best  conditions  for  the  slow  founding  and  building  up  of 
such  a  structure  as  is  here  clearly  described  in  outline,  the  most 
recondite  and  difficult  and  ultimate  work  to  which  the  human  mind 
can  rationally  apply  itself,  are  furnished  by  successive  college  classes 
under  a  teacher  capable  at  once  of  conducting  for  himself  such  far- 
flung  researches  and  of  letting  himself  down,  without  loss  of  dignity 
and  authority,  to  the  mental  level  of  students,  and  taking  them  along 
with  him  in  these  perilous  journeys  and  bringing  them  safely  back. 
Comparatively  few  students  in  an  ordinary  college  class  can  accom- 
pany at  every  step  the  adventurous  leader,  but  there  are  always 
some  who  can,  and  all  who  choose  can  go  part  way  and  profit  by 
each  step  they  take ;  and,  as  these  trips  are  or  should  be  constantly 
recurrent  forth  and  back,  some  who  stumble  at  the  first  excursions 
learn  to  stand  in  future  ones,  and  even  to  stride  at  last  alongside 
of  the  teacher.  These  constant  and  mutual  experiences  in  the  class- 
room are  as  fruitful  for  the  teacher  as  for  the  taught  as  respects  the 
slow  and  certain  progress  of  philosophy.  It  is  not  in  philosophy 
as  in  scientific  generalizations,  in  natural  history,  for  example,  or 
in  political  economy,  —  one  careful  induction  from  a  few  particu- 
lars, and  then  an  end  for  all  time.  It  is  repetition  and  re-formation 
and  reorganization  of  all  correlatives,  —  of  each  radius  to  its  centre, 
of  each  spoke  to  its  hub.  Bascom,  by  build  of  mind  and  choice  of 
will,  took  early  to  philosophy  as  his  special  field.  But  he  had  not 
the  advantage  of  an  early  professorship  in  it.  He  needed  that 
advantage.  He  never  wholly  overmastered  the  consequences  of  the 
lack  of  it.  As  a  teacher,  he  could  not  naturally  and  easily  let  him- 
self down  transiently  to  a  lower  intellectual  level  than  his  own.  If 
he  had  begun  to  teach  philosophy  to  boys  ,  while  he  himself  were 
still  tentatively  learning  it,  and  had  had  this  opportunity  renewed 
year  after  year,  before  his  own  lines  of  thought  had  become  rigid 
and  dogmatic,  and  had  had  the  help,  both  in  discovery  and  correc- 
tion which  the  bright  fellows  never  fail  to  yield  to  a  sympathetic 
1  Historical  Interpretation  of  Philosophy,  p.  375. 


BACKWARD    AND    FORWARD.  811 

and  growing  teacher,  Bascom's  manners  and  methods  as  a  teacher 
for  life  could  not  but  have  been  both  softened  and  strengthened. 
There  would  have  been  less  of  ex  cathedrd  and  more  of  mutual 
fellowship.  Then,  too,  he  would  have  had  after  a  while  young  and 
enthusiastic  disciples,  who  would  have  caught  his  central  principles 
in  the  class-room  and  then  have  gradually  diffused  them  in  the 
regions  round  about.  All  this  would  have  added  to  his  reputation 
at  an  age  when  such  things  are  prized,  and  would  have  rewarded 
and  stimulated  his  skill  and  zeal. 

As  it  was,  he  was  almost  compelled  to  develop  the  leading  cor- 
relatives of  his  central  principles,  such  as  ethics  and  aesthetics  and 
natural  theology,  before  he  had  put  in  order  and  published  to  the 
world  his  central  constructions  in  philosophy  itself.  This  was  like 
a  general  entering  on  a  complex  campaign  without  first  having 
established  headquarters.  He  wrote  many  books,  —  too  many, — 
all  of  them  involving  special  points  and  peculiarities  of  his  own 
philosophical  system,  before  having  brought  out  in  simple  connec- 
tion with  each  other  —  each  buttressing  the  rest  —  these  points 
and  peculiarities  themselves.  In  1885  was  published  "  Problems 
in  Philosophy,"  —  the  book  coming  the  nearest  of  all  to  an  expo- 
sition and  defence  of  his  philosophical  system.  Indeed,  in  its 
preface  he  says :  "  Philosophy,  above  most  topics,  calls  for  an  explicit 
statement  of  a  few  fundamental  principles,  and  a  pushing  of  inquiry 
in  reference  to  them  till  some  satisfactory  conclusion  is  reached.  The 
present  volume  aims  to  make,  in  the  most  direct  way,  a  contribution 
on  the  more  obscure  topics  of  philosophy"  Some  of  the  preceding 
books  —  in  particular  "  The  Words  of  Christ,"  1883  —  do  not  seem 
in  their  titles  to  involve  these  central  statements  and  inferences 
from  them,  and  yet  the  text  is  full  of  these,  which  makes  the 
books  hard  to  read  and  also  to  seem  less  valid  in  their  conclusions 
than  they  really  are.  "  An  Historical  Interpretation  of  Philosophy," 
1893,  is  a  careful  general  criticism  within  moderate  limits  of  all  the 
most  important  philosophical  speculation  from  Pythagoras  to  Lotze, 
is  an  extraordinarily  comprehensive  and  valuable  book,  —  by  much 
the  most  so  of  any  given  to  the  world  by  John  Bascom,  —  and  the 
criticism,  of  course,  involves  throughout,  though  in  an  indirect  and 
modest  way,  a  presentation  of  his  own  fundamental  points  of  philo- 
sophical belief.  No  one  can  fail  to  see,  however,  in  a  general  way, 
that  the  number  of  these  books,  —  a  baker's  dozen  or  more,  —  and 
especially  the  order  of  their  publication,  would  prejudice  the  posi- 
tion of  their  author  as  a  speculative  philosopher.  The  natural 
readers  of  such  books,  in  this  country  at  least,  are  a  set  of  very 


812  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

busy  men  who  want  to  take  what  any  thinker  has  to  give  them  in 
a  direct  and  compact  way.  Very  few  indeed  have  leisure  to  com- 
pare critically  a  half-dozen  books  on  as  many  different  subjects  in 
order  to  draw  out  of  them  a  consistent  scheme  of  philosophic 
thought,  or  even  to  satisfy  themselves  whether  the  implications  in 
them  all  may  be  harmonized.  To  use  a  phrase  current  among  the 
publishers,  no  one  of  Bascom's  many  books  "  sold  well."  He  came, 
when  at  all,  very  slowly  and  imperfectly  into  his  own.  This  being 
so,  and  considering  the  purpose  of  these  paragraphs,  it  is  incumbent 
on  us  to  display  as  clearly  and  succinctly  as  possible  the  points 
which  Bascom  himself  considered  to  be  his  chief  contributions  to 
philosophy. 

The  two  lines  along  which  thought  has  always  gone  out  in  search 
of  ultimate  goals  are  best  characterized  as  intuitional  and  empirical, 
or  (less  happily)  as  subjective  and  objective.  The  tendency  of  all 
individual  philosophers  hitherto,  and  of  each  specific  school  of 
philosophy,  has  been  to  put  the  emphasis  upon  one  or  the  other 
of  these  lines,  —  that  is  to  say,  upon  either  insight  or  experience,  — 
each  to  the  minimizing  of  the  other.  In  many  cases  and  in  many 
schools,  this  minimizing  of  the  other  practically  amounted  to  the 
denying  the  validity  of  that  altogether.  Bascom  claimed  as  his 
own  more  material  contributions  to  the  long  discussion  the  follow- 
ing, though  the  words  are  not  wholly  his:  — 

1.  A  better  and   more  rational,  and   consequently  a   defensible, 
statement  of  the  grounds  and  limits  of  Intuitionalism. 

2.  A  complete  and  comprehensive  acceptance  of  Empiricism,  and 
so  a  rational  reconciliation  of  two  conflicting  schools  of  thought. 

3.  The  drawing  of  attention  more  definitely  and  strongly  to  the 
intuitive  convictions  of  all  men  as  proof  positive  of  the  postulates 
of  Intuitionalism. 

4.  The  recognition  of  Space  and  Consciousness  as  the  two  primi- 
tive   form-elements   under   which    all    phenomena   arise ;   physical 
phenomena   demand  Space  only,  mental   phenomena  demand  Con- 
sciousness only ;  hence  no  possible  connection  between  the  two  as 
phenomena,  and  all  alleged  sub-conscious  agencies  are  unprovable 
and  therefore  non-existent. 

5.  A  clean  reconciliation  in  Evolution  as  properly  defined  of  both 
empiric  and  intuitive  elements,  without  whose  combination  in  Growth 
Evolution  is  impossible. 

John  Bascom  was  not  the  man  to  claim  anything  for  himself  that 
properly  belonged  to  another,  or  to  allow  any  one  (so  far  as  he 
could  help  it)  a  title  to  something  really  belonging  to  somebody 


BACKWARD    AND    FORWARD.  813 

else.  All  men  may  therefore  accept  without  scruple  as  his  those 
radical  contributions  toward  an  ultimate  explanation  of  men  and 
things,  which  is  philosophy.  Even  a  tyro  in  such  difficult  matters 
can  see,  and  a  fair-minded  expert  will  not  deny,  that  these  contri- 
butions are  vastly  important,  that  they  simplify  even  if  they  do  not 
solve  the  problems  of  philosophy,  as  well  by  inclusion  as  exclusion ; 
that  probably  no  other  American  has  as  yet  approached  this  man  in 
patient  penetrativeness  and  power  of  comprehensive  explication ; 
and  that  by  the  same  probability  his  rank  as  a  philosopher  was 
highest  in  the  land  of  his  birth  as  the  nineteenth  century  passed 
into  the  twentieth.  As  that  transition  approached,  Williams  Col- 
lege, though  not  with  entire  unanimity,  claimed  him  as  her  most 
distinguished  living  graduate;  and  feared  not  the  verdict  of  pos- 
terity as  to  his  position  first  or  among  the  first  in  rank  then  and 
there.  Williams  was  a  small  college  at  that  epoch,  and  relatively 
obscure  as  compared  with  the  great  and  old  universities  of  the  land, 
like  Harvard  and  Yale  and  Columbia  and  Princeton  and  Pennsyl- 
vania and  Virginia,  and  yet  she  respectfully  presented  to  these  and 
all  other  institutions  similar  to  these  and  to  herself  the  name  of 
John  Bascom  as  having  done  as  much  in  his  day  to  elucidate  philos- 
ophy, that  is,  to  throw  into  a  vexed  and  dark  region  of  thought 
unbroken  rays  of  light,  as  any  graduate  of  any  one  of  them  all. 

Making  the  above  presentation  with  all  confidence,  the  College  at 
the  same  time  was  as  ready  to  admit  as  anybody  else  was  prompt  to 
assert,  that  Bascom  did  not  equally  illumine  by  any  means  all  the 
topics  that  he  touched  and  taught.  He  touched  and  taught  too 
many  topics  to  make  this  possible  under  the  universal  and  in- 
vincible human  limitations.  These  several  failures  may  all  be 
traced  back  to  one  source,  namely,  the  lack  either  in  the  original 
structure  of  his  mind,  or  (what  is  more  likely)  in  its  early  training 
and  the  consequent  life-habit,  —  the  lack  of  inclination  and  ability 
to  treat  the  particulars  of  any  one  class  of  facts  or  phenomena  in  an 
inductive  way,  and  so  to  reach  sound  scientific  generalizations.  He 
was  often  heard  to  say,  that  his  mind  was  reluctant  to  gather  up  for 
itself  the  particular  facts  one  by  one  with  which  it  delighted  to  deal 
when  some  one  else  had  furnished  them.  "  Let  somebody  gather  up 
my  facts  for  me  and  I  will  take  good  care  of  them."  Such  an  ad- 
mission as  this  was  far  more  significant  than  he  ever  supposed  it  to 
be.  He  supposed  it  indifferent,  it  was  actually  fatal.  If  he  chose 
to  have  others  select  his  particulars  for  him,  he  was  at  the  mercy  of 
those  others  in  his  own  further  manipulations  of  them.  How  could 
he  know  that  his  facts  were  well  gathered  ?  How  could  he  know 


814  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

that  each  and  every  one  of  them  really  belonged  to  a  single  class  of 
facts  or  phenomena  ?  Many  facts  superficially  viewed  may  seem  to 
belong  to  a  certain  class,  and  may  be  honestly  and  carelessly  put 
there,  and  yet  really  belong  somewhere  else ;  and  these,  if  accepted 
with  the  others,  necessarily  work  confusion  and  ruin  to  any  argu- 
mentation based  upon  them.  Bascom  was  not  only  liable  to  be 
deceived  by  facts  or  particulars  so  gathered  and  taken  for  granted, 
but  also  he  was  actually  and  repeatedly  so  deceived,  to  the  conse- 
quent comparative  worthlessness  of  even  whole  volumes  of  his 
books.  If  he  ever  clearly  saw  the  radical  difference  between  in- 
ductive and  deductive  reasoning,  he  nowhere  clearly  explains  this 
difference,  nor  gives  the  grounds  for  his  own  ever  manifested  partial- 
ity for  what  he  calls  the  "  deductive  "  forms.  He  had  an  elaborated 
criticism  of  Mill's  "Logic  "  ("  Historical  Interpretation,"  pp.  235-243) 
without  being  fair  to  Mill,  quoting  little  or  nothing  from  his  book 
verbally,  and  ignoring  his  ample  concessions  to  intuitionalism  both 
in  the  introduction  and  throughout  the  text,  and  seeming  to  take 
for  granted  that  because  Mill  was  reared  in  empiricism  his  logic 
must  bear  all  the  faults  and  corollaries  of  that  system  as  such.  On 
the  contrary,  Mill  himself  says  (they  are  the  last  words  of  his  intro- 
duction), "  I  can  conscientiously  affirm,  that  no  one  proposition  laid 
down  in  this  work  has  been  adopted  for  the  sake  of  establishing,  or  with 
any  reference  to  its  fitness  for  being  employed  in  establishing,  precon- 
ceived opinions  in  any  department  of  knowledge  or  inquiry  on  which 
the  speculative  world  is  still  undecided."  Again,  "Logic  is  common 
ground  on  ivliich  the  partisans  of  Hartley  and  of  Reid,  of  Locke  and  of 
Kant,  may  meet  and  join  hands."  And  once  more :  "  Whatever  is 
known  to  us  by  consciousness  is  known  beyond  possibility  of  question. 
What  one  sees  or  feels,  whether  bodily  or  mentally,  one  cannot  but  be 
sure  that  one  sees  or  feels.  No  science  is  required  for  the  purpose  of 
establishing  such  truths.  There  is  no  logic  for  this  portion  of  our 
knowledge." 

The  indefiniteness  and  consequent  confusion  of  some  portions  of 
Bascom's  published  writing  was  illustrated  by  his  use  of  the  techni- 
cal term  "  science.7'  He  published  a  book  entitled,  "  Science,  Philoso- 
phy, and  Religion."  A  book  so  entitled  should  certainly  contain  an 
exact  definition  of  each  of  its  titular  terms,  and  the  precise  differ- 
ences between  them.  Years  after  the  publication  of  that  book,  in  a 
more  ripened  and  final  discussion  of  the  same  themes,  we  find  the 
following :  "  Science  is  homogeneous  tvith  kiiowledge.  It  does  in 
minor  directions  precisely  what  philosophy  should  do  in  major  ones. 
It  makes  our  insight  deeper  and  more  consistent.  It  accepts  the  habit- 


BACKWARD    AND    FORWARD.  815 

ual  force  of  thought,  and  bears  it  forward  to  a  full  performance  of  its 
office.  It  tests  its  own  additions  and  corrections  by  their  concurrence 
with  knowledge,  by  their  ability  to  carry  familiar  lines  of  light  a  little 
further.  Philosophy  must  start  from  the  same  centres  of  truth  and 
return  to  them.  All  conclusions  that  lie  beyond  the  primary  convictions 
of  men  will  be  aberrations,  vagaries."  When  questioned  as  to  the 
exact  meaning  of  this  assuredly  not  over-clear  passage,  its  author 
added  by  way  of  elucidation,  "  All  science  is  knowledge,  but  all 
knowledge  is  not  science."  "  What,  then,  is  the  precise  line  of  dis- 
tinction between  the  two  ?  "  "  Science  is  that  portion  of  knowledge 
more  thoroughly  settled  in  the  mind  by  reflection."  "Can  no  clear 
and  technical  distinction  be  made  between  the  two?"  "No." 
"  Then  of  what  earthly  use  is  the  term  science,  and  what  do  men 
mean  when  they  talk  about  the  amazing  progress  of  modern  sci- 
ence ?  "  The  silence  that  followed  was  nothing  but  the  failure  to 
appreciate  the  nature  and  power  of  inductive  reasoning.  "  All 
ruminating  animals  are  cloven-footed."  There  is  not  a  scientific 
man  in  the  world  who  doubts  the  truth  of  that  proposition.  How 
did  they  become  assured  of  its  truth  ?  Because  a  few  careful  men, 
interested  in  such  things,  who  did  not  leave  to  others  to  gather  the 
primary  particulars  for  them  but  who  did  this  for  themselves, 
observed  in  a  considerable  number  of  instances  that  the  ruminating 
function  in  animals  was  invariably  accompanied  by  the  split-hoof 
peculiarity  in  their  feet;  and  then  at  once  with  complete  assurance 
of  mind  from  the  instances  examined  passed  to  the  logical  generali- 
zation, that  all  ruminating  animals  everywhere  are  split-footed. 
Scores  upon  scores  of  generalizations  made  in  just  this  way  from 
particulars  constitute,  and  precisely  so  of  all  other  bodies  of  tracts 
properly  called  the  "  sciences,"  the  science  of  natural  history.  The 
process  is  induction  pure  and  simple  and  safe,  because  God  has  made 
the  world  on  everlasting  lines  of  order,  and  He  has  made  men  so 
that  they  instinctively  and  immediately  trust  this  order  so  soon  as 
they  clearly  perceive  its  lines,  and  science  is  but  the  recognition  in 
propositions  of  this  predetermined  order  as  it  manifests  itself  in 
various  classes  of  facts  or  phenomena.  But  men  must  be  cautious 
and  repetitive  in  gathering  up  their  particulars  under  some  general 
conception  of  classes  or  universals.  Whether  this  general  con- 
ception be  preexisteiit  or  born  on  the  instant  makes  no  difference 
whatever  in  the  process  of  induction,  which  is  the  process  of  reason- 
ing or  inference.  Bascom  says  above,  that  all  conclusions  that  lie 
beyond  the  primary  convictions  of  men  are  aberrations  or  vagaries. 
Tut!  That  it  takes  two  shoes  for  each  foot  of  an  ox,  and  only  one 


816  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

shoe  for  each  foot  of  a  horse,  are  among  "  the  primary  convictions 
of  men ; "  but  that  the  ox  chews  his  cud  while  the  horse  does  not, 
and  that  a  certain  shape  of  foot  invariably  accompanies  the  world 
over  a  certain  mode  of  feeding,  is  not  among  the  primary  convictions 
of  men.  Far  from  it.  The  one  is  knowledge,  the  other  is  science. 
There  is  a  sharp  line  of  distinction  between  them.  The  one  is  the 
result  of  local  observation,  the  other  of  logical  inference,  that  is,  of 
reasoning,  that  is,  of  induction. 

Professor  Bascom's  first  book  was  a  treatise  of  political  economy. 
It  was  unfortunate  from  whatever  point  of  view  looked  at,  that, 
instead  of  gathering  up  and  studying  for  himself  the  primary  facts 
of  that  branch  of  knowledge,  he  languidly  allowed  others,  as  was 
his  wont,  to  do  that  preliminary  work  for  him.  He  borrowed 
bodily  from  old  English  sources,  then  already  becoming  antiquated, 
the  notions  and  phraseology  that  first  came  to  hand.  He  ignored 
the  admirable  hints  toward  a  reconstruction  conveyed  by  Arch- 
bishop Whately's  proposal  to  denominate  the  whole  subject  Catallac- 
tics,  or  the  science  of  Exchanges.  He  assumed  without  question, 
with  many  others  more  at  fault  at  this  point  than  he,  that  the  word 
"Wealth"  was  an  adequate  word  to  put  in  at  the  foundation  of 
economical  inquiry.  Yet  neither  he  nor  anybody  else  was  ever  able 
so  to  define  this  word  as  to  make  it  useful  or  even  sufferable  in  any 
rational  attempt  to  build  up  from  its  foundation  a  consistent  science. 
He  also  took  for  granted  from  his  unscientific  predecessors,  (1)  that 
economics  were  substantially  an  investigation  about  things  rather 
than  persons,  about  commodities  rather  than  services,  about  the 
past  and  present  rather  than  the  present  and  future,  the  word 
"  wealth  "  has  a  concrete  meaning  ever  deceptive  in  this  connection ; 
(2)  that  economics  must  (in  order  to  start  at  all)  start  in  axioms, 
and  proceed  (in  order  to  proceed  at  all)  by  corollaries,  thus  assimi- 
lating the  reasoning  to  that  of  mathematics.  All  this  was  delusive 
and  impedimentary.  It  contributed  to  no  progress.  It  cast  no 
light.  That  the  word  "  wealth  "  is  not  needful  to  the  unfolding  of 
economics,  but  is  rather  a  hindrance  in  every  way,  is  shown  by  the 
fact  that  a  Williams  College  text-book  on  the  subject,  without  even 
once  using  the  obnoxious  word,  was  published  in  1865,  and  passed 
through  more  than  twenty  editions  in  twenty-five  years ;  and  there 
seemed  to  be  no  disposition  in  later  books  to  recur  to  the  scientific 
use  of  the  word,  so  far  as  they  appeared  and  were  observed  by  the 
writer.  Professor  Bascom  never  became  a  good  political  economist, 
and  therefore  never  a  good  teacher  of  those  topics,  chiefly  for  the 
reason  that  he  never  studied  at  first  hand  for  his  own  use  the 


BACKWARD    AND    FORWARD.  817 

primal  subject-matter  in  the  market-place,  in  the  labor-exchange,  and 
in  the  banking  and  clearing-houses;  secondly,  for  the  reason  that 
he  never  became  an  adept  in  the  current  and  scientific  inductive 
reasoning. 

7.  JAMES  ABRAM  GARFIELD.  Born  in  Cuyahoga  county,  Ohio, 
Nov.  19, 1831,  and  died  at  Long  Branch,  Sept.  19, 1881.  We  have  now 
reached  the  seventh  and  last  of  the  most  notable  examples  of  Wil- 
liams graduates  during  the  first  century  of  the  College.  We  feel 
sure  of  the  united  suffrages  of  the  living  alumni,  when  this  book 
shall  be  published,  in  favor  of  the  selection  of  these  seven  as  the 
most  distinguished  of  all  the  alumni.  The  point  of  heredity  as 
throwing  some  light  upon  the  life  of  each  of  the  seven,  though 
striking  also  in  relation  to  Garfield,  had  a  considerably  different 
application  to  him  from  that  in  the  two  cases  of  Bascom  and 
Whitney.  Unlike  these  last,  Garfield  was  not  the  scion  of  indi- 
vidual ancestors  of  remarkable  distinction,  —  rather  the  reverse,  — 
but  he  showed  as  distinctly  as  they  the  strain  of  commingled  blood 
coming  down  through  generations  of  relatively  common  men  from 
the  Puritan,  Edward  Garfield,  one  of  the  proprietors  of  Watertown, 
1635 ;  and  on  the  other  hand,  from  the  Huguenot,  Maturin  Ballou, 
Providence,  1639.  Puritan  and  Huguenot  features,  distinct  and  yet 
commingled,  showed  themselves  in  almost  every  line  of  Garfield, 
boy  and  man.  The  Ballou  strain  through  the  mother,  Eliza  Ballou, 
was  the  finer,  the  more  intellectual,  the  more  spontaneous,  the  more 
religious.  She  was  born  in  1801,  in  Richmond,  New  Hampshire, 
the  same  town  where  Hosea  Ballou,  the  founder  of  Universalism  in 
this  country,  and  a  relative,  was  born  in  1771.  He  was  a  son  of 
Rev.  Maturin  Ballou,  2d,  a  Baptist  minister,  and  a  father  of  a  race 
of  preachers  of  distinction.  According  to  tradition  the  Ballous 
have  been  small  in  stature,  have  even  been  said  to  be  "a  French 
pony  breed,"  which  means  a  fine  texture  of  organization  throughout. 
Eloquence,  the  gift  of  poetry,  and  a  knack  of  leadership,  came 
naturally  to  this  family  of  exiles  for  righteousness  sake  in  all  the 
several  generations.  Silas  Ballou,  a  brother  of  Garfield's  grand- 
father James,  was  the  author  of  more  than  a  score  of  hymns  in  the 
first  Universalist  "collection?"  edited  in  1837  by  Hosea  Ballou,  2d, 
chosen  the  first  president  of  Tufts  College  in  1853.  From  his 
mother's  side  of  the  family  the  general  derived  legitimately  his 
fitness  and  fondness  for  public  speaking,  his  imagination,  his  finer 
sentiments  of  all  kinds,  his  gifts  of  leadership. 

From  the  father's  side  in  long  succession  the  general  gained 
apparently  another  set  of  qualities,  a  strong  physical  development, 


818  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND   WILLIAMS   COLLEGE. 

unusual  power  of  muscle,  together  with  what  often  goes  with  these, 
good-nature,  generosity,  and  a  quick  sense  of  the  visibly  ridiculous. 
Five  generations  of  the  first  Garfields  in  Massachusetts,  including 
the  first  Edward,  who  in  all  probability  came  in  Governor  Winthrop's 
company  in  1630,  lie  buried  in  or  near  Watertown.  Solomon,  the 
sixth  in  descent,  great-grandfather  of  our  Garfield,  was  the  first  of 
the  line  to  look  beyond  New  England  for  a  home.  The  wilderness 
west  of  the  northern  Hudson  got  talked  about  in  central  Massachu- 
setts after  the  surrender  of  Burgoyne  in  1777,  and  Solomon  Garfield 
was  one  of  a  company  that  settled  what  is  now  the  town  of  "  Wor- 
cester," New  York.  Solomon  wras  known  in  the  rocky  clearing  made 
there  as  a  man  of  prodigious  strength.  He  was  once  offered  a  grind- 
stone weighing  five  hundred  pounds  if  he  would  carry  it  home.  He 
put  it  on  his  shoulders  and  carried  it  home,  a  mile's  distance,  with- 
out even  availing  himself  of  the  privilege  of  leaning  against  a  fence. 
His  son,  Thomas  Garfield,  and  his  son's  wife,  Aseneth  Hill,  had 
born  to  them  in  December,  1799,  the  month  in  which  Washington 
died  at  Mt.  Vernon,  Abram  Garfield,  the  father  of  the  President. 
When  Abram  was  ten  years  old,  who  should  move  into  the  clearing 
at  Worcester  from  southern  New  Hampshire  but  the  mother  of 
Eliza  Ballou,  then  nine  years  old,  with  three  other  small  children. 
Among  Eliza's  playmates  for  five  years  in  Worcester  was  Abram 
Garfield,  her  future  lover  and  husband.  Her  eldest  brother,  James 
Ballou,  after  whom  the  general  was  ultimately  named,  took  brief 
militia  service  in  the  War  of  1812,  and  had  his  adventurous  spirit 
quickened  and  his  local  ideas  enlarged  by  hearing  about  forest- 
covered  Ohio.  In  1814,  he  persuaded  his  mother  to  take  her 
children  there,  the  goal  being  Muskingum  County,  near  Zanesville. 
In  the  meantime  Abram  Garfield  became  an  orphan  and  bound  out 
to  service  in  Worcester,  remembering  all  the  while  the  little  Ballon 
girl,  broke  his  bonds  at  eighteen  and  set  out  for  the  Ohio  wilderness, 
where  he  found  his  "  better  half  "  and  made  her  legally  his  own  within 
a  year.  The  enterprising  young  giant  found  employment  through 
the  building  of  the  Ohio  Canal  by  the  State ;  and,  showing  wits  and 
will  and  character,  was  appointed  a  superintendent  on  the  canal 
work,  and  soon  fell  to  taking  contracts,  which  for  a  time  were 
profitable.  But  the  usual  frontier  reverses  overtaking  him,  he  paid 
up  in  full,  and,  taking  a  half-brother  with  him,  he  struck  out  for  the 
unbroken  wilderness  of  what  is  now  Orange,  fifteen  miles  from 
Mentor.1  There  was  but  one  house  within  seven  miles  of  them. 

1  Harry  A.  Garfield,  the  general's  eldest  son,  Williams  College  1885,  told  the 
writer  in  Williamstown,  July  29, 1898,  that  there  never  was  anything  in  Orange  except 


BACKWARD    AND    FORWARD.  819 

They  built  a  log-cabin  and  lived  in  it  until  a  second  was  built,  when 
both  men  went  to  work  to  make  a  hole  in  the  forest.  There  in 
November,  1831,  James  Abram  Garfield,  the  youngest  of  four  chil- 
dren, was  born.  When  he  was  eighteen  months  old,  the  father,  who 
had  never  found  his  match  in  strength,  though  often  challenged, 
died  suddenly  in  consequence  of  putting  forth  the  efforts  of  ten 
men  combined  to  save  his  home  and  crops  from  a  sweeping  forest 
fire. 

Our  Garfield  could  never  find  in  the  college  triennial  catalogues 
but  one  other  Garfield  alumnus,  showing  that  the  family,  though 
long  established  and  large  in  numbers,  were  not  a  college-frequenting 
race.  The  names  of  all  his  own  four  sons  have  since  been  gathered 
to  his  own  in  the  Williams  triennial.  The  childhood  and  youth  of 
James  A.  Garfield  did  not  differ  in  essentials  from  that  of  tens  of 
thousands  of  poor  boys,  his  own  contemporaries  in  all  parts  of  this 
country.  He  had  an  excellent  mother.  Her  mode  of  handling  him 
from  the  beginning  on  was  worthy  of  all  praise.  She  trained  him 
at  every  stage  to  respect  her  judgment  as  well  as  to  reciprocate  her 
affection.  He  inherited  from  her  strong  religious  tendencies,  and 
an  appetite  for  learning.  It  was  at  these  two  points  that  she 
watched  him,  and  worked  and  waited  for  him.  She  read  to  him  out 
of  the  New  Testament,  and  taught  him  to  read  to  her  out  of  the 
same,  and  thereafter  when  separated  in  place  they  often  read  it  in 
conjunction,  chapter  by  chapter.  Fortunately,  the  family  came  into 
the  neighborhood  of  other  poor  families  belonging  to  the  Christian 
Disciples,  or  Campbellites  so-called,  and  came  under  the  influences 
diffused  by  the  simple-hearted  ministers  of  that  denomination  of 
Baptists.  The  father  and  mother  had  become  "  Disciples  "  shortly 
before  James  was  born ;  and  the  associations  of  the  family  with 
these  excellent  people,  and  their  influence  over  Garfield  himself  so 
long  as  he  lived,  were  wholesome  and  uplifting.  He  had  felt  indeed 
at  times  the  common  reaction  of  boys  religiously  brought  up,  and 
had  absented  himself  from  the  meetings  in  the  neighborhood  school- 
houses,  one  of  which  stood  on  his  mother's  own  land ;  but  when  he 
was  a  little  past  eighteen  and  had  just  finished  his  first  term  of 
teaching  in  a  rough  district  school,  he  came  under  special  impulses 
from  the  preaching  of  a  plain  old  Disciple  in  the  little  schoolhouse, 
and  was  hopefully  converted,  and  was  baptized  into  the  faith  of  his 
mother.  Thereafter  everything  in  prospect  became  new  to  him. 
He  determined  to  acquire  the  best  and  broadest  education  that  hard 

cross-roads,  others  of  the  people  besides  the  Garfields  being  drawn  to  Mentor  early 
by  its  proximity  to  Lake  Erie  and  the  railroad. 


820  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

work  could  impart.  Alexander  Campbell,  educated  at  the  University 
of  Glasgow,  came  to  the  United  States  in  1809,  and  settled  in  Penn- 
sylvania as  a  Presbyterian  minister,  but  became  a  Baptist  in  1812, 
and  in  conjunction  with  his  father,  Thomas  Campbell,  founded 
several  congregations  which  united  with  the  Baptists,  but  protested 
against  all  creeds  ;  and  in  1827  weje  excluded  on  this  account  from 
all  fellowship  with  the  Baptist  churches.  In  1833  the  Campbellites 
numbered  about  one  hundred  thousand,  mostly  in  the  States  of 
Virginia  and  Kentucky  and  Tennessee.  Thereafter  they  increased 
rapidly  in  Ohio  and  Indiana  and  Illinois  and  Missouri.  Their 
growth  was  particularly  noticeable  among  the  Scotch-Irish  people 
settled  in  those  States.  These  people,  wherever  settled,  even  in 
New  England,  manifested  a  spontaneous  and  exceptional  devotion 
to  every  attainable  means  of  intellectual  and  religious  culture. 
Alexander  Campbell,  born  in  Antrim,  Ireland,  in  1786,  may  perhaps 
be  termed  an  educational  zealot,  was  at  any  rate  a  large-minded 
teacher  and  apostle,  and  impressed  himself  in  an  extraordinary  way 
educationally  on  all  his  religious  followers,  until  his  death  in  1866. 
He  founded  Bethany  College,  Virginia,  in  1844,  and  became  its  first 
president.  Among  several  others  similar,  he  was  instrumental  in 
establishing  the  institution  at  Hiram,  Ohio,  at  which  Garfield  him- 
self was  fitted  for  college,  and  of  which  afterward  he  became  for 
some  years  the  head. 

The  following  letter,  written  in  the  early  autumn  of  1854,  is  a  key 
to  unlock  very  much  in  the  subsequent  career  of  young  Garfield. 
He  was  then  not  quite  twenty-three  years  old.  One  curious  in  such 
matters  may  compare  with  it  Milton's  sonnet  "  On  being  arrived  at 
the  age  of  twenty-three." 

There  are  three  reasons  why  I  have  decided  not  to  go  to  Bethany:  1st  The  course 
of  study  is  not  so  extensive  or  thorough  as  in  Eastern  colleges.  2d-  Bethany  leans 
too  heavily  towards  slavery.  3d-  I  am  the  son  of  Disciple  parents,  am  one  my- 
self, and  have  had  but  little  acquaintance  with  people  of  other  views  ;  and,  hav- 
ing always  lived  in  the  West,  I  think  it  will  make  me  more  liberal,  both  in  my 
religious  and  general  views  and  sentiments,  to  go  into  a  new  circle,  where  I 
shall  be  under  new  influences.  These  considerations  led  me  to  conclude  to  go 
to  some  New  England  college.  I  therefore  wrote  to  the  Presidents  of  Brown 
University,  Yale,  and  Williams,  setting  forth  the  amount  of  study  I  have  done, 
and  asking  how  long  it  would  take  me  to  finish  their  course.  These  answers  are 
now  before  me.  All  tell  me  I  can  graduate  in  two  years.  They  are  all  brief 
business  notes,  but  President  Hopkins  concludes  with  this  sentence:  "If  you 
come  here  we  shall  be  glad  to  do  what  we  can  for  you."  Other  things  being  so 
nearly  equal,  this  sentence,  which  seems  to  be  a  kind  of  friendly  grasp  of  the 
hand,  has  settled  the  question  for  me.  I  shall  start  for  Williams  next  week. 


BACKWARD   AND    FORWARD.  821 

The  present  writer,  the  only  person  now  living  who  was  teaching 
at  Williams  while  Garfield  was  in  college,  remembers  distinctly  the 
impression  produced  upon  the  Junior  class  and  its  teachers,  by  the 
accession  of  two  young  men  from  Ohio,  Garfield  and  Wilbur,  at 
the  beginning  of  the  fall  term  of  1854.  They  came  together.  Both 
were  Disciples.  Each  was  older  by  about  a  couple  of  years  than  the 
average  member  of  the  class.  These  two  roomed  together  through- 
out the  course.  Both  were  about  equally  proficient  in  the  matter  of 
their  studies.  The  class  had  been  more  than  decimated  at  the 
close  of  the  Sophomore  year  by  the  dropping  out  of  some  poor 
scholars  and  some  unworthy  men,  making  the  class  the  smallest  in 
college.  Besides  the  two  from  Ohio,  there  were  four  or  five  new 
and  able  men  joining  at  the  same  time,  transforming  the  face  of  the 
class,  and  making  it  very  interesting  to  all  its  teachers.  It  is  not 
true  that  Garfield  was  in  any  sense  eminent  as  a  student  over  at 
least  fifteen  or  twenty  others  of  the  class  of  1856.  He  was  under 
some  disadvantages  as  compared  with  these.  He  was  poor,  and 
obliged  to  earn  concurrently  a  considerable  portion  of  his  expenses. 
He  taught  evening  writing-schools  in  Williamstown  and  in  Pownal 
and  in  other  places  more  distant.  During  a  considerable  part  of  his 
two  years'  college  residence,  in  conjunction  with  Wilbur,  he  minis- 
tered to  small  Baptist  congregations  inclining  to  hear  the  lay 
preaching  of  the  Disciples,  driving  over  the  Taconic  mountain- 
wall  for  this  purpose  to  the  small  villages  of  Berlin  and  Petersburg. 
He  missed  in  this  way  much  of  the  stimulating  college  preaching 
of  President  Hopkins,  whose  lecture-room  nevertheless  was  the 
centre  of  attraction  to  him  for  the  Senior  year.  Twenty-four  years 
after  his  graduation,  and  just  after  he  had  been  nominated  as  a 
candidate  for  the  presidency  of  the  United  States,  Dr.  Hopkins 
gave  in  writing  his  recollections  of  him  as  a  student.  These  were 
careful  and  candid,  and  corresponded  in  almost  every  particular 
with  those  of  at  least  one  other,  his  college  teachers.  The  reader 
will  be  glad  to  see  these  characteristics,  given  indeed  for  campaign 
purposes,  but  almost  wholly  free  from  partisan  bias. 

My  first  remark,  then,  is  that  General  Garfield  was  not  sent  to  college.  He 
came.  This  often  marks  a  distinction  between  college  students.  To  some,  col- 
lege is  chiefly  a  place  of  aimless  transition  through  the  perilous  period  between 
boyhood  and  manhood.  Without  fixed  principles,  and  with  no  definite  aim, 
with  an  aversion  to  study  rather  than  a  love  for  it,  they  seek  to  get  along  with 
the  least  possible  effort.  Between  the  whole  attitude  and  bearing  of  such,  and 
of  one  who  comes,  the  contrast  is  like  that  between  mechanical  and  vital  force. 
In  what  General  Garfield  did  there  was  nothing  mechanical.  He  not  only  came, 


822  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

but  made  sacrifices  to  come.  His  work  was  from  a  vital  force,  and  so  was  with- 
out fret  or  worry.  He  came  with  a  high  aim,  and  pursued  it  steadily. 

A  second  remark  is  that  the  studies  of  General  Garfield  had  breadth.  As 
every  student  should,  he  made  it  his  first  business  to  master  the  studies  of  the 
class-room.  This  he  did,  but  the  college  furnishes  facilities,  and  is  intended, 
especially  in  the  latter  part  of  its  course,  to  furnish  opportunity  for  gaining 
general  knowledge,  and  for  self-directed  culture.  To  many,  the  most  valuable 
result  of  their  college  course  is  from  these.  What  they  have  affinity  for  they 
find,  and  often  make  most  valuable  acquisitions  in  general  literature,  in  history, 
in  natural  science,  and  in  politics.  Of  these  facilities  and  of  this  opportunity 
General  Garfield  availed  himself  largely.  Of  his  tendency  towards  politics  in 
those  days  we  have  an  illustration  in  a  poem  called  "  Sam,"  which  he  delivered 
while  in  college,  and  in  which  he  satirized  the  Know-Nothing  party.  He  mani- 
fested while  in  college  the  same  tendency  towards  breadth  which  he  has  since, 
for  it  is  well  known  that  he  has  been  a  general  scholar  and  a  statesman  rather 
than  a  mere  politician. 

And  as  General  Garfield  was  broad  in  his  scholarship,  so  was  he  in  his  sym- 
pathies. No  one  thought  of  him  as  a  recluse,  or  as  bookish.  Not  given  to  athletic 
sports,  he  was  fond  of  them.  His  mind  was  open  to  the  impression  of  natural 
scenery,  and,  as  his  constitution  was  vigorous,  he  knew  well  the  fine  points  on 
the  mountains  around  us.  He  was  also  social  in  his  disposition,  both  giving  and 
inspiring  confidence.  So  true  is  this  of  his  intercourse  with  the  officers  of  the 
college  as  well  as  with  others,  that  he  was  never  even  suspected  of  anything  low 
or  trickish  ;  and  hence,  in  part,  the  confidence  I  have  always  felt  in  his  integrity. 
He  had  a  quick  eye  for  anything  that  turned  up  with  a  ludicrous  side  to  it,  and 
celebrated  a  trick  that  the  Freshmen  played  on  the  Sophomores  by  a  clever  parody 
of  Tennyson's  u  Charge  of  the  Light  Brigade."  Respecting  always  the  individu- 
ality of  others,  and  commanding  without  exacting  their  respect,  he  was  a  gen- 
eral favorite  with  his  associates. 

A  further  point  of  General  Garfield's  course  of  study  was  its  evenness.  There 
was  nothing  startling  at  any  one  time,  and  no  special  preference  for  any  one 
study.  There  was  a  large  general  capacity  applicable  to  any  subject,  and  sound 
sense.  As  he  was  more  mature  than  most,  he  naturally  had  a  readier  and  firmer 
grasp  of  the  higher  studies.  Hence  his  appointment  to  the  metaphysical  oration, 
then  one  of  the  high  honors  of  the  class.  What  he  did  was  not  done  with  facility, 
but  by  honest  and  avowed  work.  There  was  no  pretence  of  genius,  or  alterna- 
tion of  spasmodic  effort  and  of  rest,  but  a  satisfactory  accomplishment  in  all 
directions  of  what  was  undertaken.  Hence  there  was  a  steady,  healthful 
onward  and  upward  progress,  such  as  has  characterized  his  course  since 
graduation. 

More  quotable  by  much  in  this  connection,  and  more  illustrative  of 
the  trend  of  Garfield's  college  life  than  the  crude  and  ill-rhythmed 
political  satire  to  which  Dr.  Hopkins  referred,  was  the  following 
poem  published  in  the  third  volume  of  the  Williams  Quarterly,  in 
his  Junior  year,  that  is  in  1855.  This  is  a  really  fine  poem,  as  the 
reader  shall  now  see. 


BACKWARD    AND    FORWARD.  823 

AUTUMN. 

Old  Autumn  thou  art  here  !  upon  the  Earth 

And  in  the  heavens,  the  signs  of  death  are  hung  ; 

For  o'er  the  Earth's  brown  breast  stalks  pale  decay, 

And  'mong  the  lowering  clouds  the  wild  winds  wail, 

And  sighing  sadly,  chant  the  solemn  dirge, 

O'er  summer's  fairest  flowers,  all  faded  now. 

The  Winter  god,  descending  from  the  skies, 

Has  reached  the  mountain  tops,  and  decked  their  brows 

With  glittering  frosty  crowns,  and  breathed  his  breath 

Among  the  trumpet  pines,  that  herald  forth 

His  coming. 

Before  the  driving  blast 

The  mountain  oak  bows  down  his  hoary  head, 
And  flings  his  withered  locks  to  the  rough  gales 
That  fiercely  roar  among  his  branches  bare, 
Uplifted  to  the  dark  unpitying  heavens. 
The  skies  have  put  their  mourning  garments  on 
And  hung  their  funeral  drapery  on  the  clouds. 
Dead  Nature  soon  will  wear  her  shroud  of  snow 
And  lie  entombed  in  Winter's  icy  grave. 

Thus  passes  life.     As  hoary  age  comes  on 
The  joys  of  youth  —  bright  beauties  of  the  Spring, 
Grow  dim  and  faded,  and  the  long  dark  night 
Of  Death's  chill  Winter  comes.     But  as  the  Spring 
Rebuilds  the  ruined  wrecks  of  Winter's  waste, 
And  cheers  the  gloomy  earth  with  joyous  light, 
So  o'er  the  tomb,  the  Star  of  Hope  shall  rise, 
And  usher  in  an  ever  during  day. 

The  excellent  reason  given  by  Garfield  himself  to  his  correspond- 
ent why  he  should  go  to  an  Eastern  college  rather  than  to  Bethany, 
namely,  because  he  had  always  hitherto  been  associated  with  Disci- 
ples as  such,  justified  itself  in  every  stage  of  his  after  life.  He 
went  back  to  Hiram  to  teach  so  soon  as  he  had  been  graduated  at 
Williams;  he  became  a  marked  man  there  at  once  in  a  sense  in 
which  he  was  not  a  marked  man  when  he  left  there ;  it  was  not  be- 
cause he  was  essentially  a  more  gifted,  a  more  faithful,  a  better  read 
man  than  perhaps  three  or  four  others  of  his  compeers ;  it  was  be- 
cause he  had  been  for  two  years  under  a  new  set  of  influences,  both 
intellectual  and  religious,  under  new  physical  conditions,  —  particu- 
larly of  the  mountains,  —  and  under  a  new  kind  of  teacher  and 
of  classmate  examples ;  he  had  in  no  sense  abandoned  the  points  of 
his  old  Disciple  training,  —  he  went  back  unto  his  own,  —  but  they 
perceived  the  differences  at  once,  the  grounds  of  which  he  himself 


824  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

was  scarcely  conscious  of,  though  he  was  now  ready  to  assume,  and 
they  were  now  ready  to  concede  a  new  leadership,  both  educationally 
and  ecclesiastically,  the  fundamentals  of  which  were  corporate  and 
sectarian.  Five  years  of  lordly  teaching  had  sent  out  from  and 
gathered  at  Hiram  College  enough  of  trained  Disciple  material  prac- 
tically to  constitute  the  Forty-second  Ohio  regiment  of  volunteers  in 
the  autumn  of  1861,  with  Garfield  as  colonel.  The  same  complex 
influences  combined,  all  of  them  honorable  to  him,  but  not  all  of 
them  springing  by  any  means  from  his  individual  qualities,  elected 
him  to  Congress  from  the  Nineteenth  Ohio  district  in  October,  1862. 
He  took  his  seat  on  the  5th  of  December  the  following  year.  It  was 
a  critical  turn.  It  brought  with  it  great  opportunities.  It  brought 
with  it  still  greater  hazards. 

There  was  nothing  remarkable  in  Garfield's  brief  military  career, 
nor  anything  to  indicate  special  military  ability  except  the  fact  that 
he  gained  arid  retained  for  life  the  confidence  and  friendship  of  both 
General  Rosecrans  and  General  Thomas.  He  was  chief  of  staff  to 
the  former  in  the  much-disputed  battle  of  Chickamauga,  and  was 
extravagantly  praised  in  certain  quarters  for  asking  the  permission 
of  his  chief,  after  the  defeat  of  one  wing  of  the  army  in  that  battle, 
to  go  find  General  Thomas,  who  commanded  the  other  wing  still 
unrouted ;  but  Thomas  retreated  into  Chattanooga  the  next  day,  just 
as  Rosecrans  had  ordered  the  retreat  of  the  defeated  wing  the  even- 
ing before  ;  and  General  Garfield  never  joined  in  the  opinion  of  those 
who  clamored  that  the  latter  did  not  do  all  that  a  good  general  could 
do  to  save  the  day  as  a  whole.  The  present  writer  had  the  highly 
esteemed  privilege,  after  the  war  was  long  over,  of  hearing  Garfield 
discourse  in  private  and  at  length,  and  on  recurring  occasions  years 
apart,  of  the  campaigns  and  of  the  generals  and  of  the  mistakes  in 
the  Civil  War.  Rosecrans  was  always  a  marked  favorite  of  the 
soldiers  in  the  armies  he  commanded,  who  commonly  called  him 
"  Old  Rosy  "  ;  and  Garfield  was  so  intimate  with  his  chief,  and  so 
fully  possessed  his  confidence,  that  he  also  usually  addressed  him  as 
"  Rosy."  "  Noiv,  Rosy,  you  don't  want  to  do  that"  or  "  It  is  dear  that 
this  is  the  right  thing  for  us  to  do,  Rosy."  He  did  not,  however,  at 
any  time  put  Rosecrans  upon  an  equality,  in  point  of  military  ability 
and  genius,  with  General  Thomas  ;  nor  did  he  even  allow  in  that 
place  of  comparison  General  Grant  himself.  In  his  magnificent 
funeral  oration  over  the  remains  of  Thomas,  buried  at  Troy  in  May, 
1870,  he  did  not  scruple  to  put  that  chief,  on  the  whole,  at  the  head 
of  American  generals  of  the  present  century ;  nor,  so  far  as  is  known, 
was  there  ever  anything  in  his  conversation  to  invalidate  that  esti- 


JAMES    ABRAM    GARFIELD, 
W.  C  .   1856. 


BACKWARD    AND    FORWARD.  825 

mate.  He  was  never  inclined  to  place  General  Grant,  either  in  mili- 
tary or  civil  position,  so  high,  as  most  other  competent  critics  did ; 
pencil  in  hand,  he  was  known  to  be  prepared  to  demonstrate  Grant's 
military  mistakes  in  the  campaign  resulting  in  the  capture  of  Yicks- 
burg ;  and  he  had  commanded  under  Grant  a  brigade  in  the  terrible 
battle  of  Shiloh,  just  before  he  was  made  chief  of  staff  to  Roseerans, 
and  probably  received  (as  many  others  certainly  did)  an  unfavorable 
impression  of  Grant's  military  management.  Garfield  was  appointed 
a  major-general  "  for  gallant  and  meritorious  services  in  the  battle  of 
Chickamauga,  Georgia,"  but  resigned  shortly  after  to  take  his  seat 
in  Congress  Dec.  5,  1863. 

Little  need  here  be  said  about  his  long  career  in  the  national 
House  of  Representatives,  and  that  little  will  rest  chiefly  on  his  own 
authority,  given  in  frank  conversations  with  a  friend,  in  whose  house 
he  was  repeatedly  a  guest.  (1)  Very  few  members  of  the  House 
knew  him  by  sight  when  he  first  took  his  seat.  But  for  obvious 
reasons  there  was  great  curiosity  to  know  him  and  to  talk  with  him. 
He  had  just  arrived  from  the  seat  of  war  in  the  southwest,  which 
was  then  the  crucial  point  in  the  gigantic  contest,  as  it  proved  to  be 
the  middle  point  of  time  also.  Many  members  were  very  doubtful 
whether  the  War  Department  had  not  treated  General  Eosecrans  with 
needless  and  unjust  severity  for  his  part  in  the  partial  failure  of  the 
day  at  Chickamauga.  ^  Garfield  was  as  eager  to  make  the  acquaint- 
ance of  the  members  as  they  were  to  make  his.  He  was  full  of 
youth  and  life  and  buoyancy.  He  was  just  thirty  years  old.  For 
two  years  he  had  had  a  thrilling  experience,  and  he  liked  to  talk 
about  it.  He  was  affable  to  everybody,  and  an  extraordinarily  good 
talker.  He  frequented  the  lobby  quite  as  much  as  the  floor,  and  the 
former  was  often  the  more  animated  scene.  Some  of  the  older  and 
staider  members  smiled  at  his  overflow  and  vehemence,  and  endless 
good-nature,  but  in  their  hearts  they  wished  that  they  were  young 
again,  and  had  as  clear  a  conscience  as  he  had.  (2)  When  it  be- 
came time  for  him  to  take  his  turn  in  debate,  it  was  found  that, 
without  the  least  apparent  effort,  he  could  be  heard  to  the  remote 
corners  of  the  hall,  that  he  had  a  readiness  and  good  sense  and  per- 
tinency in  debate  that  can  only  come  from  quick  apprehension  of 
the  real  points  involved  and  a  general  candor  toward  the  position 
of  an  opponent.  Members  listened  first  because  they  could  easily 
hear  all  that  was  said ;  and  second,  because  they  were  pretty  sure 
to  get  some  views  of  the  subject  that  might  be  useful  to  them.  Gar- 
field  was  a  good  debater.  He  had  an  extraordinary  voice.  He  had 
good  sense.  He  had  had  a  good  college  training.  He  meant  to  be 


826  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 


fair  to  all  sides.  He  commonly  had  the  persuasive  power  that  an 
obvious  personal  conviction  takes  along  with  it.  "  In  no  one  of  the 
Congresses  that  I  have  attended,  have  there  been  over  ten  or  twelve 
members  who  could  be  heard  all  over  so  easily  as  I  could." 

(3)  Pretty  soon  after  the  death  of  Garfield  his  friend  and  fellow- 
Disciple  and  biographer,  B.  A.  Hinsdale,  now  a  professor  in  the 
University  of  Michigan,  published  a  small  volume  of  extracts  from 
the  speeches  and  other  writings  of  the  universally  lamented  Presi- 
dent, and  in  the  preface  he  referred  at  length  to  the  obvious  fact 
that  the  extracts  as  such  gave  inadequate  impression  of  the  force  and 
masterfulness  of  the  writings  as  a  whole.  Everything  must  be  seen 
in  its  setting  and  surroundings  in  order  to  be  properly  seen  at  all. 
This  may  be  easily  explained  from  the  nature  and  training  of  the 
man.  No  human  being  ever  yet  had  a  complete  intellectual  devel- 
opment. No  human  being  ever  yet  had  a  full  and  rounded  moral 
outfit.  The  crevasse  is  found,  now  here  and  now  there,  but  cre- 
vasses are  patent  enough  in  each  and  all  of  the  world's  heroes  and 
favorites.  The  fundamental  reason  why  Garfield  rarely  or  never  ex- 
pressed himself  in  quotable  apothegms  or  moral  maxims  was  that  he 
was  not  built  in  that  way.  A  scientific  generalization  inductively 
reached  and  properly  expressed,  has  no  exceptions  whatever ;  and  it- 
is  the  highest  joy  of  the  scientist  in  any  field  to  grasp  and  to  utter 
such  generalizations.  A  moral  maxim  perceived  in  its  grounds  of 
ultimate  truth  and  righteousness  stands  fast  forever,  whether  at- 
tained by  processes  of  inductive  proof,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Ten 
Commandments,  or  intuitively  sighted  by  the  very  highest  minds, 
as  in  the  case  of  the  Beatitudes.  "  Thou  shalt  not  commit  adultery." 
No  exception  —  no  tampering  —  no  escape.  "  Blessed  are  they  who 
hunger  and  thirst  after  righteousness,  for  they  shall  be  filled  "  with 
righteousness.  Garfield's  mind  was  not  of  that  rare  order  that  it 
took  quick  and  firm  hold  of  certainties  as  certainties.  He  saw 
truths,  —  a  great  many  of  them,  and  took  comfort  in  them,  —  that 
he  was  sure  lay  near  to  the  Throne,  while  he  had  a  lingering  fear 
that  some  of  them  might,  after  all,  in  special  circumstances  slip  down 
the  steps !  He  never  grounded  his  soul  on  the  profound  formula, 
that  a  miss  is  as  bad  as  a  mile !  This  was  the  source  of  all  the  mis- 
takes, —  and  he  made  a  good  many  of  them,  —  while  he  was  a 
prominent  and  powerful  and  mostly  admirable  member  of  the 
House  of  Representatives.  The  most  masterful  speech  of  his  life, 
and  the  one  that  yielded  the  condensed  expression  most  likely  to 
live,  was  that  given  to  an  excited  and  maddened  crowd  in  New 
York  just  after  the  murder  of  Lincoln,  and  the  happy  phrase 


BACKWARD    AND    FORWARD.  827 

was,  "  The  President  is  dead,  but  God  reigns,  and  the  Republic  still 
lives." 

(4)  The  American  Free  Trade  League  was  organized  in  New  York 
a  little  after  the  close  of  the  Civil  War,  for  the  express  purpose  of 
exposing  the  motives  and  thwarting  the  action  of  certain  members 
of  Congress  from  Pennsylvania  and  New  England,  who  had  secretly 
conspired,  under  the  convenient  disguises  of  huge  war  taxes  and  de- 
preciated greenbacks,  to  carry  the  country  back,  without  open  dis- 
cussion, to  protectionism,  which  the  country,  after  full  and  long  and 
public  discussion,  had  definitely  abandoned  in  1846,  twenty  years 
before,  the  year,  also,  in  which  Great  Britain  had  definitively  abol- 
ished her  own  so-called  "  protective  "  tariff  taxes,  namely,  the  Corn 
Laws.  More  unselfish  and  patriotic  men  never  lived  than  those  who 
formed  the  bone  and  sinew  of  that  League.  They  combined  to  stand 
up  for  the  rights  of  the  poor  and  the  plundered,  for  those  who  for 
obvious  reasons  could  not  stand  up  for  themselves.  The  three  presi- 
dents of  this  League  in  succession  were  William  Cullen  Bryant  and 
David  Dudley  Field  and  David  Ames  WTells,  all  graduates  of  Wil- 
liams College,  all  nationally  and  internationally  distinguished  men, 
all  men  highly  esteemed  by  Garfield  as  fellow-alumni  and  disinter- 
ested citizens.  He  agreed  with  them  in  the  constitution  of  their 
League,  and  in  their  statements  of  the  nature  of  tariffs  as  taxes,  and 
of  the  radical  difference  between  revenue  tariffs  and  so-called  "  pro- 
tective "  tariffs,  —  the  former  being  so  devised  as  to  let  the  foreign 
goods  come  in  and  so  pay  the  taxes  on  them  into  the  United  States 
Treasury,  and  the  latter  so  devised  as  to  keep  the  foreign  goods  out 
and  so  get  no  revenue  on  them  (or  if  a  few  come  in  in  spite  of  the 
barriers,  a  very  little  revenue  at  a  very  high  cost).  Garfield  saw 
through  the  motives  of  the  men  who  went  to  Washington  to  get 
"  protective  "  tariff  taxes  put  on.  Indeed,  he  was  a  member  of  the 
Ways  and  Means  when  the  first  considerable  raid  was  made  on  that 
committee  for  such  abominable  taxes ;  for  he  used  the  words  follow- 
ing to  a  friend  in  the  next  congressional  recess  :  "  there  was  not  a 
man  or  a  delegation  before  us  last  winter  to  get  protective  duties  put  on 
or  old  ones  increased,  but  came  in  bare  selfishness,  without  a  thought  or 
care  except  so  to  raise  the  price  artificially  of  their  own  wares  to  their 
oivn  countrymen."  In  March,  1869,  just  after  the  inauguration  of 
General  Grant  as  President,  the  American  Free  Trade  League  set  on 
foot  a  series  of  public  addresses  in  some  of  the  chief  cities  of  the 
North,  beginning  in  Philadelphia.  Two  young  men  from  New 
York,  prominent  in  the  League,  Charles  H.  Marshall  and  Mahlon 
Sands,  accompanied  their  speaker  on  this  tour,  and  endeavored  to 


828  WILLIAMSTOWN   AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

make  influence  for  the  cause  wherever  they  went.  From  Philadel- 
phia all  three  went  on  to  Washington,  and  Marshall  and  Sands  saw 
a  number  of  public  men,  members  of  Congress  and  others,  favorable 
to  a  national  agitation  for  free  trade ;  but  they  saw  no  other  one  so 
favorable  to  this  as  the  then  chairman  of  the  Ways  and  Means, 
James  A.  Garfield.  He  inquired  after  the  particulars  of  the  Phila- 
delphia meeting,  and. after  the  speaker's  special  line  of  argument  at 
that  time,  which  they  gave  to  him,  and  of  which  he  expressed  his 
approval.  His  outspoken  adhesion  on  this  occasion  to  the  princi- 
ples and  practice  of  the  League  were  perhaps  the  reason  why  he  was 
commended  to  the  Cobden  Club  of  London  as  a  candidate  for  their 
membership.  At  any  rate,  he  was  so  commended  from  this  side,  and 
was  regularly  elected  a  member  over  there,  and  signified  in  due  time 
by  letter  his  cordial  acceptance  of  the  honor  conferred  upon  him. 

The  strange  story  of  Garfield's  nomination  for  the  presidency  at 
Chicago  in  the  summer  of  1880,  was  many  times  told  by  eye-  and 
ear-witnesses  claiming  to  know  its  inner  history ;  and  more  than  a 
decade  and  a  half  after  the  event  a  new  interest  was  kindled  in  it 
over  the  country  by  original  and  important  contributions  made  to  it 
through  the  magazines  by  Murat  Halstead  and  T.  B.  Connery.  The 
former  of  these  added  much  to  the  public  knowledge  at  several 
points,  while  conceding  his  own  inability  to  explain  a  striking 
fact  to  which  he  more  than  once  called  attention,  and  which  will 
now  be  referred  to  in  conclusion.  John  Sherman  of  Ohio  was 
the  logical  and  the  really  only  proper  candidate  for  the  presidency 
on  the  Kepublican  side  in  1880.  A  leading  member  of  the  House 
Committee  of  Finance  throughout  the  Civil  War,  and  for  some  time 
its  chairman ;  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  under  President  Hayes, 
superintending  the  measures  leading  to  the  resumption  of  specie 
payments  in  January,  1879,  after  their  suspension  for  seventeen  years, 
and  engaged  in  refunding  at  lower  rates  of  interest  the  debt  of  the 
United  States ;  he  represented  more  prominently  than  any  other 
statesman  the  Republican  policies  both  of  war  and  peace.  He  justly 
deemed  himself  entitled  to  the  nomination,  and  honorably  and  ear- 
nestly sought  t^e  position.  As  a  congressional  neighbor  and  next 
friend  to  Sherman,  Garfield  volunteered  to  attend  to  his  interests  in 
the  nominating  convention,  and  did  so  with  scrupulous  fidelity ;  from 
one  of  the  reporters'  tables  on  the  floor,  Garfield  put  his  colleague  in 
nomination  by  means  of  a  speech  that  was  extraordinarily  admired ; 
and  which  was  only  equalled  by  a  corresponding  speech  uttered  by 
Roscoe  Conkling  in  behalf  of  the  renomination  of  General  Grant  for 
a  third  term  of  the  presidency ;  but  a  hidden  force  at  work  in  the  con- 


BACKWARD    AND    FORWARD. 


829 


vention,  of  which  not  even  Garfield  was  aware  at  first,  which  made 
the  nomination  of  Sherman  impossible,  was  attended  by  another 
hidden  force  of  prescription  and  sound  sentiment,  which  rendered 
impossible  also  the  renomination  of  General  Grant.  The  bottom 
story,  now  fully  known,  need  not  be  told  in  this  place.  It  is  enough 


METHODIST   CHURCH. 

to  quote  in  full  the  letter  of  John  Sherman  in  relation  to  it,  as 
follows  :  — 

"  /  believe  that  Garfield  was  loyal  and  did  Ms  best  to  carry  out  the 
mandate  of  his  delegation.  If  there  icas  ant/  disloyalty  it  was  not  on 
his  part.  When  my  nomination  seems:!  hopeless,  and  there  was  a  ten- 
dency of  my  strength  to  go  to  him,  I  tdctj.-a^n-J  lii.u  my  full  consent.  I 


830  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

was  glad  that  the  nomination  was  to  go  to  an  Ohio  man.  I  think  his 
friendship  for  me  was  unshakable,  as  mine  was  for  him.  Garfield  was 
an  exceedingly  brilliant  man,  ivith  a  handsome  face  and  imposing  ap- 
pearance. What  he  seemed  to  lack  was  moral  steadfastness.  He  was 
very  susceptible  to  the  influence  of  stronger  natures.  He  lacked  depth 
of  conviction.  The  last  man  who  got  his  ear  was  apt  to  influence  his 
judgment.  I  not  only  gave  his  nomination  my  hearty  approval,  but  I 
worked  hard  for  his  election" 

If  we  may  fairly  assume  as  the  chief  tests  of  a  high  success  in  a 
college  professorship,  (1)  a  considerable  length  in  the  time  of  ser- 
vice, say,  not  less  than  ten  years;  (2)  a  proved  ability  not  only  to 
carry  on  his  own  teaching  acceptably,  but  also  helpfully  to  con- 
tribute his  full  share  to  those  miscellaneous  duties  falling  to  the 
members  of  any  college  faculty;  and  (3)  a  contented  and  hopeful 
spirit,  such  as  served  to  enheart  the  students  generally  and  tended 
to  keep  them  in  pleasant  relations  to  the  College,  —  we  might 
safely  reckon  one  half  of  the  following  named  graduate  professors 
as  having  gained  a  high  success  in  their  exalted  calling;  the  other 
half,  while  there  were  decided  differences  between  them  in  respect 
to  those  tests,  may  fairly  be  called  successful  professors  on  the 
whole.  The  year  of  graduation  and  the  department  of  instruction 
are  appended  to  their  names. 

CHESTER  DEWEY  .......  1810  .  .  .  Mathematics  and  Physics. 

EBENEZER  EMMONS 1818...  Natural  History. 

ALBERT  HOPKINS 1826  .  .  .  Physics  and  Astronomy. 

EDWARD  LASELL 1828  .  .  .  Chemistry. 

NATHANIEL  HERRICK  GRIFFIN     .     .  1834  .  .  .  Latin  and  Greek. 

JOHN  TATLOCK 1836  .  .  .  Mathematics. 

ISAAC  NEWTON  LINCOLN     ....  1847  .  .  .  Latin  and  French. 

JOHN  L.  T.  PHILLIPS 1847  .  .  .  Greek. 

JOHN  BASCOM         1849  .  .  .  Rhetoric. 

ARTHUR  LATHAM  PERRY     ....  1852  .  .  .  History  and  Economics. 

CHARLES  FRANKLIN  GILSON     .     .     .  1853  .  .  .  Modern  Languages. 

CYRUS  MORRIS  DODD 1855  .  .  .  Mathematics. 

EDWARD  HERRICK  GRIFFIN     .     .     .  1862  .  .  .  Latin  and  Rhetoric. 

LEVERETT  WILSON  SPRING       .     .     .  1863  .  .  .  Rhetoric. 

LUTHER  DANA  WOODBRIDGE    .     .     .  1872  .  .  .  Anatomy  and  Physiology. 

JOHN  EDWARD  RUSSELL 1872  .  .  .  Philosophy. 

HENRY  LEFAVOUR 1883  .  .  .  Physics. 

Applying  the  same  tests  of  success  as  before,  and  premising 
that  some  of  the  following  named  non-graduate  professors  reached 
the  highest  rank  of  general  usefulness  attained  by  the  first  half  of 
the  names  in  the  list  preceding,  there  may  well  be  named  the  follow- 


BACKWARD    AND    FORWARD. 


831 


ing.     Their  respective  colleges  and  departments  of  instruction  are 
appended. 


EBENEZER  KELLOGG Yale 

JOSEPH  ALDEN Union    . 

SANBORN  TENNEY Amherst 

TRUMAN  HENRY  SAFFORD  .     ...  Harvard 

LEVERETT  HEARS Amherst 

ORLANDO  MARCELLUS  FERNALD       .  Harvard 

RICHARD  AUSTIN  RICE Yale 

SAMUEL  FESSENDEN  CLARKE  .     .     .  Harvard 

JOHN  HASKELL  HEWITT          .     .     .  Yale 


Latin  and  Greek. 

History  and  Economics. 

Natural  History. 

Astronomy. 

Chemistry. 

Greek. 

Modern  Languages. 

Natural  History. 

Ancient  Languages. 


GEORGE   LANSING   RAYMOND. 


A  considerable  number  of  professors  and  instructors,  both  gradu- 
ate and  non-graduate,  are  excluded  from  the  above  lists  by  the  test 
of  the  time  of  service.  The  writer  cannot  forbear,  however,  to 
mention  as  falling  in  this  category  of  the  excluded,  George  Lansing 
Raymond,  of  the  Williams  class  of  1862,  who  was  Professor  of 
Oratory  from  1875  till  1881,  who  displayed  here,  and  afterward  at 


832  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

Princeton  in  a  similar  position,  extraordinary  gifts  and  acquire- 
ments along  the  line  of  art  in  general,  and  in  particular  the  art  of 
oratory.  His  written  style  was  not  felicitous  in  exposition;  and 
besides,  his  topics  were  among  the  most  remote  and  recondite  ever 
treated  of  before  college  classes;  and  yet  he  earned,  through  his 
teaching  and  his  books,  an  unique  reputation  in  the  country  at  large 
for  original  and  profound  construction  in  what  may  be  termed  per- 
haps the  science  of  art.  Professor  Kaymond  was  also  through  and 
through  a  kindly  and  considerate  gentleman. 

A  few  words  here  in  relation  to  the  college  fraternities,  or  secret 
societies,  of  which  there  were  ten  as  the  old  century  went  out,  and 
about  fifty  per  cent  of  the  students  constituted  their  membership. 
More  than  half  possessed  fine  houses  of  their  own,  in  which  lived 
and  lodged  their  members. 

There  was  one  ill  consequence  certainly  of  this  custom  of  the  fra- 
ternities to  build  expensively  and  to  fare  sumptuously :  from  it  fol- 
io wed,  by  a  sort  of  necessity,  the  habit  of  selecting  for  their  new 
members  each  year  the  young  men  whose  fathers  were  possessed  of 
long  purses ;  not  that  this  was  the  only  principle  in  their  selection 
by  any  means,  but  it  came  to  be  a  leading  principle.  It  might  be 
thought  that  this  would  introduce  into  the  secret  societies  a  kind  of 
aristocracy,  but  such  was  not  the  case  practically ;  they  continued 
democratic  in  their  relations  each  to  each,  and  all  in  their  common 
relations  to  non-fraternity  students ;  while  each  was  doubtless  some- 
what weakened  intellectually  and  in  point  of  forceful  character  by 
the  necessity  alluded  to.  There  continued  to  be  considerable  discus- 
sion among  the  alumni  of  the  College,  among  the  college  officials 
generally,  and  among  the  successive  generations  of  college  students, 
whether  or  not  the  fraternities  were  a  benefit  on  the  whole.  The 
question  certainly  had  two  sides  to  it;  it  was  debated  on  both  with 
varying  ability  and  intensity;  and  candor  compels  the  statement  of 
fact,  that  the  fraternities  pretty  steadily  gained  in  the  college  public 
opinion.  They  furnished  a  transient  home  to  their  graduates  return- 
ing to  the  Alma  Mater;  they  furnished  a  special  motive  to  graduates 
to  send  back  to  the  College  new  students  from  time  to  time ;  and 
when  (as  happened  more  than  once)  the  old  College  seemed  declin- 
ing and  unpopular,  the  feeling  ran  in  many  circles  round  the  country 
over,  the  Society  must  be  perpetuated  at  any  cost  through  the  rescue  of 
the  College.  Thus  the  parent  institution  was  strengthened  through 
the  instincts  of  self-preservation. 

The  centennial  celebration  of  the  College  fell  on  Oct.  8  and  9 
and  10,  1893.  It  was  in  every  way  a  notable  occasion.  The  weather 


BACKWARD    AND    FORWARD. 


833 


was  throughout  superb.     Extraordinary  pains  had  been  taken  in  the 
points  of  invitations  sent  out  and  hospitalities  prepared  for.     It 


CHI    PSI. 


was  a  part  of  a  matured  plan  to  secure  by  means  of  this  occasion  a 
more  general  and  pronounced  recognition  of  the  College  as  among 


834  W1LLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

the  leading  colleges  of  the  northern  and  eastern  half  of  the  country. 
Special  invitations  were  sent  to  the  representatives  of  these  institu- 
tions, which  were  quite  generally  accepted,  and  their  particular  pur- 
pose measurably  secured.  Through  local  committees,  alert  and 
well-organized,  courteous-  attentions  were  paid  to  strangers  and  to 
persons  from  a  distance.  The  public  exercises  were  well  maintained 
from  the  beginning  to  the  end,  and  the  intervals  between  these  were 
given  up  to  walks  and  calls,  to  the  making  of  new  acquaintances 
and  the  renewing  of  old  ones.  President  Carter  displayed  his  re- 
markable skill  in  the  organization  of  the  celebration  as  a  whole,  in 
the  public  welcome  accorded  to  all  comers,  arid  in  the  happy  and 
proportionate  recognition  of  institutions  and  individuals  as  the 
presiding  officer  throughout.  All  seemed  to  have  a  good  time ;  all 
said  that  they  had  had  a  good  time ;  and,  as  things  go  in  a  world 
constituted  as  this  one  is,  it  was  superficially  and  apparently  a  great 
success.  That  there  were  drawbacks  was  a  matter  of  course.  That 
there  were  striking  contrasts  as  between  the  semi-centennial  of  1843 
and  the  centennial  of  1893  was  a  matter  of  necessity.  On  the  other 
hand,  that  there  were  such  drawbacks  as  appeared  to  thoughtful  and 
keen-eyed  men;  and  such  contrasts  appearing  to  the  same  between 
the  two  occasions  in  the  same  place  fifty  years  apart;  was  a  matter 
of  distinct  and  deep-lined  ill-omen  to  the  old  College.  Before  a  few 
of  the  more  material  of  these  drawbacks  and  contrasts  are  here 
enumerated,  it  may  be  well  for  all  to  read  brief  specimens  of  the 
good  words  publicly  spoken  on  that  occasion  by  prominent  alumni. 
Henry  Hopkins  of  the  class  of  1858,  eldest  son  of  Mark  Hopkins, 
preached  the  sermon,  the  exordium  of  which  is  appended  in  full, 
and  also  three  or  four  sentences  from  the  body. 

Williams  College  is  an  hundred  years  old,  and  there  is  not  a  wrinkle  on  her 
brow.  Through  the  constant  growth  of  a  century,  she  has  stood  a  steadfast 
type  of  a  distinctive  educational  idea.  In  constantly  increasing  numbers,  occupy- 
ing ever  wider  areas,  there  have  been  other  institutions  having  substantially  the 
same  origin,  aims  and  methods.  The  American  college  is  the  generic  name  of 
the  class.  This  designation  has  had  in  the  past,  and  notwithstanding  the 
changes  of  the  present,  still  has,  a  definite  meaning.  It  is  descriptive  of  an 
educational  organization  conformable  to  no  other  type.  These  colleges  stand 
here  and  there  on  the  high  places,  through  all  the  great  land,  from  the  Aroostook 
to  the  Golden  Gate,  from  Canada  to  the  Gulf  ;  and  are  an  honorable  and  excel- 
lent sisterhood,  dynamic,  dignified,  gracious,  beneficent.  They  are  to-day  bless- 
ing and  adorning  the  vast  commonwealths  that  make  up  the  glory  and  strength 
of  our  Republic.  Their  history  is  a  large  and  noble  part  of  the  history  of  the 
letters,  the  science,  the  patriotism,  and  the  religion  of  our  country;  while  in 
foreign  lands  the  transplanted  American  college,  as  represented  by  such  institu- 


BACKWARD    AND    FORWARD.  835 

tions  as  Robert  College  at  Constantinople,  and  the  Doshisha  in  Japan,  is  training 
the  men  who  are  bringing  in  popular  enlightenment,  constitutional  liberty,  and 
the  kingdom  of  God.  If  you  search  for  a  common  characteristic,  you  will  come 
very  near  to  the  heart  of  our  topic,  which  is,  the  connection  between  education 
and  religion.  We  are  concerned  especially  with  the  higher  education  as  illus- 
trated in  the  American  college,  and  religion  as  related  to  it. 

There  is  trouble  in  getting  contact  after  you  have  gotten  men.  Increase  of 
numbers  tends  to  weaken  influence.  The  professors  with  large  classes  some- 
times degenerate  into  automatic  teaching-machines.  The  intercourse  between 
teacher  and  pupil  grows  unlovely,  frigid,  and  formal.  How  alluring  the  con- 
trast, —  the  idea  of  the  academic  family  of  the  colleges  of  the  English  University  ! 
President  Woolsey  is  quoted  as  saying,  "  Had  I  my  life  to  begin  over  again,  I 
would  throw  in  my  lot  with  one  of  the  smaller  institutions :  I  could  have  more 
influence  in  training  mind  and  in  shaping  character."  There  was  a  greater  than 
he,  who,  when  he  would  commit  to  the  world  truth  of  priceless  value,  was  satis- 
fied with  a  single  class  of  only  twelve.  It  is  better  to  lead  a  few  by  the  hand 
to  the  tree  of  life  than,  like  a  guide-board,  to  point  a  multitude  to  the  tree  of 
knowledge. 

Charles  Cuthbert  Hall  of  the  class  of  1872  said  the  following 
words,  amid  many  more  of  the  same  general  tenor. 

Williams  College  regards  Christianity  as  something  more  than  the  cherished 
faith  and  the  holy  tradition  of  nineteen  centuries.  To  us  Christianity  means 
the  present  power  of  the  living  Christ  operating  in  the  earth  through  the  varied 
ministries  of  the  Divine  Spirit.  Jesus  lives,  not  as  a  precious  memory,  but  as  a 
contemporary  Being ;  and  because  He  lives,  we  live  also,  having  received  His 
Spirit  in  ourselves.  And,  through  men  who  are  made  alive  by  His  Divine  Spirit, 
the  power  of  the  living  Christ  becomes  an  applicable  force  in  the  present  age,  to 
correct,  inform,  and  guide  social  relations,  and  to  advance  the  complete  redemp- 
tion of  the  individual. 

James  Hulme  Canfield  of  the  class  of  1868  delivered  the  centen- 
nial oration.  Two  passages  from  it,  herewith  appended,  will 
impart  a  fair  conception  of  its  drift  and  spirit. 

Because  of  the  somewhat  limited  number  of  students  in  attendance,  Williams 
has  often  been  referred  to  disparagingly  as  a  "  small  college."  But  it  should  be 
remembered  that  its  aim  has  always  been  to  be  a  safe  college  rather  than  a  large 
one.  Undoubtedly  ideal  education  calls  for  but  one  pupil  and  one  master.  The 
most  powerful  inspiration  is  that  which  comes  from  close  personal  relations. 
The  best  of  the  education  which  this  college  has  offered  young  men  during  this 
century  has  been  the  influence  of  its  Faculty.  Association  with  strong  character 
must  breed  strength  of  character.  The  relations  of  teacher  and  taught  are 
mutual  relations,  and  are  mutually  helpful,  uplifting,  and  upbuilding.  This 
"smallness"  of  the  college  has  maintained  conditions  conducive  to  the  fulfil- 
ment of  its  early  purpose  and  plan.  Personal  character  and  watchfulness  and 
sympathy  have  always  been  more  possible,  as  well  as  more  probable,  than  in 
larger  institutions. 


836  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

The  best  test  of  the  success  of  the  college,  after  all,  is  the  men  it  has  made. 
And  in  considering  this  point,  one  must  carefully  note  the  material  with  which 
it  has  always  worked.  You  will  recall  that  lirst  petition  for  a  charter  for  the 
college  ;  wherein  it  was  set  forth  that  the  location  was  advantageous  because  of 
certain  conditions  which  tended  to  lessen  the  expense  of  instruction  and  render 
the  means  of  a  liberal  education  more  easy,  and  thus  bring  them  more  within  the 
power  of  the  "middling  and  lower  classes."  To  these  classes  the  college  has 
always  appealed  with  the  largest  possible  degree  of  helpfulness.  It  has  believed 
that  sound  education  was  just  as  possible  to  the  son  of  a  peasant  as  to  the  son  of 
a  president ;  just  as  helpful  to  the  blacksmith  as  to  the  barrister  ;  just  as  quick- 
ening in  all  its  power  with  the  farmer  as  with  the  philosopher  ;  and  in  its  possi- 
bilities, quickening  power,  and  helpfulness,  a  constant  blessing  to  all,  through 
all ;  and  is  needed  by  all  alike. 

Granville  Stanley  Hall  of  ifie  class  of  1867  used  the  following 
significant  words,  which  will  bear  reading  between  the  lines  also. 

We  are  wandering  in  the  wilderness,  and  have  been  to  a  certain  extent,  it 
seems  to  me,  in  all  matters  of  higher  education,  ever  since  the  beginning  of  the 
elective  system.  When  we  began  we  had  a  symmetrical,  seasoned,  well-digested 
college  curriculum.  The  only  other  example  of  a  course  of  education  known  in 
the  history  of  the  world  was  known  long  before  this  country  was  founded.  It 
was  the  course  of  education  represented  by  the  old  trivium,  quadrivium  and  quin- 
drivium,  which  held  their  own  for  a  thousand  years,  by  the  "  ratio  studioruin" 
of  the  Jesuits,  and  also  by  the  schools  which  Charlemagne  founded. 

Since  we  lost  that  course,  —  and  it  is  being  rapidly  lost,  —  we  have  been 
wandering  in  the  wilderness ;  and  all  these  promising  attempts,  admirable  as 
they  are,  have  not  by  any  means  completely  solved  the  problem.  On  the  other 
hand  I  think  there  is  a  general  consensus  that  the  great  problem  is  yet  before  us 
and  that  it  must  be  solved  by  new  methods,  if  not,  indeed,  to  some  extent,  by 
new  men. 

Washington  Gladden  of  the  class  of  1859  made  his  contribution 
to  the  centennial  in  the  form  of  the  following  hymn ;  as  he  had 
made  many  years  before  the  more  notable  contribution  of  the  first, 
and  still  the  chief  of  the  college  songs,  —  "  The  Mountains." 

Here,  'neath  the  soft  October  sky, 

A  century  gone,  the  scholars  stood 
And  praised  the  Power  who  dwells  on  high, 

The  Source  of  Light,  the  Fount  of  Good. 

The  flaming  mountains  heard  their  praise  ; 

The  winding  river  hushed  its  mirth, 
And  through  the  dreamy  depths  of  haze 

The  heavens  stooped  down  and  touched  the  earth. 

A  hundred  years  their  gifts  have  brought 

To  crown  the  work  that  day  begun  ; 
And  flames  from  off  this  altar  caught 

Light  every  land  beneath  the  sun. 


BACKWARD   AND   FORWARD.  837 

O  flaming  mountains,  guard  us  still ! 

O  skies  of  autumn,  softly  bend, 
And  whisper  of  the  gracious  will 

Of  God,  our  Father  and  our  Friend. 

O  Lord  of  life  and  light  and  love, 

The  years  to  come  are  safe  with  Thee  ; 
Clothe  us  with  wisdom  from  above, 

And  make  us  brave  and  strong  and  free  ! 

It  is  of  the  very  nature  of  a  centennial  celebration  to  be  commemora- 
tive  —  to  look  mainly  backward,  and  perhaps  also  to  imply  something 
of  comparative  criticism  on  the  changing  methods  of  the  present.  The 
prose  excerpts  just  presented,  and  especially  the  last  one,  all  either 
imply  or  import  such  criticism.  The  president  of  the  College  in  the 
last  dozen  years,  of  his  own  motion  and  by  means  and  authority  more 
than  questionable,  had  changed  essentially  the  college  curriculum, 
which,  according  to  President  Hall,  was  "  symmetrical,  seasoned,  and 
well-digested,"  and  had  gone  off  "wandering  in  the  wilderness." 
There  was  a  widespread  feeling  among  the  alumni  to  the  same  effect, 
though  no  one  else  expressed  it  so  frankly  and  strongly  as  Stanley 
Hall ;  probably  there  was  no  other  one  present  so  competent  to  give  a 
sound  judgment  on  that  topic  as  was  he.  In  this  undertone  of  forebod- 
ing was  seen  the  first  of  the  contrasts  between  1893  and  1843.  The 
second  was  like  unto  it.  The  entire  number  of  graduates  during  the 
first  fifty  years  of  the  College  was  959 ;  during  the  second  fifty  years 
the  number  was  2292.  At  the  semi-centennial,  Calvin  Durfee,  of  the 
class  of  1825,  who  was  present,  and  who  was  a  man  of  sober  judg- 
ment in  such  matters,  records  in  his  "  History  of  Williams  College," 
page  251 :  "  This  occasion  brought  together  a  great  number  of  gradu- 
ates (probably  not  far  from  three  hundred),  and  with  them  a  large 
crowd  of  interested  spectators."  Suppose  we  reduce  his  estimated 
number  of  300  to  240,  then  it  will  follow  that  just  one-fourth  of  all 
the  graduates  up  to  that  time  were  actually  present  on  the  ground  in 
1843.  This,  too,  while  Williamstown  continued  to  be  extremely  inac- 
cessible to  persons  from  a  distance.  Also  a  considerable  proportion 
of  the  959  had  then  already  passed  over  into  the  land  of  silence. 
The  number  of  graduates  during  the  second  fifty  years  of  the  Col- 
lege was  2292,  as  officially  recorded.  A  praiseworthy  and  persistent 
effort  was  made  to  obtain  for  permanent  preservation  the  autographs 
of  all  graduates  actually  in  attendance  in  1893.  The  names  thus 
secured  were  409.  This  number  should  be  reduced  certainly  by  7, 
probably  by  11  or  12,  on  account  of  those  who  properly  enough 
signed  with  their  classmates,  but  who  for  one  reason  or  another  did 


838  WILLIAMSTOWN    AND    WILLIAMS    COLLEGE. 

not  receive  diplomas  with  them.  It  seems  to  be  fair  to  reckon  400 
(and  no  more)  of  the  alumni  on  the  ground  at  the  centennial.  But 
this  is  only  a  little  more  than  one-sixth  of  the  entire  number  gradu- 
ated in  the  fifty  years  preceding.  Fully  one-fourth  of  the  graduates 
corresponding  were  present  in  1843.  There  was,  therefore,  a  strik- 
ing difference  in  the  relative  number  in  attendance  at  the  two  dates. 
And  that,  too,  when  the  centennial  naturally  drew  more  strongly 
and  from  wider  circuits  than  a  semi-centennial ;  also,  when  the  pre- 
vious inaccessibility  had  changed  in  the  interval  by  means  of  rail- 
roads, from  south  and  north  and  east  and  west,  to  unusual  easiness 
of  access  for  a  country  town ;  and  also  when,  owing  to  larger  num- 
bers in  the  later  years,  a  much  larger  proportion  of  the  entire 
numbers  were  relatively  young  men.  How  do  we  account  for  this 
difference  in  attendance  at  the  two  times?  It  was  not  anticipated. 
The  authorities  of  the  College  had  expected  600,  and  but  400  came. 
The  reason  for  this  was  discussed  at  the  time  and  place  by  many 
of  the  experienced  alumni;  and  their  varied  opinions  concentrated 
at  least  around  this  one  point,  namely,  that  some  personal  disaffec- 
tion toward  the  College  on  the  part  of  those  more  recently  gradu- 
ated at  the  College  was  an  adequate  ground  for  this  discrepancy  of 
attendance. 


INDEX. 


A. 

Adams,  'Ebenezer,  393. 
Adams,  John,  172,  269. 
Adams.  John  Quincy,  476,  786. 
Adams,  North,  5,  172,  444,  7(54. 
Adams,  Samuel,  24,  276. 
Adelphic  Union  Society,  266. 
Advocate  Advertisers,  482. 
Agricultural  College,  688. 
Aix  la  Chapelle,  5,  54. 
Alden,  Joseph,  593,  608,  693. 
Allen,  Ethan,  25,  60. 
Allen,  Parson,  115,  169,  225. 
Alma  Mater,  724. 
Alpine  Club,  401,  579. 
American  Advocate,  474. 
American  Board,  576. 
Ames,  Fisher,  277,  284. 
Amherst,  14,  304,  398,  402,  415. 
Amherst  College,  450,  622. 
Amherst,  General,  20,  119. 
Anderson,  H.  H.,  745. 
Anderson,  Rufus,  369. 
Andover  and  Blandford,  389. 
Anclover  Seminary,  419. 
Anti-Slavery  Society,  483. 
Arnold,  Benedict,  25,  29,  60. 
Arnold,  Stephen,  47. 
"  Ashuelot  Equivalent,"  165. 
Ashuwillticook,  5. 
Astronomical  Observatory,  545. 
Auburn,  201. 
A  very,  John,  335,  338. 
Avery,  Oliver,  11. 


B. 

Babbitt,  Captain,  113. 
Baccalaureates,  603. 
Backus,  G.  H.,  377. 
Backus,  W.  F.,  308. 


Bacon,  Chloe,  80. 

Bacon,  Daniel,  134. 

Bacon,  John,  175,  198,  298. 

Bacon,  Ezekiel,  175,  298,  323. 

Bailey,  A.  S.,  356. 

Baker  Bridge,  128. 

Baker,  Elisha,  78,  83,  128. 

Baldwin,  Joel,  143. 

Ballard,  Addison,  524,  527. 

Ballard,  H.  H.,  518. 

Bancroft,  George,  22,  330. 

Bangor,  Maine,  362. 

Bank,  National,  799. 

Bannister,  Ridley,  473. 

Bard  well,  Mehitable,  356. 

Bard  well,  Obadiah,  44. 

Barker,  J.  M.,  745,  751. 

Bartlett,  Homer,  534. 

Bartlett,  William,  419. 

Bascom,  John,  368,   511,   559,   597,  601, 

650,  655,  678,  708,  713,  765,  800. 
Batten  Kill,  21,  22,  96,  109. 
Battle,  Lake  George,  15. 
Battle  of  Bennington,  114  et  seq. 
Baum,  Colonel,  18,  61,  116. 
Bay  Path,  50,  371. 
Beadle,  1. 

Beecher,  H.  W.,  354. 
Beecher,  Lyman,  354. 
Bee  Hill,  134,  333,  440. 
Beers,  Isaac,  237. 
Belcher,  Governor,  5. 
Belding,  Noah,  152. 
Bell,  Governor,  392. 
Bennington,  12,  15,  109,  391. 
Benton's  debates,  702. 
Berkshire,  2,  9. 
Berkshire  American,  172. 
Betts,  S.  R.,  552. 
Bid  well,  Barnabas,  324. 
Biography,  Preface. 
Bishop,  H.  W.,  290,  381,  707. 
Bixby  family,  535. 


839 


840 


INDEX. 


Black  David,  63,  130. 

Blair,  Absalom,  138,  231. 

Blair,  Ezekiel,  36,  143. 

Board  man,  William,  173. 

Bondsmen  of  Skinner,  312. 

Bosworth,  W.  G.,  141. 

Braddock,  General,  54. 

Brainerd,  David,  631. 

Breckinridge,  C.  R.,  696. 

Breimanns,  Colonel,  125. 

Brewer,  Colonel,  102. 

Brewer,  Judge,  451. 

Brickyard,  192. 

Bridges,  B.  F.,  29. 

Briggs,  Governor,  369,  372. 

Britain,  22. 

Broad  Brook,  100. 

Brougham,  Lord,  792. 

Brown,  Captain,  113. 

Brown,  Harry,  281. 

Brown,  John,  24. 

Brown,  Samuel,  Jr.,  97. 

Brown,  T.  M.,  666. 

Bruce,  Wallace,  124. 

Brush,  Colonel,  121. 

Bryant,  Arthur,  339. 

Bryant's  Lyric,  341. 

Bryant,  W.  C.,  196,  236,  334,  461,  705, 

765. 

Bryant's  commemoration  poem,  348. 
Bulkley  Farm,  130. 
Bulkley,  J.  R.,  35,  295. 
Bunhill  Fields,  17. 
Bunker  Hill,  40. 
Bunyan,  John,  17. 

Burbank,  Asa,  246,  281,  411,  544,  741. 
Burgess,  Ebenezer,  366. 
Burgoyne,  General,  14,  20,  96. 
Burning  of  East  College,  267. 
Bushnell,  Jedediah,  352. 
Butler,  J.  D.,  19,  33. 
Buttons  in  Easthampton,  707. 


C. 


Calhoun,  S.  H.,  565. 

Canaan,  Conn.,  10. 

Canfield,  J.  H.,  835. 

Canning,  E.  W.  B.,  379. 

Canning,  J.  W.,  379. 

Carleton,  General,  104. 

Carlisle,  J.  G.,  697. 

Carter,  Franklin,  44,  468,  629,  633,  647, 

709,  713. 

Cartright,  Richard,  152. 
Castleton,  30. 
Catamount  Tavern,  110. 
Catskill,  767. 


Census,  273. 

Census  of  the  town,  763. 

Centennial,  832. 

Century  Dictionary,  799. 

Ceylon,  362. 

Chadbourne's  inauguration,  656. 

Chadbourne,   P.   A.,  44,  624,  652,    656, 

709. 

Chadbourne  tomb,  369. 
Chad  wick,  J.  W.,  555. 
Champlain,  Lake,  22. 
Chapin,  Elisha,  11. 
Chapin,  Oliver,  308. 
Charlemont,  28. 
Charlestown,  N.H.,  18. 
Charter  of  College,  214. 
Charter  of  Free  School,  154. 
Chatham,  766. 
Chaudiere,  38,  59. 
Chicago  Tribune,  140. 
Chidester,  98. 
Childs,  H.  H.,  539,  552. 
Chip  Day,  268. 
Cm  Psi,  187,  833. 
Chittenden,  Governor,  144. 
Cider-brandy  stills,  129. 
Civil  code,  787. 
Clark,  Alonzo,  44. 
Clark,  Billy  J.,  201. 
Clarke,  Professor,  758. 
Clarke,  Samuel,  71,  111. 
Clarke,  S.  F.,  831. 
Clark  Hall,  262,  673,  733. 
Clay,  Henry,  168,  475. 
Cleveland  Petition,  699. 
Cleveland,  President,  697. 
Cobden  and  Bright,  705. 
Cobden  Club,  704. 
Cochran,  Robert,  17. 
Code  Napoleon,  787. 
Co-education,  677. 
Coffin,  James  H.,  528. 
Cogswell,  Rev.  Dr.,  209. 
Cogswell,  Samuel,  209. 
Colby,  Professor,  690. 
Colchester,  12. 
Cold  Spring,  194. 
Cole  Avenue,  520. 
Cole,  C.  S.,  805. 
Cole,  Mrs.  Henrietta,  446. 
Colerain,  389. 
Colleagues,  Bodies  of,  304. 
College  Bell,  198. 
College  building,  673. 
College  Catalogue,  237. 
College  Cemetery,  369. 
College  Centennial,  752. 
College  Chapel,  749. 
College  Church,  432. 


INDEX. 


841 


College  discipline,  397,  619. 

College  Library,  762. 

College  rebellions,  305. 

College  revivals,  427. 

College  Spring,  188. 

College  Temperance  Society,  485. 

Collins,  Daniel,  78,  148,  167. 

Colonization  Society,  354,  366. 

Colt,  Judge,  707,711. 

Columbian  Sentinel,  315. 

Commencement,  223. 

Commencement  Ball,  470. 

Comstock,  Samuel,  481. 

Concord,  8. 

Conditions  of  success,  635. 

Congregational  ministers,  325. 

Consumption  Hill,  183,  458. 

Continental  Bills,  185. 

Converse,  Walter,  68. 

Cooke,  Parsons,  296,  410. 

Coos  Country,  140. 

Corbens,  12,  55,  141. 

Corbin,  Asa,  275. 

Court,  Supreme,  184. 

Cox,  Betty  Hubbell,  257,  264. 

Cox,  Thomas,  257,  263. 

Crandall  and  Curtis,  526. 

Cravath,  695. 

Crawford,  John,  11. 

Crown  Point,  11,  22. 

Curtis,  Allen,  9. 

Curtis,  G.  W.,  342. 

Curtis,  H.  B.,  263. 

Curtis,  Jared,  540. 


D. 


Daggett,  President,  206. 

Dalton,  165. 

Danforth,  J  N.,  552. 

Danforth,  Keyes,  279,  474,  481,  521,  684, 

750. 

Dartmouth  College  case,  317,  405. 
Daughters  of  Griffin,  421,  448. 
Davis,  Emerson,  395,  411. 
Davis,  Henry,  223. 
Davison,  C.  A.,  746. 
Dawes,  H.  L.,  689. 
Day  House,  297. 
Dean,  Josiah,  10. 
Dearborn,  General,  281. 
Dedham,  367. 
Deerfield  River,  7. 
Defalcation  of  Skinner,  315. 
Delaplace,  Captain,  31. 
DELTA  Psi,  833. 
Democratic  Party,  205. 
Democrats,  245,  355. 


Denison,  John  H.,  761. 

Dewey,  C.  A.,  189,  255,  331,  403. 

Dewey,  Captain,  121. 

Dewey,  D.  N.,  619. 

Dewey,  Professor,  129,  308,  346,  375,  459, 

690. 

Dickenson,  T.  W.,  27. 
Dickinson,  Deacon,  63. 
Dickinson,  J.  W.,  744. 
Dike,  S.  W.,  755. 
Dimmock,  Professor,  649,  657. 
Dinners  of  Alumni,  671. 
Disciples,  Sect  of,  819. 
Doctor's  Brook,  89. 
Doctrine  of  Perfection,  487. 
Dodd,  Professor,  628. 
Doddridge  System,  220. 
Douglas,  Asa,  41,  46,  257. 
Douglas,  S.  A.,  113,  140. 
Dunbar,  Tutor,  223. 
Duncan,  Dr.,  244. 
Dunning,  Michael,  71. 
Dunning,  Josiah,  59. 
Durfee,  Calvin,  219,  237,  346,  837. 
Dutch  settlements,  12. 
Dwight,  Henry  W.,493,  500. 
Dwight,  John,  55,  795. 
Dwight,  Timothy,  207,  278,  631,  796. 
Dwight's  "  Travels,"  331. 


E. 


East  College,  260,  522. 

East  Hoosac,  93. 

Easton,  Colonel,  28,  33. 

Eaton,  A.,  286,  302,  517,  765. 

Eaton,  Major,  294. 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  169,  218,  416,  418. 

Eldridge,  Griffin,  42. 

Eldridge,  Hamilton,  614. 

Election  of  Mark  Hopkins,  498. 

Eliot,  John,  48. 

Elocution,  614. 

Ely,  Geo.  H.,  697. 

Ely  Petition,  698. 

Emmons,  Ebenezer,  281,  396. 

Emmons,  Nathanael,  419. 

Enos,  Colonel,  41,  62. 

Equality  under  the  Law,  440. 

Ethics,  607. 

Ethics  of  Mark  Hopkins,  513. 

Evarts,  Lawyer,  589. 


F. 

Faculty  Meeting,  731. 
Faxon,  Thomas,  443. 


842 


INDEX. 


Federalists,  228,  276,  355. 

Federal  Party,  161. 

Fernald,  Professor,  433,  665,  716,  831. 

Field  brothers,  451. 

Field,  David  Dudley,  99,  451,  705,  765. 

Field,  Henry  M.,  171,  177. 

Field,  S.  J.,  780. 

Finney,  Rev.,  421. 

First  Commencement,  233. 

Fish  Creek,  96. 

Fitchburg  R.  R.,  27. 

Fitch,  Charles,  209,  383. 

Fitch,  Ebenezer,  13,  45,  52,  137,  151,  204, 

228,  311,  376. 
Fitch,  James,  51. 
Fort  Dummer,  20. 
Fort  Massachusetts,  7,  8,  15,  170. 
Fort  Pelham,  733. 
Fort  Shirley,  152,  733. 
Fort  William  Henry,  55. 
Foster,  Ezekiel,  10. 
Fraternities,  College,  832. 
Freemasonry,  71,  280. 
Free  School,  14,  153,  193. 
Free  Trade,  23,  415,  702,  777. 
Free  Trade  League,  827. 
French  King,  723. 
French  Revolution,  230. 
French  War,  8,  10,  11,  15. 


G. 

Gale,  John  B.,  799. 
Gardner,  Caleb,  294. 
Garfield's  campaign,  685. 
Gar  field,  J.  A.,  661,  765,  823. 
Garrison,  W.  L.,  483. 
Gates,  General,  95,  101,  111. 
Gemote,  1. 
General  Court,  2,  3. 
Geology,  291. 
Georgia  lands,  317. 
German  tribes,  1. 
Giddings,  F.  H.,  701. 
Giles,  Jonathan,  129. 
Gilson,  C.  F.,  625,  830. 
Gladden,  Washington,  836. 
God's  acre,  11. 
Godwin,  Parke,  773. 
Goodrich  Hall,  673. 
Goodrich,  J.  C.,  564. 
Gore,  71,  175. 
Gore,  The,  481. 
Grace  Court,  264. 
Grant,  General,  636,  824. 
Grants,  N.H.,  17. 
Gravel  Day,  344. 
Graves,  Ebenezer,  10. 


Gray,  Lydia,  327. 

Green,  Bryam,  351,  361. 

Green,  Henry,  65. 

Green  Mountains,  22. 

Greylock,  794. 

Gridley,  R.  W.,  430. 

Griffin,  his  resignation,  436;  his  death, 
437;  his  sermons,  438;  his  peculiari- 
ties', 446. 

Griffin,  E.  H.,  611,  665,  712,  717,  722,  808. 

Griffin  Hall,  197,  262,  456. 

Griffin,  N.  H.,  516,  585. 

Griffin,  President,  310,  412. 

Grist-mill  at  North  Hoosac,  117. 


H. 

Haliburton,  Judge,  569. 
Halifax,  566. 
Hall,  Ambrose,  42. 
Hall,  C.  C.,  835. 
Hall,  Governor,  26,  120, 133. 
Hall,  G.  S.,  738,  836. 
Hallock  brothers,  531. 
Hallock,  Moses,  375. 
Hallock,  William,  338. 
Hamilton,  Alexander,  277. 
Hancock,  46. 
Hancock,  John,  58. 
Handy,  Parker,  45. 
Hanover,  N.H.,  392. 
Hardwick,  14,  16. 
Harris,  Israel,  33,  105,  138. 
Harrison,  Clement,  171. 
Harvard  College,  405. 
Harvey,  William,  428. 
Harwoods,  14,  251. 
Hawkins,  Robert,  79,  86. 
Hayes,  O.  B.,  748. 
Haynes,  J.  H.,  733. 
Haystack,  The,  359,  369. 
Hebrew  Language,  715. 
Hegel,  738. 

Hemlock  Brook,  9,  11. 
Henderson,  John,  136. 
Herkimer,  General,  107. 
Herrick,  Colonel,  121. 
Hervey,  William,  428. 
Hessian  soldiers,  135. 
Hewitt,  J.  H.,  831. 
Hickcox,  Stephen,  134. 
Hickok,  L.  P.,  805. 
Hicks,  Frederick,  577. 
Hinsdale,  B.  A.,  826. 
Historic  Sense,  730. 
History,  Defined.     Preface. 
Hoar,  Senator,  704. 
Hoisington,  H.  R.,  298. 


INDEX. 


843 


Home  Market,  475. 

Homesteads,  274. 

Hoosac,  5. 

Hoosac  Junction,  16. 

Hoosac  Mountain,  12. 

Hoosac  Tunnel,  444. 

Hopkins,  Albert,  360,  368,  453,  466,  555. 

Hopkins,  Colonel  A.,  257. 

Hopkins,  Edward  Payson,  492. 

Hopkins  Hall,  231. 

Hopkins,  Henry,  368. 

Hopkinsian  System,  219. 

Hopkins,  Mark,  99,  465,  471,  541,  598, 

644,  765,  779. 

Hopkins,  Mark,  Colonel,  94,  104. 
Hopkins,  Mary  Curtis,  447. 
Hopkins  Observatory,  523. 
Hopkins,  Samuel,  167,  219. 
Hosford,  Stephen,  404,  443. 
Housatonic  River,  3, 
House  Tax,  National,  226,  270. 
Hovey,  Professor,  479. 
Howe,  Fisher,  233. 
Howe,  Sampson,  54. 
Hoxsey  and  Hickcock  families,  440. 
Hubbel,  C.  L.,  283. 
Hubbell,  Jedediah,  113,  264. 
Hubbell,  Lyman,  62,  481. 
Hudson,  Seth,  9. 
Hunn,  John,  60. 
Hyde,  Alvan,  410. 
Hyde,  William,  494,  708. 


I. 

Indian  towns,  4. 
Ingalls,  F.  T.,  637. 
Ingalls,  J.  J.,  637. 
Innoculation,  103. 
Ives,  Professor,  768. 


J. 

Jackson,  Abraham,  151. 
Jefferson,  161,  229,  269,  475. 
Jenkins,  Charles,  340. 
Jennings,  Reverend,  503. 
Jerome,  Eugene,  11,  750. 
Jerome,  Leonard,  42. 
Jogues,  Father,  117. 
Johnson,  Harry,  131. 
Johnson  Hill,  11. 
Johnson,  W.  E.,  72. 
Johnson,  W.  S.,  16. 
Jones,  B.  W.,  676. 
Jones,  Israel,  168. 
Jones,  of  Adams,  400. 


Josh  Billings,  168. 

Judson,  Adoniram,  364,  368. 


K. 


Kant,  739. 

Kappa  Alpha  Society,  610,  745. 

Kellogg,  Charles,  185. 

Kellogg,  Daniel,  201. 

Kellogg,  Ebenezer,  163,  179,  377,  423. 

Kellogg,  Giles  B.,  231. 

Kellogg  Hall,  262,  426. 

Kellogg,  Samuel,  77. 

Kelloggs,  12. 

Kent,  James,  400. 

Kidder  Pass,  67. 

Kilburn,  Marcia,  90. 

Killingly,  12. 

Kimball,  Richard,  19. 

King  in  Council,  16. 

Kiugsley,  Professor,  224. 


L. 


La  Fayette,  41,  792. 

Lake  George,  15,  23. 

Lanesboro,  74. 

Larned,  Sylvester,  o47. 

Lasell  Gymnasium,  728. 

Lawrence  Library,  762. 

Leake,  Frederic,  443,  721,  799. 

Leet  Hill,  174. 

Leet,  Jared,  174. 

Lefavour,  Professor,  758,  830. 

Lexington,  40. 

Lincoln  and  Phillips,  623. 

Lincoln,  General,  110,  134. 

Lincoln,  Professor,  574. 

Lincoln's  "Worcester,"  17. 

Linsley,  Tutor,  223. 

Little  Hoosac,  65. 

Little,  Woodbridge,  166. 

Livingston,  Edward,  787. 

Loomis,  Harvey,  363. 

Lottery  for  Free  School,  157,  189. 

Loup,  Hopkins  &  Co.,  684. 

Lowell,  John,  590. 

Lowell  Lectures,  592. 

Lyon,  Mary,  771. 


M. 

McCosh,  600. 
McCulloch,  Hugh,  696. 
Mackay,  Professor,  224. 
Mackenzie,  R.  S.,  636. 


844 


INDEX. 


McMahon,  Thomas,  256. 
MacMaster,  67. 
Magee,  Irving,  752. 
Man  "  Friday,"  720. 
Manning,  Daniel,  697. 
Mansion  House,  186,  260. 
"  Manual  of  Botany,"  290. 
March  climate,  343. 
Marcus  Morton,  538,  540. 
Marcy,  Governor,  615,  692. 
Marshall,  C.  H.,  827. 
Marshall,  Chief  Justice,  213 
Marsh,  Charles,  572. 
Marsh,  Dr.  Perez,  165. 
Marsh,  D.  W.,  435. 
Marvin,  J.  R.,  593. 
Mason,  John,  51. 
Mather,  B.  F.,  568. 
Mather,  Elias,  258. 
Mayunsook,  5. 
Meacham,  James,  84. 
Meacham,  Jonathan,  10,  188. 
Meack,  Jacob,  72,  78,  89. 
Meadow  lots,  11. 
Mears,  Professor,  757,  831. 
Meeting-house,  Old,  240. 
Mercer,  General,  383. 
Merriman,  Daniel,  710. 
Merriman,  W.  E.,  746. 
Metaphysics  and  Ethics,  679. 
Mills,  Drake,  301. 
Mills,  E.  H.,  247. 
Mill's  "  Logic,"  468,  611,  692. 
Mills,  Samuel,  66. 
Mills,  Sedgwick,  67. 
Mills,  S.  J.,  352,  543. 
Mineralogy,  768. 
Missionary  College,  351. 
Missionary  Park,  368. 
Modes  of  discipline,  509. 
Modes  of  teaching,  505. 
Mohawk,  The,  107. 
Mohawk  trail,  7,  27. 
Mole,  Thomas,  561. 
Montcalm,  General,  11. 
Monument  Mountain,  4. 
Moore,  Judah,  389. 
Moore,  President,  254,  386. 
Moore,  Z.  S.  M.,  391. 
Morgan,  B.  F.,  87. 
Morgan,  Colonel,  41. 
Morgan,  Governor,  727,  756. 
Morgan  Hall,  263,  755. 
Morgan,  H.  H.,  807. 
Morgan,  John,  472,  780. 
Morris,  Founder,  347. 
Morse,  Joseph,  35. 
Mount  Defiance,  107. 
Mount  Fitch,  401. 


Mount  Moore,  401. 
Mum  Bet,  159. 
Murray,  Nicholas,  527,  618. 
Muster-rolls,  39,  126  et  seq. 
Mygatt,  L.  C.,  754. 
Mystery,  548. 


N. 

Nash,  Lieutenant,  113. 

Natural  sciences,  287. 

Navigation  Act,  22. 

Nelson,  John,  326,  358. 

Newark,  420. 

New  England  Puritans,  296. 

New  France,  11. 

New  Hampshire,  16. 

New  Hampshire  Grants,  25,  28. 

Nicaragua,  577. 

No.  4  — ,  18. 

Noble,  Daniel,  384,  405,  439. 

Noble,  David,  77,  143,  173,  253. 

Noble,  J.  H,,  33. 

Noble,  Juliette,  255. 

Noble,  Mason,  252,  485. 

Noon  Prayer  Meeting,  488,  557. 

Norris,  Mary,  1365. 

Northam,  Sarah,  134. 

North  Carolina,  476. 

Northrup,  G.  W.,  572. 

Nott,  President,  280. 

Nott,  Samuel,  365. 

Noyes,  Professor,  695. 


O. 

Oberlin,  601. 

Ode,  Anti-slavery,  484. 

"Old  lime-kiln,"  183. 

Old  measures,  431. 

Olds,  F.  W.,  344. 

Olds,  Professor,  307,  374. 

"OldTi,"46,  105. 

Origins  in  Williamstown,  481. 

Orton,  Azariah,  347. 

Orton,  Professor,  347. 

Otter  Creek,  21. 

Owl  Kill,  109. 


P. 

Packard  of  Shelbourne,  399. 
Packard,  Theophilus,  384. 
Page,  Dr.,  101. 
Paley,  514,  595. 
Parker,  Linus,  115. 


INDEX. 


845 


Park  Street  Church,  420. 

Parsons,  E.  B.,  759. 

Partridge,  Dr.,  120. 

Patterson,  Colonel,  41. 

Peaks,  Mountain,  765. 

Peel,  Sir  Robert,  704. 

Pelham,  388. 

Perry,  A.  L.,  491,  595,  612,  682,  691,  710, 

807. 

Perry,  Bliss,  130. 
Perry,  George  B.,  357. 
Perry's  Elm,  8. 
Pest-house,  100. 
Peterborough,  393. 
Peters,  Rev.  Dr.,  180. 
Petition  for  College  Charter,  210. 
Plister,  Francis,  119. 
Phelps,  E  J.,  19. 
Phillips,  Professor,  559,  581. 
Philologian  Society,  266. 
Philosophy,  679,  809. 
Philotechnian  Society,  266. 
Pilgrims  of  Plymouth,  2. 
Pine  lots,  100. 
Pittsfield  Gymnasium,  330. 
Pittsfield  Sun,  294. 
P.  K.,  422,  516. 
Political  Economy,  816. 
Politics,  778. 
Pomfret,  48. 
Port  Byron,  202. 
Porter,  Dr.,  66,  98,  280,  282. 
Porter,  Professor,  463. 
Post,  Evening,  775. 
Post-office,  204. 
Potter,  General,  131. 
Pownal,  59. 
Pratt,  Bill,  265. 
Pratt,  Llewellyn,  686,  710,  711. 
Pratt,  William,  139. 
Priest  Potter,  21. 
Prime,  Rev  Dr.,  707. 
Princeton  College,  176,  416. 
Prindle,  Lieutenant,  113. 
Procter,  H.  T.,  192,  298. 
Propriety,  9. 
Proprietors'  Book,  10. 
Protectionism,  22,  277. 
Protestants,  220. 
Public  Debate,  595. 
Puritans  of  the  Bay,  2. 
Puritan  Recorder,  426. 
Putnam,  Israel,  Preface. 
Putnam,  Schuyler,  333. 
Putney,  W.  B.,  754. 

Q. 

Quack  at  Williamstown,  103. 
Quakers,  171. 


Qualities  of  Fitch,  238. 
Quebec,  12,  58,  177. 
Quincy,  Josiah,  406. 

R. 

Raymond,  G.  L.,  831. 

Rebellion  of  1868,  642. 

Reeve,  1. 

Rehoboth,  46. 

Removal  of  the  College,  385. 

Remsen,  Ira,  667. 

Republicans,  276. 

Rice,  Harvey,  468. 

Rice,  Professor,  719,  831. 

Richards,  James,  362. 

Rich,  Elijah,  67. 

Rich,  Moses,  67. 

Robbins,  J.  W.,  326. 

Robbins,  Thomas,  225,  235,  549. 

Robinsons,  14. 

Robinson,  Captain,  16. 

Rockwell,  Colonel,  685. 

Rogers,  Robert,  20. 

Root,  Charity,  265. 

Rosecrans,  General,  824. 

Rossiter,  Nathan,  42. 

Roxbury,  48. 

Rudd,  Joseph,  133. 

Russell,  John  E.,  327. 

Rutland,  20. 


S. 

Sabin,  H.  L.,  38,  65. 

Sabin,  John,  53,  75. 

Sabins,  51. 

Sabin,  Zebediah,  Preface,  42,  47. 

Safford,  J.  H.,  174. 

Safford,  T.  H.,  736,  762,  803,  831. 

Sage,  Orrin,  708. 

St.  Croix,  114,  117. 

Salisbury,  Professor,  798. 

Sanderson,  S.  W.,  510. 

Sands,  Mahlon,  827. 

Sand  Springs,  344. 

Saratoga  River,  96. 

Schuyler,  General,  18,  94,  212. 

Schuylerville,  139. 

Scotch-Irish,  17,  37,  387,  389. 

Scribners,  694. 

Scudder,  H.  E.,  470,  747. 

Scudder,  Samuel,  581,  747. 

Seal,  Free  School,  14,  204. 

Searle,  Isaac,  183. 

Second  Meeting-house,  258. 

Sedgwick,  775 

Sedgwick,  General,  337,  338,  350. 

Sedgwicks,  786. 


846 


INDEX. 


Sedgwick,  Theodore,  72,  157,  347. 

Seelye,  Ephraim,  100. 

Seelye,  J.  H.,  805. 

Selling  of  wood,  345. 

Semi-centennial,  535,  547. 

Senior  recitation-room,  799. 

Sergeant,  Erastus,  97. 

Sergeant,  John,  4. 

Seward,  Governor,  292,  769. 

Seymour  sisters,  530. 

Shattuck,  Amasa,  89. 

Shaw,  Henry,  168. 

Shay's  Rebellion,  92,  277. 

Sheffield,  3. 

Sheldon,  Noah,  264. 

Sheldon,  Remembrance,  279. 

Shepherd,  Samuel,  384,  422,  454. 

Sheridan,  General,  (536. 

Sheriffs  of  Berkshire,  301. 

Sherman  family,  244. 

Sherman,  John,  829. 

Sherman,  W.  B.,  242. 

Shute,  Governor,  17. 

Sierra  Leone,  366. 

Sigma  Phi  Society,  744. 

Silliman,  Professor,  288,  328,  690,  767. 

Simonds,  Benjamin,  73,  95,  186,  190. 

Simonds  family,  357. 

Simonds,  Joseph,  75. 

Skaneateles,  201. 

Skinner,  Alice,  250. 

Skinner,  Benjamin,  371,  374. 

Skinner,  Mehitable,  61,  373. 

Skinner,  Rachel,  371. 

Skinner,  Rev.  Thomas,  162. 

Skinner's  Meadow,  252. 

Skinner,  T.  J.,  72,  82,  104,  138,  161,  249, 

312. 

Slick,  Sam,  570. 
Sloan,  D.  W.,  44. 

Sloan,  General  Samuel,  41,  42,  123,  343. 
Sloan  Road,  42. 
Slope  Hawks,  82. 
Smedley,  Deacon  James,   131. 
Smedley,  Lucy  B.,  264,  443. 
Smedley,  Nehemiah,  Preface,  15,  27. 
Smith,  Dr.  Samuel,  279. 
Smith,  L.  A.,  435. 
Smith,  Lorin,  73. 
Smith,  Nathan,  38. 
Society  of  Alumni,  246,  304,  411,  740. 
Society  of  Brethren,  364. 
Socratic  methods,  605. 
Soldiers'  Monument,  263. 
Sprague,  Rev.  Dr.,  428. 
Springfield  Republican,  700,  707. 
Spring,  Gardner,  357. 
Spring,  L.  W.,  Preface. 
Spring,  Professor,  235,  512. 


Spy-system, '723. 
Square,  The,  8. 
Stafford,  Joab,  57,  114. 
Stamp  Act,  22. 
Stark,  John,  18,  105,  389. 
Starkweather,  Augustus,  296. 
Starkweather,  William,  295. 
Stewart,  Dugald,  606. 
Stirling,  J.  H.,  739. 
Stockbridge,  West,  4. 
Stoddard,  Colonel,  4. 
Stoddard,  Colonel  John,  734. 
Stone  Hill,  64. 
Story,  Judge,  299. 
Stratton,  Ebenezer,  150. 
Stratton,  Isaac,  90, 123. 
Stratton 's  House,  91. 
Stuart,  Lemuel,  36,  187,  255. 
Student  body  as  such,  499. 
Student-soldiers  monument,  6">H. 
Subscription  for  new  church,  '241. 
Sullivan,  John,  64. 
Sumner,  Charles,  790. 
Sumner,  Professor,  706. 
Sutton,  Burrall,  300. 
Swell-body  hack,  399. 
Swift,  Rev.  Seth,  148, 177. 

T. 

Table  of  trustees,  181. 

Taconic  Passes,  282. 

Taconic  system,  519. 

Talcott,  Samuel  A.,  370. 

Tariffs  and  Taxes,  694. 

Tariff-taxes,  478. 

Tatlock,  John,  449,  585. 

Tatlock,  William,  561. 

Taxation,  23. 

Taylor,  Samuel,  738. 

Temperance  Society,  203. 

Tenny,  Sanborn,  627,  669,  831. 

Terry,  General,  146. 

Thacher,  John  B.,  697. 

The  town,  2. 

Thomas,  Dwight,  88. 

Thomas,  E.  M.,  227. 

Thomas,  General,  824. 

Thompson,  Colonel,  391. 

Thompson  laboratories,  263,  459,  756. 

Thompson,  Robert,  53. 

Thompson,  F.  F.,  756. 

Tibbett's  Place,  119. 

Ticonderoga,  11,  31. 

Tilden,  Governor,  791. 

Todd,  Rev.  John,  663. 

Todd,  Rev.  Samuel,  171. 

Tories,  75. 

Torrey,  Asenath,  68. 


INDEX. 


847 


Torrey,  Justin,  283. 

Tory  breastwork,  116. 

Toussaint,  Louis,  442. 

Towner,  General  and  Doctor,  43. 

Towner,  Sophia,  281. 

Train,  Thomas,  10. 

"Trees  Grant,"  71. 

Troy  and  Boston  Railroad,  294. 

Trumbull,  J.  H.,  148. 

Tyler,  Professor,  392,  402. 

U. 

University  of  Cambridge,  210. 
University  of  Rochester,  463. 
University  of  Wisconsin,  675. 

V. 

Van  Rensselaer,  772. 
Van  Schaack,  222. 
Vermont,  14,  110. 
Vernon,  12. 
Von  Jagemann,  449. 

W. 

"Wadhams,  Jonathan,  751. 

Walden  Spring,  194. 

Walker,  R.  J.,  704. 

Walker,  William,  401. 

Walloomsac,  12. 

Warner,  Seth,  19,  25. 

Warren,  Jabez,  10. 

Warren,  Joseph,  24,  58. 

Washburn,  Emory,  553. 

Washburn,  Governor,  290. 

Washington,  General,  38. 

Watts,  Isaac,  17. 

Wayland's  "  Moral  Science,"  515. 

Webb,  Derick,  146. 

Webster,  Captain,  120. 

Webster,  Daniel,  212. 

Webster,  Noah,  408. 

Welch,  Whitman,  13,  430. 

Welch,  William,  57. 

Wells,  David  A.,  425,  691,  705,  827. 

Wells,  John,  502. 

Wentworth,  Governor,  15. 

West  College,  183. 

Western  Star,  294. 

Westfield,  4. 

West  Hoosac,  7,  12. 

West  Hoosac  Fort,  8,  11. 

West,  Stephen,  218. 

Wheeler,  Deacon,  150. 

Wheelock,  Eleazar,  653. 

Whig  Party,  440. 


White  David,  63,  130,  178. 

Whitehall,  22. 

White,  Horace,  140. 

White,  James,  707,  746,  750. 

White,  Joseph,  28,  255,  423,  622,  707,  711, 

750. 

White  River  Junction,  19. 
Whitfield,  George,  17. 
Whitman,  Dr.  Timothy,  447. 
Whitman,  Mrs.  Lucy,  525. 
Whitmans,  12,  368,  446. 
Whitney,  M.  B.,  745. 
Whitney,  W.  D.,  765,  796. 
Willett,  Colonel,  107. 
Williams,  Abagail,  97. 
Williams,  Dr.  Thomas,  98. 
Williams,  Elijah,  218. 
Williams,  Elisha,  200. 
Williams,  Ephraim,  5. 
Williams,  Founder,  Preface,  8,  13, 152. 
Williams,  Judah,  147,  173. 
Williamstown  Academy,  474. 
Williams  versus  Amherst,  409. 
Williams,  William,  9,  164. 
Will  of  President  Moore,  415. 
Will  of  the  Founder,  153. 
Window  of  Griffin  Hall,  459. 
Wing,  A.  E.,  373. 
Winthrop,  Governor,  49. 
Wirt,  William,  212. 
Witenagemote,  2. 
Wolfe,  General,  11,  54. 
Woodbridge,  J.  E.,  296. 
Woodbridge,  John,  381,  411,  740. 
Woodbridge,  Joseph,  4. 
Woodbridge,  L.  D.,  443,  689,  830. 
Woodbridge,  Timothy,  4. 
Woodcock's  Corner,  85. 
Woodcock,  Nehemiah,  78,  85. 
Wood  for  fuel,  268. 
Woods,  John,  166. 
Woods,  Leonard,  386. 
Woodward,  Jonathan,  141. 
Woolsey,  President,  695. 
Worcester,  388. 
Wordsworth,  554, 602. 
Wright,  Charles,  170. 
Wyman,  Isaac,  10,  98. 

Y. 

Yale  College,  13,  41,  631. 
Yankee  speculation,  14. 
Young,  Erastus,  44. 
Young,  William,  68,  321. 
Youngs,  37,  69. 

Z. 

Zelie  and  Perry,  265. 


°> 


RETURN     CIRCULATION  DEPARTMENT 

TO—  ^      202  Main  Library 

LOAN  PERIOD  1 
HOME  USE 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

ALL  BOOKS  MAY  BE  RECALLED  AFTER  7  DAYS 

1  -month  loans  may  be  renewed  by  calling  642-3405 

6-month  loans  may  be  recharged  by  bringing  books  to  Circulation  Desk 

Renewals  and  recharges  may  be  made  4  days  prior  to  due  date 

DUE  AS  STAMPED  BELOW 


MAR  2  b 


KTD     MAR 


1982 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  BERKELEY 
FORM  NO.  DD6,  60m,  12/80        BERKELEY,  CA  94720 


YD  06394 


86 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CAIylFORNIA  LIBRARY 


' 


jk 


*#'•**  •  -; 
k^:^L*  •?.*-' 


• 


• ' jj*  • ' 


"  '    .    !     • 


